ARCHIVAL (C-SPAN, 10-12-91):
SENATOR JOE BIDEN: Stand and be sworn if you will. Professor do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God.
ANITA HILL: I do.

NARRATION: In 1991, the nation was riveted…

ARCHIVAL (C-SPAN, 10-12-91):
ANITA HILL: My name is Anita F. Hill.

NARRATION: …when a University of Oklahoma law professor was reluctantly thrust into the spotlight.

ARCHIVAL (CBS, 10-6-91):
PAULA ZAHN: Clarence Thomas ran into trouble today in what had seemed to be certain confirmation as a Supreme Court justice.

NARRATION: Information that Anita Hill had given confidentially to a Senate aide had been leaked about the sexual harassment she said she had endured years earlier, as an employee of Thomas’s at the E.E.O.C.

ARCHIVAL (CBS, 10-7-91):
RITA BRAVER: Thomas categorically denies the charges.

NARRATION: Hill was attacked from the onset by Thomas’s supporters, who accused her of bringing sleaze into the Supreme Court nomination process.

ARCHIVAL (CBS, 10-6-91):
JOHN DANFORTH (U.S. SENATOR, 1976-1995): I think that this is something contrary to the values of most of our people.

ARCHIVAL (CBS, EVENING NEWS, 10-7-91):
ANITA HILL: Reliving this experience….

NARRATION: She insisted the information was relevant to Thomas’s fitness for the job, and wasn’t looking for publicity.

ARCHIVAL (CBS, EVENING NEWS, 10-7-91):
ANITA HILL: …it has been really bad for me. I mean, it–I can’t even describe. It was bad enough to experience it once.

NARRATION: The Senate judiciary committee called on Hill to testify before the nation on live TV.

ARCHIVAL (C-SPAN, 10-12-91):
ANITA HILL: My working relationship became even more strained when judge Thomas began to use work situations to discuss sex. And he also spoke on some occasions of the pleasures he had given to women with oral sex.

ARCHIVAL (ABC, 10-14-91):
JUDGE CLARENCE THOMAS: I find it particularly troubling that she never raised any hint that she was uncomfortable.

ARCHIVAL (ABC, 10-14-91):
ANITA HILL: I told him that I did not want to talk about these subjects.

ANITA HILL (PROFESSOR, BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY): One of the things about my testimony, I believe, that resonated so much with women was that it seemed so regular, so much like what was going on in their day-to-day lives.

(END)