In 1991, when Anita Hill appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, only two women served in the United States Senate. No private restrooms were provided for female senators, so they were forced to use the public facilities. Today there are 24 women in the Senate and the bathroom problem has been corrected. These changes are emblematic of what has happened to America since Hill first stepped forward to tell about her encounters with Clarence Thomas, President George H. W. Bush’s nominee to succeed retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall for a lifetime appointment to the United States Supreme Court.
Appearing as part of the F. Joseph Callahan Distinguished Lecture series, presented in partnership with Think Forum and the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women, Hill spoke this week to a packed audience — predominately women — at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on the campus of Case Western Reserve University. The program was free — online reservations were required and it was also live streamed.
Hill has an impressive background. Born in 1956 in rural Oklahoma, she grew up as the youngest of 13 children. She explained how she and her family never knew that the land they farmed was Indian land — land that was supposedly given to the transplanted native peoples who had been forced to leave their original homes in America’s southeast. Although she lived less than 50 miles from Tulsa, she never knew of the 18-hour massacre that occurred between May 31 and June 1, 1921 that destroyed Tulsa’s so-called Black Wall Street, killed hundreds and displaced thousands — a subtle attack on those who want to ban the teaching of so-called “woke” history.
Despite her meager beginnings, she graduated from Oklahoma State University and in 1980 from Yale Law School. Moving to Washington to practice law, in 1981 she became an attorney-advisor to Clarence Thomas who was then assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. In 1982, when Thomas became head of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Hill went with him. By 1983 she closed that part of her life and moved on to a career in higher education. But for Thomas’ nomination, Hill would have likely finished her career in academia, known only to her students and colleagues.
When Thomas’ name was originally placed in nomination, there was little organized opposition. His confirmation seemed assured until a report of a private interview with Hill by the FBI was leaked to the press. The hearings were then reopened, and Hill was called to publicly testify.
I vividly remember the hearings and watching them as they played out on live TV. I believed everything she said. Thomas’ allegations that he was a victim of a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks” went over like a lead balloon in my book.
Why would any woman make up the bizarre story about pubic hairs on a coke can and discussions of pornographic films if it were not true? Why would anyone subject themselves to ridicule? During the hearing, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch implied that “Hill was working in tandem with ‘slick lawyers’ and interest groups bent on destroying Thomas’ chances to join the court.”
While never mentioning Thomas by name, the theme of Hill’s presentation was that while she lost in her bid to discredit Thomas in the eyes of the Senate and keep him from the being confirmed, her act in stepping forward became a watershed moment for victims of gender violence — a term that she prefers to sexual abuse. According to Hill, when she testified, polls showed that 70% of Americans did not believe her allegations. The believers only made up 30% of the population. But during the two years that followed, the same polls showed that the original split had reversed itself. By 1993 70% of the population came to believe her.
At the time of her testimony back in 1991, 1,600 Black women from academia published an ad in the New York Times — at their own expense — to support Hill. In 2021 when Christine Blasey Ford presented her testimony at the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, 1,600 male academics duplicated the conduct of the Black women from 1991 and published a similar ad supporting Blasey Ford — the times they are a-changing!
The #MeToo movement has helped to bring the discussions of gender violence to the forefront. Gender violence sufferers are now, much more than in 1991, willing to come forward. In many states, and in the federal system, there are protections in place for victims. Prosecutors and grand juries listen and believe.
Hill’s hour-long presentation and 30-minute question-and-answer period had one simple message. The race for gender equality is not a sprint or a marathon, it’s a relay. Each generation must pick up the baton and carry on the fight. Her latest book, Believing – Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence (Penguin Press 2021), conveys that message and tells the story of America’s three-decades-long reckoning with sexual harassment and assaults.
Hill opened the door to changes in American life as it relates to the treatment of women. Once those doors started to crack, women and their causes began to have a voice. Millions of women who had the courage to speak up drew their strength from Anita Hill.
There are volumes written about Clarence Thomas. The evidence in my mind is overwhelming, no matter what his defenders say. In my opinion Thomas did everything that Hill accused him of. To buttress my belief, Thomas has become the man I love to hate. My bookshelves are full of books about him — even his syrupy self-serving 2007 autobiography My Grandfather’s Son, which spends a chapter or so telling how he did not feel like a real man until he married his current wife, Ginny Thomas.
Anita Hill never lied. Because a panel of white men did not believe her, America is stuck with Clarence Thomas for life. If Hill had been believed, Thomas would have become a footnote in history. Instead he makes decisions that affect the lives of almost every American. Hill was well deserving of the standing ovation that she received at the end of her presentation. She is an American Icon.
Malcolm X is famously quoted as saying that Booker T. Washington was history’s greatest Uncle Tom. He died before he got to meet Clarence Thomas.
C. Ellen Connally is a retired judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court. From 2010 to 2014 she served as the President of the Cuyahoga County Council. An avid reader and student of American history, she serves on the Board of the Ohio History Connection, is currently vice president of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers and Sailors Monument Commission and president of the Cleveland Civil War Round Table. She holds degrees from BGSU, CSU and is all but dissertation for a PhD from the University of Akron.
One Response to “Anita Hill Lost the Battle But Won the War by C. Ellen Connally”
Linda Rich
This was a historic event, and this is a phenomenal article!