I didn’t expect an article about Anita Hill, the former clerk of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who bravely brought claims of sexual harassment before lawmakers during Thomas' confirmation hearings, to span the Tulsa race riots. I didn’t expect to learn that she once toyed with going to medical school, a dream snuffed by an adviser who told her it would be “too hard” for her. I didn’t expect New York Magazine’s Intelligencer piece “Anita Hill Wants More Than an Apology Thirty years after her groundbreaking testimony to Congress” to be anything more than what the headline suggested: a critique of President Joe Biden.
To say it simply, I was wrong. While assigning well-earned criticism to the president and promoting her new book, Believing, Hill weaved together examples of injustices that would and should otherwise be unrelated if not for the systemic regularities of racism and sexual harassment in America. Hill, a law, social policy, and women’s studies professor at Brandeis University, succinctly referred to them as abuses of power.
In the article, she admitted that even though she grew up in Oklahoma and remembers taking Oklahoma history in sixth grade, she knew nothing of the tragedy committed in Tulsa when white supremacists burned and terrorized the wealthiest Black community in the country, dubbed Black Wall Street, in 1921. “The first real conversation I had about it was with a student I taught, probably in 1984 or 1985, when I was in Tulsa [teaching law],” Hill told New York Magazine. “This was a kid who had done a paper on the Tulsa Massacre when he was in college in Wisconsin. So a white male student from Wisconsin had written this paper and people in Oklahoma didn’t know about it.”
That devastating truth wasn’t Hill’s point in its entirety. “My brother went to the same schools that I did in elementary and high school, and after the centennial anniversary, he got a call from his history teacher, who was on his sickbed in a hospital,” Hill said. “The history teacher, also a white male, called my brother to apologize for not having taught him about Tulsa. He said he didn’t know, he didn’t know, and he wanted to apologize for not knowing.”
Hill told New York Magazine, “he really wasn’t supposed to know.” That kind of knowledge doesn’t serve a system built on inequity. “So when you come down to it, we can be hurt and offended and angry, and we rightfully are, but it’s the system that is in place that is keeping us from moving forward,” Hill said. “It’s a system that is hiding the reality of our lives.”
And while in many ways that system is bigger than the presidency, Hill issued the reminder that addressing abuses of power as vast and harmful as sexual harassment is absolutely his responsibility. Biden barely acknowledged that in a call to Hill just before announcing he would be running for office in 2019. Hill told The New York Times Biden shared “his regret for what she endured” 28 years ago. At the time, she couldn’t call it an apology. But in her interview with New York Magazine she described Biden’s words as an “apology on this personal level: ‘Okay, I apologize to you,’ without acknowledging the real harm that was done, not only to all of the people who had complaints who might’ve come forward, to the people who were just disappointed that our systems failed so spectacularly, but also the ongoing harm that was being done, because this became a model, an example of how our government reacts.”
The late Sen. Arlen Specter suggested during the 1991 confirmation hearings Hill spoke at that when Thomas reportedly commented on women’s large breasts to Hill, it wasn’t that bad and happened often. “To me, [Specter’s framing] was, ‘Let’s not think of this as a systemic problem, because as a senator, I will then have the responsibility to acknowledge it: as I vote for who’s on the Supreme Court, as I propose legislation, as I vote on legislation that other people have proposed, as I see what’s going on with my colleagues in the Senate who are engaging in some of the same behavior,’” Hill told New York Magazine.
She said “to this day” the Senate Judiciary Committee does not have any procedures in place to conduct investigations into sexual harassment allegations during confirmation hearings. “So if tomorrow, there’s a Supreme Court nominee and accusations come, and there’s credible evidence, who knows if anybody would even be able to step up, because there’s no process for them to step up,” Hill said.
The caveat—a glimmer of hope—Hill highlighted in her analysis of systemic failures was New York Attorney General Letitia James' handling of the sexual harassment allegations that led fellow Democrat, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to resign. James didn't charge Cuomo, concluding that the allegations were "civil in nature," but she detailed in a 165-page report how Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women. She described how the governor engaged in "unwelcome and nonconsensual touching, as well as making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women.”
“Our investigation revealed that the Governor’s sexually harassing behavior was not limited to members of his own staff, but extended to other State employees, including a State Trooper on his protective detail and members of the public,” James said.
YouTube Video
About James’ work, Hill told New York Magazine:
RELATED: Tulsa wasn't the first or last time Black people were massacred and erased from American history
RELATED: New York attorney general concludes Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women
To say it simply, I was wrong. While assigning well-earned criticism to the president and promoting her new book, Believing, Hill weaved together examples of injustices that would and should otherwise be unrelated if not for the systemic regularities of racism and sexual harassment in America. Hill, a law, social policy, and women’s studies professor at Brandeis University, succinctly referred to them as abuses of power.
In the article, she admitted that even though she grew up in Oklahoma and remembers taking Oklahoma history in sixth grade, she knew nothing of the tragedy committed in Tulsa when white supremacists burned and terrorized the wealthiest Black community in the country, dubbed Black Wall Street, in 1921. “The first real conversation I had about it was with a student I taught, probably in 1984 or 1985, when I was in Tulsa [teaching law],” Hill told New York Magazine. “This was a kid who had done a paper on the Tulsa Massacre when he was in college in Wisconsin. So a white male student from Wisconsin had written this paper and people in Oklahoma didn’t know about it.”
That devastating truth wasn’t Hill’s point in its entirety. “My brother went to the same schools that I did in elementary and high school, and after the centennial anniversary, he got a call from his history teacher, who was on his sickbed in a hospital,” Hill said. “The history teacher, also a white male, called my brother to apologize for not having taught him about Tulsa. He said he didn’t know, he didn’t know, and he wanted to apologize for not knowing.”
Hill told New York Magazine, “he really wasn’t supposed to know.” That kind of knowledge doesn’t serve a system built on inequity. “So when you come down to it, we can be hurt and offended and angry, and we rightfully are, but it’s the system that is in place that is keeping us from moving forward,” Hill said. “It’s a system that is hiding the reality of our lives.”
And while in many ways that system is bigger than the presidency, Hill issued the reminder that addressing abuses of power as vast and harmful as sexual harassment is absolutely his responsibility. Biden barely acknowledged that in a call to Hill just before announcing he would be running for office in 2019. Hill told The New York Times Biden shared “his regret for what she endured” 28 years ago. At the time, she couldn’t call it an apology. But in her interview with New York Magazine she described Biden’s words as an “apology on this personal level: ‘Okay, I apologize to you,’ without acknowledging the real harm that was done, not only to all of the people who had complaints who might’ve come forward, to the people who were just disappointed that our systems failed so spectacularly, but also the ongoing harm that was being done, because this became a model, an example of how our government reacts.”
The late Sen. Arlen Specter suggested during the 1991 confirmation hearings Hill spoke at that when Thomas reportedly commented on women’s large breasts to Hill, it wasn’t that bad and happened often. “To me, [Specter’s framing] was, ‘Let’s not think of this as a systemic problem, because as a senator, I will then have the responsibility to acknowledge it: as I vote for who’s on the Supreme Court, as I propose legislation, as I vote on legislation that other people have proposed, as I see what’s going on with my colleagues in the Senate who are engaging in some of the same behavior,’” Hill told New York Magazine.
She said “to this day” the Senate Judiciary Committee does not have any procedures in place to conduct investigations into sexual harassment allegations during confirmation hearings. “So if tomorrow, there’s a Supreme Court nominee and accusations come, and there’s credible evidence, who knows if anybody would even be able to step up, because there’s no process for them to step up,” Hill said.
The caveat—a glimmer of hope—Hill highlighted in her analysis of systemic failures was New York Attorney General Letitia James' handling of the sexual harassment allegations that led fellow Democrat, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to resign. James didn't charge Cuomo, concluding that the allegations were "civil in nature," but she detailed in a 165-page report how Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women. She described how the governor engaged in "unwelcome and nonconsensual touching, as well as making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women.”
“Our investigation revealed that the Governor’s sexually harassing behavior was not limited to members of his own staff, but extended to other State employees, including a State Trooper on his protective detail and members of the public,” James said.
YouTube Video
About James’ work, Hill told New York Magazine:
RELATED: Tulsa wasn't the first or last time Black people were massacred and erased from American history
RELATED: New York attorney general concludes Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women