Jenny Egan, Fellow

Twenty years ago, Anita Hill sat down in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and detailed how her former supervisor repeatedly made a series of vulgar advances and regularly turned professional conversations into sex-tinged talk of pornography and physical anatomy. As a result, Professor Hill was eviscerated in the Senate and in the press, where people derided her as humorless, a perjurer and (get ready for the real humdinger) as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.” Anyone who actually watched Professor Hill testify was shocked by the disparity between her manner (cool, collected, humble) and the way she was spoken about in the press (vindictive, disingenuous, trampy). Books were published maligning her good name. One book in particular, The Real Anita Hill, received a substantial amount of press. But when the author’s later recanted and apologized for the copious lies contained in the book, there was much less of an uproar. Anita Hill was asked, on the floor of the United States Senate, if she was simply a “spurned woman” out for revenge. She received death threats and her job was threatened. At the time, Clarence Thomas categorically denied every one of the allegations despite the fact that he did not actually listen to Anita Hill’s testimony.

We know now that there were other women who worked for Thomas that were prepared to testify and corroborate Hill’s story – but the chairman of the committee, then Senator Joe Biden, declined to call any of them to the stand. Other colleagues came forward and offered to testify about Thomas' long-standing interest in pornography, but Biden declined to call them as well. Because the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to call most of the most pertinent witnesses, at the time the country was left with an incomplete picture. But over the years, the image has been filled in and today there is consensus that “virtually all the evidence that has emerged since the hearings corroborates Hill’s version of events.”

But fast forward twenty years and there are now political ads out that imply that Professor Hill’s accusations were nothing more than a smear campaign. No wonder Herman Cain’s accuser says she doesn’t want to come forward because she doesn’t want to be another Anita Hill; it is still not safe for women to publicly make an allegation of sexual harassment.