BUSH PICKS CONSERVATIVE BLACK TO FILL MARSHALL'S SHOES ON COURT
But Thomas, who has risen in Republican ranks as an advocate of bootstrap conservatism, would present a striking change from Marshall, a civil-rights pioneer and an anchor of the court's declining liberal faction.;    Thomas, barely half the age of the man whose seat he was named to fill, came of age in the world that Marshall helped create.;    Now the question is to what extent Thomas would add weight to the court's new majority that appears willing to dismantle important parts of the legacy that Marshall helped to build.; While not much is known about Thomas' views on most issues likely to come before the court, he has made clear his opposition to affirmative action and to policies that can be viewed as incorporating quotas or racial preferences.; Opposes affirmative action;  In his year as a federal appeals court judge, he has not ruled on affirmative action, but he has long been outspoken in taking the position that government affirmative-action programs are not only unwise but unconstitutional.;    However, in other respects, this nomination is very much a wild card both for conservatives who jumped instantly to embrace it and for liberals whose responses ranged from cautious to hostile.; His views on other major issues before the court, including abortion, church-state relations and the definition of constitutional due process, are unknown. Those views may well remain unknown through a confirmation process that may be contentious but that in the end is not likely to derail the nomination.;    Studied for priesthood;  Thomas attended Roman Catholic schools through college and studied for the priesthood. Although the Catholic Church vigorously opposes abortion, Thomas has apparently never taken a public position on abortion or on the dimensions of the constitutional right to privacy, on which the right to abortion was based.;    His position on affirmative action is probably sufficient to shift the court's direction since the court remains closely divided.;    "My opposition to preferences and quotas not only is a constitutional, legal opposition, it has been a moral, ethical opposition," he said five years ago at a conference sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.;    In its most recent affirmative-action decision, a year ago, the court split 5-4 in upholding a Federal Communications Commission policy that gives preference to blacks and members of other minorities in acquiring some radio and television licenses.; Justice William Brennan wrote that decision a few weeks before he retired from the court. Marshall joined it. The views of Justice David Souter, Brennan's successor, remain largely unknown.;    Views on big issues unknown; Thomas' views on the other major issues remain unknown, although the 1990 confirmation hearing for his seat on the Court of Appeals was widely viewed on Capitol Hill and in ideological interest groups as a rehearsal for a Supreme Court nomination.;    Some Democratic senators said at the time and again Monday that their votes to confirm him for the appeals court should not be taken as endorsements for the Supreme Court.;    Three years ago, the Senate denied confirmation to Judge Robert Bork despite having voted to confirm him only a few years earlier to the same court on which Thomas now sits.; Leaders of abortion rights groups said Monday that they would press the Senate to deny confirmation to Thomas unless he expresses his support for the Supreme Court's abortion precedents, including continued adherence to Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion.; Abortion faction speaks out;  "The Souter model of silence and evasion that we saw last year is absolutely unacceptable," said Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League.;    Her reference was to Souter's confirmation hearing last September, during which the nominee gracefully but firmly deflected questions on abortion.;    Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, an Ohio Democrat who serves on the Judiciary Committee, endorsed Michelman's position.;    "I'm through reading tea leaves and voting in the dark," he said.;    But the Judiciary Committee includes some of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate as well several combative Republican conservatives. If Thomas maintains his silence, his nomination is unlikely to founder on the abortion issue alone.;    Rights groups cautious;  Civil rights groups took a cautious tone Monday, essentially noting "concerns" and saying they would study the record.;    "We urge the Senate not to rush to judgment," said a statement from a Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, an umbrella group of 185 organizations that took an early and leading role in the defeat of the Bork nomination.;    Introducing his nominee to the country at a televised news conference Monday, Bush drew on the powerful appeal of Thomas' life story as a self-motivated and self-made success.;    "Judge Thomas' life is a model for all Americans," Bush said.;    At his side stood a black man who was 5 years old when Marshall won his Supreme Court argument in Brown vs. the Board of Education and who was a college freshman when Marshall joined the Supreme Court.;    That was a generation ago, when the court was still rewriting the ground rules by which Americans were to live their lives. Well before Bush presented Thomas to the country Monday, it was clear that that chapter in the court's history is largely closed and that a new page was about to be turned. After Monday's nomination, some -- but by no means all -- of the blanks on that page have been filled in.; CLARENCE THOMAS; Born: June 23, 1948, in Pinpoint, Ga.; Education: B.A. from Holy Cross College, 1971; J.D. from Yale Law School, 1974.; Career:; (box) 1974-'77: assistant attorney general, state of Missouri; (box) 1977-'79: attorney, Monsanto Co.; (box) 1979-'81: legislative assistant to Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo.; (box) 1981-'82: assistant secretary for civil rights, Education Department; (box) 1982-'90: chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; (box) 1990-: U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for District of Columbia; Source: Who's Who Among Black Americans; WHAT'S NEXT?; Now that President Bush has nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, the next step is up to the Senate.; (box)The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to begin confirmation hearings in September, after the August recess.; (box)After the committee makes a recommendation, the nomination will be voted on by the full Senate.; (box)If confirmed promptly, Thomas could be on the Supreme Court by the time it begins hearing cases in October.;    Source: Mercury News Wire Services
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