Wed 3/22 @ 6PM
Many of those who have followed the ignominious decline of the U.S Supreme Court and its loss of public trust as it’s become a nakedly partisan body issuing wildly inconsistent opinions to justify far-right decisions trace the root of that decline to the nomination of Clarence Thomas by President George H.W. Bush in 1991. He was named to replace the civil rights activist Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice, in an obvious ploy to show that Republicans weren’t racist. But the underqualified Thomas is no Thurgood Marshall and the contentious confirmation hearings, which cast doubt on his character, presaged those of Brett Kavanaugh almost 30 years later.
One of the most prominent figures in the 1991 confirmation hearings was a rising legal star in her mid 30s named Anita Hill, who testified about the improper advances Thomas had made to her. And they will remember how as a young Black woman, she was diminished and disbelieved, even as Thomas played the “noble” persecuted victim.
Thomas has only continued to look more compromised and corrupt as the years have gone on, while Hill has quietly gone on to a distinguished career as a law professor and writer on legal issues, particularly relating to race and gender, despite efforts of right-wingers to derail her in the wake of Thomas’ confirmation. She now teaches at the Brandeis University, one of the country’s most respected schools.
Hill will be the speaker for the F. Joseph Callahan Distinguished Lecture presented in partnership with Think Forum at Case Western Reserve University’s Maltz Performing Arts Center. Go here for more information and tickets.