Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination
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On July 1, 1991, President
George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
nominated Clarence Thomas for the
Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
to replace Thurgood Marshall, who had announced his retirement. At the time of his nomination, Thomas was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; President Bush had appointed him to that position in March 1990. The nomination proceedings were contentious from the start, especially over the issue of abortion. Many women's groups and civil rights groups opposed Thomas based on his conservative political views, just as they had opposed Bush's Supreme Court nominee from the previous year, David Souter. Toward the end of the confirmation process,
sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...
allegations against Thomas by Anita Hill, a law professor who had previously worked under Thomas at the United States Department of Education and then at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, were
leaked A leak is a way (usually an opening) for fluid to escape a container or fluid-containing system, such as a tank or a ship's hull, through which the contents of the container can escape or outside matter can enter the container. Leaks are usuall ...
to the media from a confidential FBI report. The allegations led to further investigations and a media frenzy about sexual harassment. Televised hearings were re-opened and held by the Senate Judiciary Committee before the nomination was moved to the full, Democratic-controlled Senate for a vote. On October 15, 1991, Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States by a narrow Senate majority of 52 to 48. He took the oath of office on October 23, 1991.


Nomination

Justice William Brennan stepped down from the Supreme Court in 1990. Thomas was one of five candidates on Bush's shortlist and was the one Bush was most interested in nominating. However, Bush's staff made three arguments against nominating Thomas at the time: Thomas had only served eight months as a judge; Bush could expect to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall with Thomas in due time; and multiple senior advisors told Bush that they did not feel that Thomas was ready. Bush eventually decided to nominate Judge David Souter of the
First Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (in case citations, 1st Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maine * District of Massachusetts * ...
instead, who was easily confirmed. White House Chief of Staff
John H. Sununu John Henry Sununu (born July 2, 1939) is an American politician who was the 75th governor of New Hampshire from 1983 to 1989 and later White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush. Born in Cuba to an American father and a Salva ...
promised that Bush would fill the next Supreme Court vacancy with a "true conservative" and predicted a "knock-down, drag-out, bloody-knuckles, grass-roots fight" over confirmation. On July 1, 1991, President Bush nominated Judge Clarence Thomas of the District of Columbia Circuit to replace retiring justice Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights icon and the court's first African American justice. When introducing Thomas that day, the president called him "the best person" in the country to take Marshall's place on the court, a characterization belied, according to constitutional law expert
Michael Gerhardt Michael J. Gerhardt is the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill. He is also the director of the Center on Law and Government at the University of North Carolina a ...
, by Thomas's "limited professional distinction, with his most significant legal experiences having been a controversial tenure as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and barely more than one year of experience as a federal court of appeals judge." In 1992, Gerhardt described the Thomas nomination as "a bold political move calculated to make it more difficult for many of the same civil rights organizations and southern blacks, who opposed Judge Robert Bork's
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
nomination, to oppose Justice Thomas." He also wrote that, "in selecting Justice Thomas, President Bush returned to a practice – nominating extreme ideologues for the Supreme Court – that many hoped had ended with the Senate's rejection of Judge Bork."


Reception

Attorney General
Richard Thornburgh Richard Lewis Thornburgh (July 16, 1932 – December 31, 2020) was an American lawyer, author, and Republican politician who served as the 41st governor of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1987, and then as the United States attorney general fro ...
had previously warned Bush that replacing Thurgood Marshall, who was widely revered as a civil rights icon, with any candidate who was not perceived to share Marshall's views would make the confirmation process difficult; and the Thomas nomination filled various groups with indignation, among them the:
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
, Urban League and the National Organization for Women, who believed he would likely swing the ideological balance on the court to the right. They especially opposed Thomas's appointment because of his criticism of affirmative action and also because they were suspicious of his position on ''
Roe v. Wade ''Roe v. Wade'', 410 U.S. 113 (1973),. was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many federal and st ...
''. In the second half of the 20th century, Supreme Court nominees were customarily evaluated by a committee of the American Bar Association (ABA) before being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Hall, Kermit and McGuire, Kevin.
The Judicial Branch
', p. 155 (Oxford University Press 2006).
Anticipating that the ABA would rate Thomas poorly, the White House and Republican Senators pressured the ABA for at least the mid-level "qualified" rating, and simultaneously attempted to discredit the ABA as partisan.Senior Republicans claimed that while Thomas was well-qualified, the ABA would not support him because they asserted that the ABA had been politicized. The White House attempted to preemptively discredit the ABA as partisan, and Republican Senators threatened to bar the ABA from future participation if it gave Thomas anything less than a "qualified" rating. Ultimately, on a scale of well-qualified, qualified, or unqualified, 12 members of the
Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academ ...
voted that he was "qualified", one abstained, and the other two voted "not qualified", for an overall vote of qualified. This vote represented one of the lowest levels of support for Supreme Court nominees. Although the ABA vote was viewed as a "significant embarrassment to the Bush administration", it ultimately had little impact on Thomas's nomination.Viera, Norman and Gross, Leonard.
Supreme Court appointments: Judge Bork and the politicization of Senate Confirmations
', page 137 (SIU Press, 1998).
Some of the public statements of Thomas's opponents foreshadowed the confirmation fight that would occur. One such statement came from African-American activist attorney Florynce Kennedy at a July 1991 conference of the National Organization for Women in New York City. Referring to the failure of Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork, she said of Thomas, "We're going to 'bork' him." The liberal campaign to defeat the Bork nomination served as a model for liberal interest groups opposing Thomas. Likewise, in view of what had happened to Bork, Thomas's confirmation hearings were also approached as a political campaign by the White House and Senate Republicans.


Judiciary Committee review


Hearings

Public confirmation hearings on the Thomas nomination began on September 10, 1991, and lasted for ten days. The senators' focus as they questioned Thomas and an array of witnesses for and against the nomination was on Thomas's legal views, as expressed in his speeches, writings, and the decisions he had handed down as a federal appeals court judge. Under questioning, Thomas repeatedly asserted that he had not formulated a position on ''Roe v. Wade'', or had any conversations with anyone regarding the issue. At one point in the beginning of the proceedings, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Joe Biden asked Thomas if he believed the Constitution granted any sort of property rights to individuals as described in
Richard Epstein Richard Allen Epstein (born April 17, 1943) is an American legal scholar known for his writings on torts, contracts, property rights, law and economics, classical liberalism, and libertarianism. He is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at ...
's book ''Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain'', which had been published by Harvard University Press in 1985. Biden held the book up for Thomas to see and denounced its contents. In his book, Epstein argues that the government should be regarded with the same respect as any other private entity in a property dispute. The Cato Institute later paraphrased Biden's general line of questioning in the hearing as, "Are you now or have you ever been a
libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
?"


Committee vote

After extensive debate, the Judiciary Committee voted 13–1 on September 27, 1991, to send the Thomas nomination to the full Senate without recommendation. A motion earlier in the day to give the nomination a ''favorable'' recommendation had failed 7–7. Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas became public after the nomination had been reported out from the committee. Up to that time, there had been no public suggestion of inappropriate behavior or misconduct in Thomas's past.


Sexual harassment allegations

On October 6, 1991, after the conclusion of the confirmation hearings, and while the full Senate was debating whether to give final approval to Thomas's nomination, NPR Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg aired information from a
leaked A leak is a way (usually an opening) for fluid to escape a container or fluid-containing system, such as a tank or a ship's hull, through which the contents of the container can escape or outside matter can enter the container. Leaks are usuall ...
Judiciary Committee/ FBI report stating that a former colleague of Thomas, University of Oklahoma law school professor Anita Hill, accused him of making unwelcome sexual comments to her when the two worked together at the Department of Education (ED) and then at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). In the same FBI report, Thomas testified that he had once promoted
Allyson Duncan Allyson Kay Duncan (born September 5, 1951, in Durham, North Carolina) is a former United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She was the Fourth Circuit's first female African American judge. Backgro ...
over Hill as his chief of staff at the EEOC. It was shortly after the president selected Thomas as his nominee that Democratic committee staffers began hearing rumors that Thomas had in the past sexually harassed one or more women, and in early September that committee chairman Joe Biden asked the Bush White House to authorize an FBI investigation into Hill's charges. FBI agents interviewed Hill on September 23, and interviewed Thomas on September 25. Notwithstanding the allegations, Biden saw no reason to postpone the committee's scheduled vote on Thomas's nomination. After Totenberg's story aired, Biden quickly came under pressure to reopen the hearings, from
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Democratic women, and from various groups that had opposed the Thomas nomination earlier in the process. As a result, the final Senate vote on the nomination was postponed and the confirmation hearings were reopened. It was only the third time in the Senate's history that such an action had been taken (and had not been done since 1925, when the nomination of
Harlan F. Stone Harlan Fiske Stone (October 11, 1872 – April 22, 1946) was an American attorney and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1925 to 1941 and then as the 12th chief justice of the United States from 1941 un ...
was recommitted to the Judiciary Committee). Amid the resulting frenzy the president declared that he had "total confidence" in Thomas.


Anita Hill testimony

The morning of October 11, 1991, Hill was called to testify during the hearing. She said she was testifying as to the character and fitness of Thomas to serve on the high court and was ambivalent about whether his alleged conduct had in fact risen to the level of being illegal
sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...
. Ten years earlier, in 1981, Hill had become an attorney-adviser to Clarence Thomas at the United States Department of Education (ED). When Thomas became chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1982, Hill followed Thomas to serve as his special assistant until she resigned in mid-1983. Hill alleged in her 1991 testimony that it was during her employment at ED and EEOC that Thomas made sexually provocative statements. She testified that she followed Thomas to EEOC because " e work, itself, was interesting, and at that time, it appeared that the sexual overtures ... had ended." She also testified that she wanted to work in the civil rights field, and that she believed that "at that time the Department of Education, itself, was a dubious venture." Hill provided lurid details about Thomas's alleged inappropriate behavior at the Department of Education: "He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes ...On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess ... and made embarrassing references to a porn star by the name of Long Dong Silver". She also said that the following incident occurred later after they had both moved to new jobs at the EEOC: "Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, he got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, 'Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?"Opening Statement: Sexual Harassment Hearings Concerning Judge Clarence Thomas"
Women's Speeches from Around the World


Statements in support of Hill's allegations

Two women, Angela Wright and Rose Jourdain, made statements to Senate staffers in support of Hill. Ultimately, however, Wright and Jourdain were dismissed by the Judiciary Committee without testifying. The reasons why Wright was not called (or chose not to be called) to testify are complex and a matter of some dispute; Republican Senators wanted to avoid the prospect of a second woman describing inappropriate behavior by Thomas, while Democratic Senators were concerned about Wright's credibility and Wright herself was reluctant to testify after seeing the Committee's treatment of Hill, including Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter stating that he felt Hill's testimony was perjurious in its entirety. Witcover, Jules
Joe Biden: a life of trial and redemption
page 429 (HarperCollins, 2010).
During the Thomas nomination proceedings, Wright and Hill were the only people who publicly alleged that then-Judge Thomas had made unsolicited sexual advances, and Hill was the only one who testified to that effect. Wright, who was one of Thomas's subordinates at the EEOC until he fired her, told Senate Judiciary Committee staff that Thomas had repeatedly made comments to her much like those he allegedly made to Hill, including pressuring her for dates, asking her the size of her breasts, and frequently commenting on the anatomy of other women. Wright said that after she turned down Thomas for a date, Thomas began to express discontent with her work and eventually fired her. Thomas said that he fired Wright for poor performance and for using a homophobic epithet. Rose Jourdain also did not testify but corroborated Wright's statements, saying Wright had spoken to her about Thomas's statements at the time they were allegedly made. Jourdain stated that Wright had become "increasingly uneasy" around Thomas because of his constant commentary about her body and looks, and that Wright once came to Jourdain's office in tears as a result. Another former Thomas assistant, Sukari Hardnett, did not accuse Thomas of sexual harassment, but told the Judiciary Committee staff that "if you were young, black, female, reasonably attractive and worked directly for Clarence Thomas, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female."


Clarence Thomas testimony

The afternoon of October 11, 1991, Thomas testified that the accusations against him were false and that, "I deny each and every single allegation against me today that suggested in any way that I had conversations of a sexual nature or about pornographic material with Anita Hill, that I ever attempted to date her, that I ever had any personal sexual interest in her, or that I in any way ever harassed her." Clarence Thomas also stated that, "This is a case in which this sleaze, this dirt, was searched for by staffers of members of this committee. It was then leaked to the media. And this committee and this body validated it and displayed it in prime time over our entire nation." He called the hearing a "high tech
lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
":Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court
, ''Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library'', October 11, 1991.
Senator Orrin Hatch asked Thomas his response to Hill's graphic claims inquiring: " d you ever say in words or substance something like there is a pubic hair in my Coke?" and "Did you ever use the term 'Long Dong Silver' in conversation with Professor Hill?" Thomas firmly denied having said either, as well as denying having read '' The Exorcist'', in which the character Burke Dennings says at a party, "There appear to be an alien pubic hair floating around in my gin."


Testimony and statements in support of Thomas

In addition to Hill and Thomas, the Judiciary heard from several other witnesses over the course of three days, October 11–13, 1991. Several witnesses testified in support of Clarence Thomas and rebutted Hill's testimony. Phone logs were also submitted into the record showing contact between Hill and Thomas in the years after she left the EEOC. Among those testifying on behalf of then-Judge Thomas was Jane Campa "J.C." Alvarez, a woman who for four years was Thomas's special assistant at EEOC. Alvarez said that " e Anita Hill I knew before was nobody's victim." Alvarez went on to say that Thomas "demanded professionalism and performance." According to Alvarez, Thomas would not tolerate "the slightest hint of impropriety, and everyone knew it." Alvarez asserted that Hill's allegations were a personal move on her part to advance her own interests: "Women who have really been harassed would agree, if the allegations were true, you put as much distance as you can between yourself and that other person. What's more, you don't follow them to the next job – especially, if you are a black female, Yale Law School graduate. Let's face it, out in the corporate sector, companies are fighting for women with those kinds of credentials." Another witness who testified on behalf of then-Judge Thomas was Nancy Fitch, a special assistant historian to Thomas at EEOC, who said " ere is no way" Thomas did what Hill alleged. "I know he did no such thing", she declared. Also Diane Holt, Thomas's personal secretary for six years, said that, "At no time did Professor Hill intimate, not even in the most subtle of ways, that Judge Thomas was asking her out or subjecting her to the crude, abusive conversations that have been described. Nor did I ever discern any discomfort, when Professor Hill was in Judge Thomas's presence." Additionally, Phyllis Berry-Myers, another special assistant to Thomas, said that he "was respectful, demand ngof excellence in our work, cordial, professional, interested in our lives and our career ambitions". Berry-Myers said that her "impression" was that Professor Hill desired a greater relationship with Judge Thomas than "just a professional one". Nancy Altman who worked with Hill and Thomas at the Department of Education testified that, "It is not credible that Clarence Thomas could have engaged in the kinds of behavior that Anita Hill alleges, without any of the women who he worked closest with – dozens of us, we could spend days having women come up, his secretaries, his chief of staff, his other assistants, his colleagues – without any of us having sensed, seen or heard something." Senator
Alan K. Simpson Alan Kooi Simpson (born September 2, 1931) is an American politician and member of the Republican Party, who represented Wyoming in the United States Senate (1979–97). He also served as co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibil ...
was puzzled by why Hill and Thomas met, dined, and spoke by phone on various occasions after they no longer worked together.


Confirmation vote by the full Senate

The Senate voted 52–48 on October 15, 1991, to confirm Thomas as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. In all, Thomas won with the support of 41 Republicans and 11 Democrats, while 46 Democrats and 2 Republicans voted to reject his nomination. The 99 days that elapsed from the date Thomas's nomination was submitted to the Senate to the date on which the Senate voted whether to approve it was the second longest of the 16 nominees receiving a final vote since 1975, second only to Robert Bork, who waited 108 days. Also, the percentage of senators voting against his confirmation, (48 of 100), was the greatest against a successful nominee since 1881, when of senators (23 of 47) voted against the nomination of Stanley Matthews. Vice President Dan Quayle presided over the vote in his role as President of the Senate, prepared to cast a tie-breaking vote if needed for confirmation. Eight days after winning confirmation, on October 23, Thomas took the prescribed constitutional and judicial (set by federal law) oaths of office, and became the 106th member of the court. He was sworn in by Justice Byron White in a ceremony initially scheduled for October 21, but postponed due to the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist's wife.


Cultural impact

Public interest in, and debate over, Hill's testimony is said by some to have launched modern-day public awareness of the issue of
sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...
in the United States. Some people also link this to what is known as the
Year of the Woman The Year of the Woman was a popular label attached to 1992 after the election of a number of female senators in the United States. The term has also been used with respect to the 2018 House elections, in which a record 103 women were elected, ...
(1992), when a significant number of liberal women were simultaneously elected to Congress. Some also called these women the "Anita Hill Class". Michael Isikoff claimed the case influenced the coverage of the allegations of sexual harassment against Bill Clinton in the 1990s.


Books


Authors skeptical about Hill's accusations

Ken Foskett, an investigative reporter for the ''
Atlanta Journal-Constitution ''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger between ...
'', wrote a book about Justice Thomas in 2004. Foskett concludes that, "Although, it was plausible that Thomas said what Hill alleged, it seems implausible that he said it all in the manner Hill described." Foskett elaborates:


Undecided authors

Scott Douglas Gerber wrote a book in 1998 about the jurisprudence of Justice Thomas, and came to the following conclusion about the Anita Hill allegations: "Frankly, I do not know whom to believe." Gerber also wryly noted the reaction when an author (David Brock) who had criticized Hill did a U-turn: "the left maintains that it proves that Hill was telling the truth, while the right contends that it simply shows that Brock is an opportunist trying to sell books."


Authors supporting Hill's accusations

Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, reporters for '' The Wall Street Journal'', wrote an article for the May 24, 1993, issue of '' The New Yorker'' challenging David Brock's assertions. The two authors would later conclude in an investigative book on Thomas that "the preponderance of the evidence suggests" that Thomas lied under oath when he told the committee he had not harassed Hill. Mayer and Abramson say Biden abdicated control of the Thomas confirmation hearings and did not call Angela Wright to the stand. They report that four women traveled to Washington, D.C., to corroborate Anita Hill's claims, including Wright and Jourdain. According to Mayer and Abramson, soon after Thomas was sworn in, three reporters for '' The Washington Post'' "burst into the newsroom almost simultaneously with information confirming that Thomas's involvement with pornography far exceeded what the public had been led to believe." Toobin, Jeffrey. ''The Nine''. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 39. These reporters had eyewitness testimony and video rental records showing Thomas's interest in and use of
pornography Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,
. However, according to Jeffrey Toobin, because Thomas was already sworn in by the time the video store evidence emerged, ''The Washington Post'' dropped the story. The book by Mayer and Abramson was subsequently made into a movie. ''Strange Justice'' was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1994 and received an extraordinary amount of media attention. Conservatives like
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panned the book, while liberals such as
Mark Tushnet Mark Victor Tushnet (born 18 November 1945) is an American legal scholar. He specializes in constitutional law and theory, including comparative constitutional law, and is currently the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law Sch ...
praised it, saying it established "that Clarence Thomas lied" during the hearings. Richard Roeper of the '' Chicago Sun-Times'' called the book character assassination: "I don't care if Clarence Thomas had an inflatable doll on his sofa and a framed autograph from Long Dong Silver on the wall. Just because a man has an immature interest in dirty stuff doesn't mean he harassed anyone." David Brock wrote an article titled "
The Real Anita Hill ''The Real Anita Hill'' is a controversial 1993 book written and now disavowed by David Brock in which the author claimed to reveal the "true motives" that he has revealed he fabricated of Anita Hill, who had accused Supreme Court Justice Claren ...
" for the 1992 '' The American Spectator'' magazine and a 1993 book of the same name, arguing against her veracity. In his 2003 book titled '' Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative'' he said that he had "lied in print to protect the reputation of Justice Clarence Thomas". He also said that Thomas had used an intermediary to give him personal details on a woman who had corroborated Hill's accusations to make her retract her statement. Brock's 2003 book has an entire chapter (Chapter 5) devoted to describing his experience writing "The Real Anita Hill" article and book in the early 1990s.


Autobiographies by Hill and Thomas

In 1997, Anita Hill penned her autobiography, ''Speaking Truth To Power'', and she addressed why she filed no complaint at the time of the alleged harassment in the early 1980s: In 2007, Clarence Thomas published his memoirs, also revisiting the Anita Hill controversy. He described her as touchy and apt to overreact, and described her work at the EEOC as mediocre. He wrote: In an
op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...
piece written by Anita Hill, appearing in '' The New York Times'' on October 2, 2007, Hill wrote that she "will not stand by silently and allow ustice Thomas in his anger, to reinvent me."


Films

Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...
dramatized the confirmation hearing in '' Strange Justice'', a television film starring
Delroy Lindo Delroy George Lindo (born 18 November 1952) is an English-American actor. He is the recipient of such accolades as a NAACP Image Award, a Satellite Award, and nominations for a Drama Desk Award, a Helen Hayes Award, a Tony Award, two Critics' Cho ...
as Thomas and Regina Taylor as Hill, first aired August 29, 1999.
HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
dramatized the Senate hearing in ''
Confirmation In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. For adults, it is an affirmation of belief. It involves laying on ...
'', a television film starring Kerry Washington as Hill and Wendell Pierce as Thomas, first aired April 16, 2016. Clarence Thomas discussed his confirmation hearings and the Anita Hill allegations in the 2020 documentary ''Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words''.


See also

* George H. W. Bush Supreme Court candidates *
Senate Judiciary Committee reviews of nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States Since the creation of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Judiciary Committee) in 1816, many, but not all, nominations for the Supreme Court of the United States have been first referred to a committee for review prior to facing a confirm ...


Notes


References


Further reading

* *


External links


Thomas and Hill: Public Hearing, Private Pain
A
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episode that appeared on PBS in October 1992.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Nomination Hearings on Clarence Thomas during September-October 1991
from the United States Government Publishing Office *
Nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, September 10, 11, 12, 13, and 16, 1991. Part 1 of 4 parts. J-102-40.
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary; US Government Printing Office (1993); *
Nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, September 17 and 19, 1991. Part 2 of 4 parts. J-102-40.
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary; US Government Printing Office (1993); *
Nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, September 20, 1991. Part 3 of 4 parts. J-102-40.
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary; US Government Printing Office (1992); *
Nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, October 11, 12 and 13, 1991.
Part 4 of 4 parts. J-102-40. Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary; US Government Printing Office (1993);

at AmericanRhetoric.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Clarence, Supreme Court nomination 1991 controversies in the United States 1991 in American politics 1991 in women's history 1991 in Washington, D.C. African-American gender relations George H. W. Bush administration controversies History of women in the United States Joe Biden Nominations to the United States Supreme Court Post–civil rights era in African-American history Sexual harassment in the United States Sexual misconduct allegations Clarence Thomas