[ed. See also: Clarence Thomas's Disgraceful Silence]
It's been more than 22 years since Anita Hill sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee in that famous bright blue suit - one she could never bring herself to wear again - to make the sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas that transfixed a nation.
And much has changed since then.
But not everything.
"I hope you rot in hell," went an email that Hill, now 57 and a professor at Brandeis University, received just a few weeks ago from a member of the public.
After all this time?
"Yes," Hill says, with a resigned air. "As they go, this one was fairly mild. But it happens. And it'll happen again."
Especially now. The soft-spoken Hill, who still speaks in the same calm, precise tone many remember from 1991, has for two decades been living a quiet academic life, occasionally venturing out to speak about sexual harassment but often declining interviews.
But she's about to enter the maelstrom again with the release Friday of a new documentary, "Anita," by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Mock. After years of declining requests to collaborate on a film about her experiences, she said yes.
Why now?
Hill says she was inspired by the reactions she was getting from people as the 20th anniversary of those Supreme Court confirmation hearings approached - particularly in 2010, when news broke that she'd received a voice mail from Thomas' wife, Virginia, asking Hill to "consider an apology." (That voice mail opens the film.)
"People responded with outrage to that," Hill says. "But even more, I realized that here we are 20 years later and the issues are still resonating - in the workplace, in universities, in the military. So if 1991 could help us start a conversation, how then can we move this to another level? Because clearly we haven't eliminated the problem."
Experts agree the problem surely hasn't been eliminated. But many cite Hill's testimony as a landmark event, in both social and legal terms.
"Back then, this was an invisible issue, until Anita testified," says Marcia D. Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women's Law Center. Not only did Hill's testimony raise public consciousness about sexual harassment in the workplace, she says, and spur other women to make claims, but only months later, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which addressed issues of employment discrimination, was passed with strong support.
"That happened in direct response to the growing realization of what the American public had seen in the hearings," Greenberger contends.
It's clear that Hill became, and remains, a heroine to many women. It's also clear that while she doesn't reject it, she remains somewhat uncomfortable with the status. In an interview at a Manhattan hotel, she seems almost more excited to discuss her work preparing a strategic plan for Brandeis than her public persona.
"In some ways I'm not very well suited, I think, for that position of heroine," she says. "People do want that person who is sort of out there and vocal and adamant about who they are and what they want. But I wouldn't be credible if I didn't come to this with my own personality."
Hill says that in her day-to-day life, "1991 just doesn't figure in." Case in point: At Brandeis, many of her students don't even know about her past. Hill points out that her grad students were only children in 1991, and the undergrads weren't even born.
"It doesn't bother me," she says. "It's important to help them focus on what their learning objectives are, and not on me as a person."
It's been more than 22 years since Anita Hill sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee in that famous bright blue suit - one she could never bring herself to wear again - to make the sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas that transfixed a nation.
And much has changed since then.
But not everything.
"I hope you rot in hell," went an email that Hill, now 57 and a professor at Brandeis University, received just a few weeks ago from a member of the public.
After all this time?
"Yes," Hill says, with a resigned air. "As they go, this one was fairly mild. But it happens. And it'll happen again."
Especially now. The soft-spoken Hill, who still speaks in the same calm, precise tone many remember from 1991, has for two decades been living a quiet academic life, occasionally venturing out to speak about sexual harassment but often declining interviews.
But she's about to enter the maelstrom again with the release Friday of a new documentary, "Anita," by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Mock. After years of declining requests to collaborate on a film about her experiences, she said yes.
Why now?
Hill says she was inspired by the reactions she was getting from people as the 20th anniversary of those Supreme Court confirmation hearings approached - particularly in 2010, when news broke that she'd received a voice mail from Thomas' wife, Virginia, asking Hill to "consider an apology." (That voice mail opens the film.)
"People responded with outrage to that," Hill says. "But even more, I realized that here we are 20 years later and the issues are still resonating - in the workplace, in universities, in the military. So if 1991 could help us start a conversation, how then can we move this to another level? Because clearly we haven't eliminated the problem."
Experts agree the problem surely hasn't been eliminated. But many cite Hill's testimony as a landmark event, in both social and legal terms.
"Back then, this was an invisible issue, until Anita testified," says Marcia D. Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women's Law Center. Not only did Hill's testimony raise public consciousness about sexual harassment in the workplace, she says, and spur other women to make claims, but only months later, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which addressed issues of employment discrimination, was passed with strong support.
"That happened in direct response to the growing realization of what the American public had seen in the hearings," Greenberger contends.
It's clear that Hill became, and remains, a heroine to many women. It's also clear that while she doesn't reject it, she remains somewhat uncomfortable with the status. In an interview at a Manhattan hotel, she seems almost more excited to discuss her work preparing a strategic plan for Brandeis than her public persona.
"In some ways I'm not very well suited, I think, for that position of heroine," she says. "People do want that person who is sort of out there and vocal and adamant about who they are and what they want. But I wouldn't be credible if I didn't come to this with my own personality."
Hill says that in her day-to-day life, "1991 just doesn't figure in." Case in point: At Brandeis, many of her students don't even know about her past. Hill points out that her grad students were only children in 1991, and the undergrads weren't even born.
"It doesn't bother me," she says. "It's important to help them focus on what their learning objectives are, and not on me as a person."
by Jocelyn Noveck, AP | Read more:
Image: Greg Gibson
