photo is from here:
http://www.detnews.com/2004/metro/0405/17/c01-154909.htmThomas: Don't quit on values
Justice tells Ypsilanti law school graduates to forget about 'can't.'
By Maureen Feighan / The Detroit News
YPSILANTI — Roughly 30 years after his own graduation from Yale Law School, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Sunday urged the graduating class of the Ave Maria School of Law to maintain their faith and take “can’t” out of their vocabulary.
The conservative and sometimes controversial justice addressed roughly 900 people at Pease Auditorium in Ypsilanti, giving the 56 graduates and their friends and family members bits of advice he said he wished he would have received when he graduated and was anxious and worried because he couldn’t find a job in his native Georgia: Treat others with respect, maintain faith, be thankful for every day and never give up.
“There will be times when you don’t want to face the day, when it all seems hopeless,” said Thomas, 54, who at one point alluded to his troubled confirmation hearings in 1991. “No matter how hard things get, you must not quit — you must not quit on your faith, your values, your family.”
Ian Northon, a 25-year-old graduate, who plans to start at a law firm in Detroit this summer, said he could relate to Thomas’ comments on persistence. He met his wife, Cindy Northon, at Ave Maria and it took a while before she agreed to date him. They later married and now are expecting their first child.
Northon also took Thomas’ words to heart on treating others with respect and being true to one’s values. He said even in today’s polarized society, “you can’t just turn it off” when people disagree with your views, he said. “You have to be courageous.”
Tom Monaghan, former owner of Domino’s Pizza and founder of the ultraconservative Catholic law school in 1999, called on the school’s second graduating class to be “spiritual warriors.”
“With what you’ve been given here at Ave Maria School of Law, you’re obligated to get off the sidelines,” Monaghan said.