Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Senate Hearings

Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Senate Hearings

In the fall of 1991, the nomination of Clarence Thomas as an associate justice of the Supreme Court became the most controversial nomination in all of American judicial history. During the background probe, information surfaced that Anita Hill, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, had told someone that Thomas had sexually harassed her when she worked as his assistant at the Department of Education in 1981. Joseph Biden, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which conducts hearings on presidential nominations, chose not to interview Hill and refrained from repeating the allegations to some committee members. When the story became public knowledge, women's groups began to protest, and seven women from the House of Representatives marched to the Senate, demanding entrance to the Senate Chambers and insisting that a hearing into Hill's allegations be conducted. Biden, with what would later prove a serious lapse in judgment, chose to make the hearings public. Americans were, therefore, glued to their television sets for one long weekend, beginning Friday morning, October 11 and ending late Sunday night, October 13, 1991, watching and listening to accusations, denials, and character assassinations. The lives of both Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas would be changed forever.

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