Although I was a teenager, images of the civil rights movement bring back haunting memories. I remember lynchings, fire bombings, cross burnings and little girls being murdered in church.

I also remember the Brown vs. Board of Education case, successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, that held that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment.

Thurgood Marshall, who argued Brown, went on to serve on the Supreme Court and when he resigned recently, President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to fill his shoes.

Bush couldn't have been more Machiavellian in his choice. Not only does Thomas need to be scrutinized, but so does the president that nominated him. As a candidate for Senate, Bush opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination based on race, and in his bid for the presidency, gave us Willie Horton -- a classic divide-and-conquer tactic. Bush vetoed the Civil Rights Bill of 1990 and opposes legislation that would prohibit women and the disabled from collecting punitive damages if they prove discrimination.

Tragically, it appears that all Thomas has in common with Marshall is skin color. Thomas has:

-- criticized the Supreme Court Brown decision that integrated schools stating that it was "based on dubious social science" and that the presumption that separate is not equal is flawed.

-- denounced affirmative action as "a narcotic of dependency" regardless of the fact that he attended Yale Law School as part of an affirmative action 10 percent quota program.

-- shifted his position from favoring all available remedies for discrimination to the Reagan position that goals and timetables not be sought in EEOC settlements.

Thomas espouses a theory of "natural law," a belief in the existence of moral norms derived from nature or God. In its most extreme form, it could influence Thomas to ignore the U.S. Constitution when voting on issues such as abortion and birth control. In a speech to the Heritage Foundation, Thomas praised an article stating the Constitution does not protect an individual's right to privacy, but rather endows the fetus with the inalienable right to life.

He has questioned the constitutional underpinnings of both the 1973 Supreme Court Roe vs. Wade and the 1965 Griswold decision that recognized the constitutional right to privacy regarding abortion and that states could not prohibit the sale of contraceptives to married people.

There's something frightening about a man who ignored the rights and human suffering of his race, and who shows that he's willing to diligently work to push shut the door on minorities and women that were opened to him by the bloodshed and efforts of others. There's even something more frightening about a president who would give him to us.