Anita Hill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other persons with this name, see Anita Hill (disambiguation).
Anita F. Hill (born July 30, 1956) is a professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at Brandeis University at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management and a former colleague of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She is best known for accusing Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 Senate confirmation hearing.
Hill was born in Lone Tree, Oklahoma. She received her undergraduate degree from Oklahoma State University in 1977, and her Juris Doctor degree from Yale University in 1980. Upon graduation from law school, she became a practicing lawyer with the Washington, D.C., firm of Wald, Harkrader, and Ross. In 1981, she met Thomas, and became his assistant at the U.S. Department of Education. It was during this period, according to Hill's later testimony, that the alleged sexual harassment took place. After Thomas became Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Hill joined the Commission's legal staff.
When Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1991, Hill's accusations to the FBI that Thomas had used coarse language with her were leaked to the media by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Hill, by then on the law school faculty at the University of Oklahoma, testified before the committee about Thomas's alleged verbal harassment (including a claim that he made a joke about finding a pubic hair in a can of Coca-Cola). Thomas made a blanket denial of the accusations, and, after extensive debate, the U.S. Senate narrowly confirmed Thomas by a vote of 52-48. [1] In 1991, public opinion polls showed that 47% of those polled believed Thomas, while only 24% believed Hill. By 1992, these proportions were reversed, with 44% believing Hill and only 34% believing Thomas. [2]
