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Oct 20, 2010 · With a brief voicemail message, the wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has revived the scandalous allegations from 19 years ago that Thomas had sexually harassed former...
Sep 19, 2018 · October 11, 1991: Hill testifies that Thomas had sexually harassed her while she worked with him at the Education Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Hill said Thomas ...
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The uncomfortable spectacle of the hearings reverberated across the nation and had lasting consequences.
In October 1991, Americans were riveted by the spectacle of an all-white, all-male Senate Judiciary Committee questioning Anita Hill, the African-American law professor who had accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.
TV viewers, both male and female, watched in increasing discomfort as the senators asked Hill about large-breasted women, a porn star named Long Dong Silver and pubic hair on a Coke can, among other previously unthinkable subjects for a Senate committee hearing.
But for women, Hill’s testimony would have special significance, as it was the first time someone had so publicly shared her account of workplace harassment—something that so many of them had experienced.
Though the committee would eventually confirm Thomas, making him only the second Black man to serve on the Supreme Court, the impact of Hill’s televised testimony would reverberate dramatically across the nation, with lasting consequences that endure today.
“I think women saw play out, in the most human terms, Anita Hill—credible and very much reflecting the experiences of so many other women—being demeaned, being dismissed and being mistreated by an array of male senators,” says Marcia Greenberger, founder and co-president emerita of the National Women’s Law Center. “And when they reflected upon it at the end of the hearings, their anger began to rise, and their determination to do something about it began to increase.”
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- Sarah Pruitt
Anita Hill, who had worked with Thomas at the Department of Education and at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, eventually publicly accused him. Here's a look back at how it all went...
Sep 27, 2021 · When Anita Hill accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of unwanted advances and lewd comments when she worked for him, she says it changed "just about every aspect" of her life.
- 7 min
- Danielle Genet,Dominick Proto,Sean Sanders,Jade Anderson
Sep 20, 2018 · In 1991, senators questioned Anita Hill about her accusation that Clarence Thomas, a nominee to the Supreme Court, had sexually harassed her.
Sep 28, 2021 · In 1991, attorney Anita Hill testified that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her when he was chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and she worked...
