Justice Clarence Thomas won't be fired from George Washington University despite student outrage

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will continue his adjunct professorship at George Washington University despite calls from some students for him to be fired over his role in overturning Roe v Wade.

GWU administrators stood by Thomas in a Tuesday statement, saying they support the "robust exchange of ideas." A student petition previously sought to cancel Thomas's upcoming seminar as well as his employment at the university.

Thomas voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey last week, and also wrote a concurrence calling into question other rights based on substantive due process, such as gay marriage.

"Like all faculty members at our school, Justice Thomas has academic freedom and freedom of expression and inquiry," administrators wrote.

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WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 21: (L-R) Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife and conservative activist Virginia Thomas arrive at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. Clarence Thomas has now served on the Supreme Court for 30 years. He was nominated by former President George H. W.  Bush in 1991 and is the second African-American to serve on the high court, following Justice Thurgood Marshall. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Demonstrators march and gather near the state capitol following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Austin, Texas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is being sued by health care providers over allegedly threatening ot prosecute abortion providers. (AP)

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"The ideas of different faculty members and of various other members of the University community will often and quite naturally conflict. But it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals within or outside the university from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive," they added.

Thomas and the other conservative Supreme Court justices have received a torrent of outrage since Friday's opinion, which restored the right of states to regulate abortion.

Thomas has received an outsized portion of the vitriol, however, with celebrities and politicians targeting him with profane and racially charged attacks.

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"He's been a person of grievance for as long as I've known him," former secretary of state and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told CBS on Tuesday. "Resentment, grievance, anger. And he has signaled in the past to lower courts, to state legislatures, find cases, pass laws, get them up. I may not win the first, the second, or the third time, but we're going to keep at it."