Justice Thomas said he was “ideologically quite a bit to the left” in college and chose Yale Law School because he found Harvard Law School “way too conservative.”

“I know that sounds funny now,” he said.

He overlapped with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. at Yale, but the two men did not interact. Justice Alito later explained why.

“‘Clarence, you were scary,’” Justice Thomas, chuckling, recalled Justice Alito of saying.

In the interview, Justice Thomas made only a glancing reference to his stormy confirmation hearings, which featured accusations of sexual harassment. “I was in a world of trouble,” he said.