Transcript
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)
Anita Hill Testified in 1991. But How Much Has Changed?
Accusations by Professor Christine Blasey Ford against Judge Brett Kavanaugh in his Supreme Court confirmation hearing, have us looking back at Anita Hill’s 1991 testimony in the hearing of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.
Professor Anita Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 during Justice Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and we’re all having a bit of a déjà vu moment. Professor Christine Blasey Ford might testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. Hill claimed Thomas sexually harassed her; Ford alleges Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her. Both men categorically deny the accusations, and the women are accused of playing politics.
In a recent New York Times Opinion piece, Hill calls on the Committee, on which sit some of the same members as nearly three decades ago, to show the world that times have changed.
“To do better,” Hill writes, “the 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee must demonstrate a clear understanding that sexual violence is a social reality to which elected representatives must respond.” As Ford prepares to come forward and testify about Kavanaugh’s fitness for office, Hill knows first-hand what’s at stake by telling her story.
- Producer: Bonnie Bertram
