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This is Fresh Air.

I'm Dave Davies, Infra Terry Gross, who's off this week.

US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has decided to retire, giving President Biden the

opportunity to fulfill his promise of naming a black woman to the nation's highest court.

Our guest today, New Yorker Staff writer Jane Mayer, has identified another development

involving the Supreme Court that some legal scholars believe may undermine the integrity

of the institution.

Her latest article is about the conservative activism and influence of Jenny Thomas,

wife of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Mayer reports that Jenny Thomas holds extreme right-wing views.

She's been supportive of Donald Trump's baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen,

and she said that the country faces existential danger from the deep state and the fascist

left.

She has an active lobbying firm and has ties to many groups that have an interest in cases

that may come before the court.

One example, on Monday, the court agreed to consider whether race-conscious admissions

programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina are lawful, raising the prospect

that the court's conservative supermajority could roll back affirmative action in higher

education.

Jenny Thomas is on the advisory board of the National Association of Scholars, a conservative

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