Anita: Speaking Truth to Power

This woman is SO remarkable. To come forward to tell the truth (when she was asked mind you) in a predominantly male, white congress and the "establishment" backing the perpetrator is simply remarkable. Courageous. Admirable. Had this hearing been held TODAY during/after the MeToo movement, she would have been believed, as she should have been and that "man" would not hold one of the highest jobs in this country. I was disgusted at the way she was treated and dismissed by the people that should be there to listen and protect her and keep a "man" out of a position that would give him power to make decisions he should not be allowed to make.

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I remember Anita Hill's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991. (I almost wrote Hill's "trial" because that's what it felt like.) During it, she was asked questions by Senators, led by Joe Biden, that made her repeat and describe, again and again, Clarence Thomas's vulgar and grotesque treatment of her when she worked with him-- or, more to the point, worked for him. It's much harder to issue a complaint about a boss than a colleague. During the testimony, one of my sisters phoned me and said, "I feel like I'm being sexually abused, exposed to this." She was right. The Senate put the whole country through an ordeal that was vile and, as it turned out, ignored: they confirmed Clarence Thomas anyway.

Hill's impact was not ignored by the media, though, or the nation.

This is a completely conventional documentary. I hesitate to offer a single criticism of it because Anita Hill is the subject, and she-- like so many civil rights activists before her-- is an inspiration throughout. Her calmness, her unflinching determination, and her intelligence shine through every stage of her story.

The film interviews a variety of people, all of whom shed light on the way race and gender issues are mishandled in Washington, where all that seems to matter, in the end, is power.

This is a 95-minute documentary directed by Freida Lee Mock. It tells the story of Anita Hill's testimony at the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in 1991 and the impact of those hearings on Anita Hill in subsequent years. She had testified for multiple days about the sexual harassment she experienced from Thomas while he was her boss.

The film includes much archival footage from the hearings and elsewhere and commentary by journalists Jill Abramson and Jane Mayer, attorney John Carr, and Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree.

In one sense, this was an embarrassing film to view, watching an all-male Senate committee attacking Anita Hill's credibility and quietly listening to Clarence Thomas forcefully state that he was being lynched (by a black woman no less). The committee declined to hear witnesses that would have corroborated Hill's testimony and the fact that she had complained about Thomas's behavior at the time it happened.

Obviously, the documentary is from Anita Hill's perspective, but one cannot watch it without believing she was telling the truth.

I vaguely recall the case. The coverage could hardly be missed. But all I really remember -- and what occupied the media so prominently -- was the pubic hair on the soft drink can and the expression "Long Dong Silver." I don't know what was edited out of this film but as it stands it presents a fairly convincing case that Anita Hill was intelligent and honest. She has neither a ghetto nor a Southern accent and, practically speaking, that helps her. And she didn't make public appearances denouncing Thomas. The "harassment" was uncovered in the course of a routine FBI examination and she was called to testify.

Clarence Thomas speaks without a regional accent too but his statements are far more forceful and inflammatory than hers. He denies outright that any such exchanges took place. And, unlike Hill, he "plays the race card," as they say. "This is a high tech lynching." I hate that phrase, but that's what he does. It's a trump card. It frightens people and they back off. It changes the structure of the inquiry from the work harassment of Anita Hill to a racist attack on Clarence Thomas.

Nobody kisses Anita Hill's ring and some of the questions sound not only adversarial but actually hostile. "Why did you wait so long to bring this up?", is a reasonable enough query. But, "Do you see yourself as a symbol of black womanhood and liberation?", is a bit much. So is, "Do you like the attention you're getting?" So is, "Are you a woman scorned?" Of course her answer will be "no," but it's the kind of question that gives the anti-Hill folks a handle to hang their dismissal on.

She volunteered to take a polygraph test and passed. Four female witnesses supporting Hill waited in the wings to be called but were ignored. Female witnesses were called on Thomas' behalf. The judgment of the Judiciary Committee as to his being qualified were split, 7 to 7, and the nomination was sent to the Senate without any recommendation, which was rare.

After the questionable exchanges and requests for dates, she accompanied Thomas to his next job and spent another two years working for him. She claims that it was in a field she wanted to work in, the exchanges had apparently ended, and she didn't have a job waiting anywhere else.

Frankly, I don't care much about Thomas' having made some questionable remarks to her. A lot of men are raunchy and some raunchy men are clumsy in their jokes with women.

But that exchange -- the one that people like me remember -- is a minor point. The attacks on Anita Hill continued after the investigation was closed. Thomas went on to become a Supreme Court Justice. Hill wound up at Oral Roberts University. Hill had become a tenured professor. Moves were made, according to her, to get her fired. When that didn't work, the Dean of the university began receiving threats. Years later, the wife of Clarence Thomas left a voice mail message for Hill, asking that Hill apologize for her testimony. Hill turned it over to the FBI who found it authentic.

The impression left with the viewer is that the committee were anxious to discredit her, close the investigation quickly, and end the publicity. What actually went on between the two is unknowable.

In my judgment, I don't find myself sobbing because of Anita Hill's mistreatment. If that's the worst problem one has at work -- a boss joking about pubic hair and asking you for dates -- it's not much of a problem. We've all had much worse. But Clarence Thomas has turned out to be a complete nonentity. He votes reliably in a predictable way and years passed without his ever asking a question from the bench. (That's not in itself a bad sign but it leaves us blind to his reasoning.

Her academic career has been an unqualified success. After graduating as valedictorian from Morris High School, Hill enrolled at Oklahoma State University, receiving a bachelor's degree with honors, in psychology 1977. She went on to Yale Law School, obtaining her Juris Doctor degree with honors in 1980. After her penal servitude at Oral Roberts, she taught at Berkeley and is now at Brandeis University. Thomas' education is equally impressive.

The film presents her as a heroine of epic stature, a sacrificial victim almost, in a patriarchal and conservative society. I don't. I see her as another woman who was addressed in questionable ways by a boss and testified about it without being anxious to do so. Personally I wish her testimony had had more impact. Thomas was a fan of Ayn Rand, which I'm not.

Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement on June 27, 1991. President George Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to fill the vacant seat. Senator Joseph Biden chaired the Senate committee to offer a report to recommend the Senate to consent or not. The process moved smoothly, until someone leaked a letter from Anita Hill. Ms. Hill was a professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law,where she taught commercial law and contracts. Earlier she had worked at the U. S. Equal Opportunity Commission. There, her boss, Clarence Thomas, she said, sexually harassed her. Biden's committee took her testimony, then shut down without considering other witnesses.

Freida Lee Mock's documentary about Ms Hill starts with that point of history, commencing with a "just the facts" attitude, and gradually comes to Ms. Hill's side. That takes the audience about 45 minutes into the movie. After that, we get a sympathetic half hour of Ms. Hill's roots, the impact of her testimony on her, and her life over the next twenty years.

Today, Clarence Thomas is still an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He is still beset by scandal. Joseph Biden is President of the United States. The first subheading on the EEOC website leads to instructions on how to file a charge of discrimination. Ms. Hill teaches at Brandeis University.