Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas just explained why precedent is "not gospel."

This comes, according to the Washington Examiner, as the high court is about to revisit some major decisions that it made in the past.

One wonders whether Thomas is preparing the American public for some upcoming decisions that might overturn precedent.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said the high court shouldn't blindly follow precedents to guide rulings if the established rulings go against what the law says or don't line up with the nation's legal traditions. https://t.co/iFqRPK9msV

— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) September 27, 2025

Thomas speaks

It is not often that Thomas speaks in public. He tends to be one of the quieter members of the Supreme Court. He did, however, recently speek at Catholic University Law School, where he discussed the idea of legal precedents.

Courthouse News Service reports:

Justice Clarence Thomas defended the Supreme Court’s purge of longstanding precedents on Thursday, stating that those rulings need to be respectful of legal tradition, the country, and the law. “It’s not some sort of automatic deal where you can just say, ‘Stare decisis,’ and then turn off the brain,” the George H.W. Bush appointee said during an event at Catholic University Law School.

Thomas provided an analogy to help explain what he is getting at.

The outlet continues:

Thomas described stare decisis — the legal principle of following precedential rulings — as a series of cars on a long train. New cases become additional cars, following the train wherever it’s going. “We never go to the front to see who’s driving the train or where it is going, and you could go up there to the engine room and find out it’s an orangutan,” Thomas said.

Indeed.

Background

The general rule is that the Supreme Court as well as lower federal courts, when deciding the cases before them, have to abide by prior decisions made by the Supreme Court. There have always, however, been exceptions to this rule.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has appeared more willing to overturn precedent. A prime example would be the court's overruling of the landmark pro-abortion case Roe v. Wade.

Now, the court might just be poised to overturn more major precedents.

The Examiner reports:

In the term that begins next month, the court will revisit a nearly century-old ruling protecting the heads of independent agencies that President Donald Trump has repeatedly challenged as he’s sought greater control over the government. The high court has been chipping away at its 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which upheld the constitutionality of preventing members of the Federal Trade Commission from being fired without cause.

This is shaping up to be a big term for the high court and the country.