Anita Hill - Clarence Thomas Controversy

Clarence Thomas Controversy

Thomas was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by then-President George H. W. Bush, a position that required Senate hearings and confirmation. The hearings were initially completed, with Thomas's good character being presented as a primary qualification for the high court because he had only been a judge for slightly more than one year. There had been little organized opposition to Thomas's nomination and his confirmation seemed assured until a report of a private interview of Hill by the FBI leaked out to the press. The hearings were then reopened, and Hill was called to publicly testify. Hill said in the October 1991 televised hearings that Thomas had sexually harassed her while he was her supervisor at the Department of Education and the EEOC. When questioned on why she followed Thomas to the second job after he had already allegedly harassed her, she said she had wanted to work in the civil rights field, she had no alternative job, "and at that time, it appeared that the sexual overtures ... had ended."

According to Hill, during her two years of employment as Thomas's assistant, Thomas had asked her out socially many times, and after she refused, he used work situations to discuss sexual subjects. "He spoke about...such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes" she said, adding that on several occasions Thomas graphically described "his own sexual prowess" and the details of his anatomy. Hill also recounted an instance in which Thomas examined a can of Coke on his desk and asked, "Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?"

Four female witnesses waited in the wings to reportedly support Hill's credibility, but they were not called, due to what the Los Angeles Times described as private, compromise deal between "aggressive, gloves-off" Republicans and the Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Democrat Joe Biden. According to Time magazine, one of the witnesses, Angela Wright, may not have been considered credible on the issue of sexual harassment because she had been fired from the EEOC by Thomas.

Hill agreed to take a polygraph test. The results supported the veracity of her statements; Thomas declined the test. He made a vehement and complete denial, saying that he was being subjected to a "high-tech lynching for uppity blacks" by white liberals who were seeking to block a black conservative from taking a seat on the Supreme Court. After extensive debate, the U.S. Senate confirmed Thomas to the Supreme Court by a vote of 52–48; the narrowest margin since the 19th century.

Thomas's supporters questioned Hill's credibility claiming she was delusional or was a spurned woman, seeking revenge. They cited the time delay of ten years between the alleged behavior by Thomas and Hill's accusations, and noted that Hill had followed Thomas to a second job and later had personal contacts with Thomas, including giving him a ride to an airport—behavior which they said would be inexplicable if Hill's allegations were true. Hill countered that she came forward because she felt an obligation to share information on the character and actions of a person who was being considered for the Supreme Court. She testified that after leaving the EEOC, she had had two "inconsequential" phone conversations with Thomas, and had seen him personally on two occasions; once to get a job reference and the second time when he made a public appearance in Oklahoma where she was teaching.

Doubts about the veracity of Hill's 1991 testimony persisted long after Thomas took his seat on the Court. They were furthered by American Spectator writer David Brock in his 1993 book The Real Anita Hill, though he later recanted the claims he had made, described his book as "character assassination", and apologized to Hill. After interviewing a number of women who alleged that Thomas had frequently subjected them to sexually explicit remarks, Wall Street Journal reporters Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson wrote a book which concluded that Thomas had lied during his confirmation process. Time magazine however, remarked in 1994 that "Their book doesn't quite nail that conclusion." In 2007, Kevin Merida, a coauthor of another book on Thomas, remarked that what happened between Thomas and Hill was "ultimately unknowable" by others, but that it was clear that "one of them lied, period." Writing in 2007, Neil Lewis of The New York Times remarked that, "To this day, each side in the epic he-said, she-said dispute has its unmovable believers".

In 2007, Clarence Thomas published his autobiography, My Grandfather's Son, in which he revisited the controversy, calling Hill his "most traitorous adversary" and saying that pro-choice liberals who feared that he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade if he were seated on the Supreme Court used the scandal against him. He described Hill as touchy and apt to overreact, and her work at the EEOC as mediocre. He acknowledged that three other former EEOC employees had backed Hill's story, but said they had all left the agency on bad terms. He also wrote that Hill "was a left-winger who'd never expressed any religious sentiments whatsoever...and the only reason why she'd held a job in the Reagan administration was because I'd given it to her." Hill denied the accusations in an op-ed in the New York Times saying she would not "stand by silently and allow, in his anger, to reinvent me".

In October 2010, Thomas's wife Virginia, a conservative activist, left a voicemail at Hill's office asking that Hill apologize for her 1991 testimony. Hill initially believed the call was a hoax and referred the matter to the Brandeis University campus police who alerted the FBI. After being informed that the call was indeed from Virginia Thomas, Hill told the media that she did not believe the message was meant to be conciliatory and said, "I testified truthfully about my experience and I stand by that testimony." Virginia Thomas responded that the call had been intended as an "olive branch".