Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has hired a law clerk accused of sending racist text messages, according to The New York Times. The Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University announced that graduate Crystal Clanton, a former Turning Point USA national field director, would work for Thomas during the 2024-2025 term. Clanton was accused in a 2017 New Yorker story of sending a text to fellow Turning Point members that read, “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE,” though she has since said she didn’t remember the messages. Her lack of recollection didn’t prevent further dustups: Because of the alleged texts, a federal appeals court investigated an appellate judge for hiring Clanton in 2022 but found nothing to substantiate claims of alleged racism. In that probe, Clanton got an assist from, the chief judge of Atlanta’s federal appeals court, who hired her, and Thomas himself. “I know Crystal Clanton and I know bigotry,” Thomas wrote at the time, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Bigotry is antithetical to her nature and character.”