I know I’m being overly emotional about this issue, but I take integrity and reputation very, very seriously.

Just to be clear, that was a compliment on my part. By “strong” I meant “good.”

Miss Hill knew that or was grotesquely incompetent. To have not made a claim until seven years later, and in the interim to have maintained at any level a long-distance business relationship speaks to either Miss Hill’s naivety or worldliness, or the earlier lack of Thomas’ offensive and/or boorish behavior. I, too, watched on TV and saw “tells” that convinced me of her untruthfulness.

Miss Hills political beliefs speak for themselves, and I’d say there are zero chances for the truth to ever be divulged. Besides, all Thomas has to do is become a progressive and all would be forgiven, anyway. He’s only “guilty” to liberal feminists because he’s conservative, instead of being “cool” like Clinton, et al.

I know I’m being overly emotional about this issue, but I take integrity and reputation very, very seriously.

Also, I just don’t understand the defenses that people make in regards to Hill. Consider the best case scenario for her defense: Thomas did all of the things she said he did. That means he is a liar and a creep and deserving of our opprobrium.

But that still means that Hill was willing to turn a blind eye to sexual harassment when it furthered her career and only thought it was worth mentioning when it could destroy someone else’s career and reputation.

So either way she lacks integrity and should be considered a woman of low character.

I’m sorry to cause you grief, Joe—well, not really—but I am serious. I’m not a lawyer, but from what I understand, while Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the basis for subsequent sexual harassment jurisprudence, it hardly has it all worked out in detail. Laws must be interpreted, and sexual harassment jurisprudence in light of Title VII is a case in point. The 1964 law itself bans discrimination on the basis of an “individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” The Act was subsequently interpreted—as in, over the course of several decades—to prohibit what we now refer to as sexual harassment—a phrase nowhere to be found in the Act itself. The Supreme Court doesn’t appear to have endorsed the “hostile work environment” interpretation of the Act—the only one that might have applied to Hill’s situation—until 1986.

The idea that everything was clear as daylight in 1980 when Hill graduated from Yale Law School, because the law was established in 1964 and, by 1980, available for 16 years of study and digestion, is simply false and you ought to admit that. Moreover, who said anything about “no one” knowing how to handle these matters? I never claimed such a thing. You, however, presume that *everyone* did; hence your claim that Hill obviously and clearly discredited herself.

“I don’t know if Yale Law School did but the EEOC certainly did. We’re not talking about something that happened in the 1950s. We’re talking about 1980!”

According to this chronology of sexual harassment law (www.calstate.edu/hr/SHLaw.pdf), the EEOC first issued guidelines establishing sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination in . . . 1980.

As another commentor pointed out, Hill also followed Thomas from the Deparment of Education to the EEOC even though he supposedly harrassed her at the first job.

So we are led to believe that despite being harrassed repeatedly by Thomas, Hill was willing to follow him to another agency, ask him for a job recommendation, and then keep in touch with him over the following years. That doesn’t prove that her boss didn’t mistreat her. But it certainly appears to be peculiar behavior for someone who is being mistreated.

And why is it hard to believe that Hill wouldn’t choose to keep silent about the mistreatment while she worked for Thomas? Perhaps she was able to ignore it and not let it bother her.

If that is the case then it wasn’t sexual harrasment. The legal definition is that it occurs when such behavior “creates a hostile or offensive work environment.” If it bothered her enough to fit the definition (as she claimed in her testimony) then she should have mentioned it while she was working for hem.

Perhaps she feared for her job if no demonstrative proof could be found to validate her harassment complaint.

Let’s keep in mind that she worked for the very government agency which oversees workplace discrimination, including discrimination for bringing a charge of harassment against a boss. For Hill to claim that she would have suffered consquences for bringing up a claim of sexual harrassment is ludicrous.

Leah @ Unequally Yoked Working at the EEOC, Hill would know exactly how difficult it is to make a charge of sexual harassment stick, especially without a detailed paper trail. In the meantime, it might be impossible to keep her job. If she was harassed and stayed quiet, she made the same choice most women make when they realize the benefit from speaking up is outweighed by possible cost.

Nonsense. Anyone who worked for the governement during that period can tell you that an accusastion of sexual harrassement would hurt the accussed much more than that accusor. Besides, her subsequents actions prove that she clearly did not believe that Thomas had created a hostile and offensive work environment.

And are you really saying that, as a matter of principle, she shouldn’t have taken a recommendation if she were harassed?

Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying. If you follow him to another job, ask him for a job recommendation, and then call him several times over the following years, it shows that you didn’t take the “harrasment” too seriously.

Charlie Collier The Anita Hill case is credited with bringing the issue of sexual harassment into general public awareness for the first time, which means, among other things, that it was even less clear how to handle these matters in the 1980s than it is now.

Good grief, Charlie, be serious. The relevant law had been in place since 1964. Are you really claiming that no one understood how to handle these matters over the previous 16 years?

I wonder if Yale Law School even had a sexual harassment policy in 1980.

I don’t know if Yale Law School did but the EEOC certainly did. We’re not talking about something that happened in the 1950s. We’re talking about 1980!

Dan Deeny How do you know that Anita Hill “attempted to subvert the judicial nomination process for political reasons”

I don’t know for a fact that she did. But that certainly seems to be the logical conclusion based on her actions.

Charlie Collier From the history that I recall and have read, Hill was interviewed by the FBI during their background research on Thomas, the details of which appear to have been leaked to Nina Totenberg, whose writing about the leaked testimony then lead to the Senate hearings, before which Hill was subpoenaed to testify.

Not exactly. Hill had talked to Senate staffers before being interviewed by the FBI. After the initial interview, she was investigated again—and her story changed. She then faxed a statement to the Senate committee. When she appeared before the committee, though, she made claims that had not been in any of her previous statements.

D) unless you make a serious accusation against someone – and what Thomas was accused of was not considered to be serious at the time, as the Thomas hearings were what made sexual harassment a legal and workplace issue, and being an EEOC employee and Yale law grad Hill knew this – 99.9999999999% of the time nothing comes of it; it just goes in a file somewhere.

During the FBI investigation, Hill never claimed that Thomas sexually harrassed her. That charge was only made at the hearing.

So, the idea that Hill believed that she could stop Clarence Thomas from getting on the Supreme Court by telling the FBI that he made comments that she found unprofessional and offensive is incredible, absolutely absurd.

Then why did she have so many private discusssions—including with Senate staffers—about the issue? Why didn’t she just tell the FBI her story and let it speak for itself?

… like Princeton hires their law professors from ORU or something.
Amazingly, she now has a job at Brandeis University. I wonder how many other ORU professors that school has hired.