Anita Hill stands strong, again

Nearly 20 years ago, a courageous Anita Hill testified during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing about persistent sexual harassment by U.S. Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas, when she was his aide at the Department of Education and then at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the early 1980s.

In 1991, Hill faced an all-white, all-male panel of senators during those hearings. Notably hostile were right-wing Republicans Orrin Hatch, Arlen Specter and Alan Simpson. They stopped at nothing to try to smear, attack and humiliate her. They couldn’t. This African-American woman was unflappable. She stood firm and testified bravely, showing great integrity, becoming a hero to millions of women throughout the country.

Democratic senators offered her no support. Their leader and chair of the Judiciary Committee, then Sen. Joe Biden, even kept out the testimony of other women who would have validated Hill’s claims.

But Hill did something important which would help all women workers. She brought an insidious inequity to public view.

By strongly testifying as she did, Hill beamed a spotlight on the pervasive culture of sexual harassment that was an integral part of political life in Washington, D.C. It was considered “business as usual” there and in offices and factories across the country. Women usually suffered silently. Hill, however, broke the secrecy of sexual harassment wide open.

She inspired and emboldened women workers nationally to fight back against their employers, to file federal complaints and demand legal protections from sexual harassment on the job. Some progress was made and some gains won, although the fight is far from over.

Now a professor of social policy, law and women’s studies at Brandeis University, Hill has once again been a target of attempted intimidation. Virginia Thomas, the spouse of now-Justice Thomas, left Hill a voicemail message on Oct. 9 asking that she “apologize” for her testimony 19 years ago in the Senate hearings.

Virginia Thomas is a founder and leader of Liberty Central, a Tea-Party-affiliated lobbying group which organizes among conservatives to promote a far-right political agenda. Clarence Thomas, along with several other justices, helps foster a conservative agenda on the Supreme Court, which impacts on fundamental issues including civil liberties, workers’ and women’s rights.

Hill resolutely asserted that she would not issue an apology, and said, “I testified truthfully about my experience and I stand by that testimony.”

Today, nearly 20 years after her brave stance, Anita Hill has once again shown her mettle. She remains a hero to millions of women, especially the many who have faced sexist and racist inequities and abuse in the workplace.