One night in July 1991, Frink joined nine other people at a dinner party. Over bottles of wine, the conversation turned to that week's nomination of appeals judge Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. Frink was in a tweak-the-liberals mood. He challenged the guests to name one contribution that blacks made to civilization. Blacks had a victim mentality, he said, and Thomas, who opposed affirmative action, showed how to overcome obstacles to achieve success. Chuck French, another prosecutor and a friend, asked if Frink would have become the second most powerful man in Multnomah County if his father had been a janitor, not a doctor. Frink replied probably not, but so what? People, not governments, have to rectify social inequities.
A few days later, Schrunk got a call from an African American lawyer, who said Frink's remarks were getting around and causing concern. Someone called the newspapers, and soon the town was talking. An internal investigation found no racial bias in Frink's work. Frink wrote letters of regret and went to cultural awareness classes. Yet even now, Schrunk says, someone will ask him: When are you going to fire that racist DA?
