By Janis Reid
jreid@onlineathens.com
A shower of local and national media attention will accompany U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' 10 a.m. Saturday commencement address at the University of Georgia School of Law.
David Shipley, dean of the law school, announced four months ago that Thomas, a native Georgian, would give the 2003 commencement address.
Shortly after that announcement, Shipley and the three students who chose Thomas were criticized by UGA law professor Eugene Wilkes and others for choosing a speaker Wilkes said has a ''lamentable record on individual rights issues.''
Late last month, a petition signed by 11 faculty members and 50 students emerged. The petition took issue with the ''process and result'' of Thomas' selection, calling it ''under-inclusive, clandestine and divisive.''
Thomas was first chosen by a group of law students comprised of the third-year president and vice president, and the second-year vice president. The three students then forwarded their choice to Shipley for approval.
Even though a few groups - such as the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and the Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary organizations - have expressed interest in protesting during Thomas' speech Saturday, Wilkes was the only person, as of Thursday afternoon, to have obtained a permit to protest on the UGA campus.
Wilkes will be delivering his own speech at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Tate Center Plaza to discuss Thomas' judicial record.
Heidi Murphy, director of communications for the law school, said the security measures that will be taken for Thomas' appearance will be similar to those taken with last year's high-profile law school commencement speaker, Deputy U.S. Attorney Larry Thompson.
Murphy could not say exactly what security measures would be taken, however, because security for both Thomas and Thompson is handled by their own security staffs.
But Murphy said there would be ''definitely more'' news coverage of Thomas' speech than of last year's address. ''We'll have more media attention than we've had in a long time,'' she said.
According to Murphy, television news outlets with plans to cover Saturday's commencement include ''NBC Nightly News,'' the Fox News cable network, Atlanta's Fox network affiliate, Atlanta's CBS News and C-SPAN, the cable public affairs network.
Print news sources scheduled to cover the event include Knight-Ridder, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Athens Banner-Herald.