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Oct 1, 2021 · When Anita Hill testified about sexual harassment three decades ago, the Senate was skeptical. Now, she has ideas for systemic change.
Sep 27, 2021 · Hill has said the committee refused to seriously examine her accusations and, crucially, did not allow testimony from other potential witnesses. Hill jokes in the book that she and her husband used to say, when their doorbell would ring unexpectedly in Massachusetts, that it was Biden coming to apologize.
Jun 28, 2022 · Ginni Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in a newly-released book called Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment against her husband...
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- HISTORY Vault
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
Mar 31, 2024 · In October of 1991, the little-known Oklahoma law professor was called to testify over allegations that her former supervisor, Supreme Court nominee, Clarence Thomas, had sexually harassed her...
- Sarah Lemire
Jul 17, 2015 · Working for Clarence Thomas. Following a stint with the private law firm Ward, Harkrader & Ross, Hill in 1981, Hill accepted a position as legal adviser to Clarence Thomas, then head of the U.S....
Jun 17, 2019 · June 17, 2019. Anita Hill made history in 1991 when she testified before Congress about the sexual harassment she said she had experienced while she was an aide to Clarence Thomas, a Supreme...
