Speaker 1: Pushkin High listeners. Anita Hill here, while we're hard at
Speaker 1: work on new episodes of Gettigeva, I wanted to share
Speaker 1: something special this week. It's a recent interview I did
Speaker 1: on another Pushkin show, Talk Easy, with Sam Fragoso. Every Sunday,
Speaker 1: Sam invites an artist, activists, or politician to come to
Speaker 1: the table and speak from the heart. I talked with
Speaker 1: him about growing up during the Civil rights era, witnessing
Speaker 1: the power of the court, and about following my mother's
Speaker 1: model for change. We revisit how my testimony at the
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas Confirmation Hearing encouraged survivors of sexual harassment to
Speaker 1: come forward, and what the historic confirmation Judge Katangi Brown
Speaker 1: Jackson means today. To close, I share a point that
Speaker 1: gives me hope by activists Polly Murray. You can hear
Speaker 1: more episodes of Talk Easy wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: or at talk easypod dot com. For now, here's my
Speaker 1: talk with Sam Fregosa. Anita, what did you have for
Speaker 1: breakfast today? I had granola, much healthier than I would do,
Speaker 1: but I appreciate it. When you get to be sixty five, Sam,
Speaker 1: you might want to switch to granola, but don't push it,
Speaker 1: don't rush it. I feel like by the time I
Speaker 1: reached thirty five, I may want to switch to granola. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: and you'll know when it's time. Anita Hill, thank you
Speaker 1: for being here. It's a pleasure to be talking with you. Well,
Speaker 1: I am grateful to have this opportunity with you, and
Speaker 1: I just want to jump right in because you have
Speaker 1: a new podcast called Getting Even with Anita Hill. What
Speaker 1: does getting even in this case mean and look like
Speaker 1: to you? Well, in this case, it means getting to equality.
Speaker 1: I mean, the podcast is all about equality and how
Speaker 1: we can get there. It goes beyond looking at inequalities,
Speaker 1: and there are plenty of those out there, and there's
Speaker 1: plenty of evidence of it. But I think in this moment,
Speaker 1: two years after twenty twenty and which was a year
Speaker 1: of reckoning and clarity on a lot of inequalities that
Speaker 1: we experience in society, two years later, we're ready for solutions.
Speaker 1: And there are people out there with solutions and I
Speaker 1: want them to be heard. I want them to be
Speaker 1: on my show. I want people to listen and take
Speaker 1: away a message that change is possible and that they
Speaker 1: can be a part of that change. First few episodes,
Speaker 1: you have this mini series called Reimagining nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: in which you sit with Sakari Hardnett, a witness that
Speaker 1: was never called to testify at the confirmation hearing of
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas. You also sit with Georgetown law professor Susan
Speaker 1: Dela Ross, who served on your legal team during that hearing.
Speaker 1: What has that process been like revisiting nineteen ninety one
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. Well, most recently I revisited nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one in twenty eighteen when Christine Blasi four testified
Speaker 1: and the majority of people around the country who were
Speaker 1: viewing it saw a repeat of nineteen ninety one in
Speaker 1: her testimony in the Brett Cavanaugh confirmation hearing. It's not
Speaker 1: as though I'm revisiting nineteen ninety one for the first
Speaker 1: time thirty years later. I think so often over the
Speaker 1: past thirty years, we have seen reverberations or echoes of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one in public processes. So in Revisiting, I
Speaker 1: wanted to take people back to nineteen ninety one to
Speaker 1: think about the ways that things could have been done differently,
Speaker 1: Things that were obviously available for the Senate Judiciary Committee
Speaker 1: to hear but that were never allowed into the record,
Speaker 1: including witnesses who wanted to testify, who submitted statements that
Speaker 1: were relevant to my testimony and to their own experiences.
Speaker 1: That was my way of really introducing what we should
Speaker 1: be doing now. First of all, we should be taking
Speaker 1: all of the evidence in these public hearings. We should
Speaker 1: not be excluding individuals from bringing relevant information to our
Speaker 1: public processes, especially when it comes to issues of sexual
Speaker 1: assault and sexual harassment. We should give women and any
Speaker 1: survivor or victim their words should have the same weight
Speaker 1: as the words of the nominee. And we've got to
Speaker 1: put together the processes that will make sure that things
Speaker 1: are weighted evenly. That really does kind of go to
Speaker 1: the heart of getting even How do we even the
Speaker 1: playing field? And we've got to understand that the process
Speaker 1: is important, and if we don't pay attention to the process,
Speaker 1: we are going to repeat over and over again the
Speaker 1: same problems. Well, let's unpack some of that process. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, on one, Clarence Thomas was nominated for
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court by then President Bush. Political appointees typically
Speaker 1: receive an extensive FBI background check. But that did not
Speaker 1: happen between July one of nineteen ninety one and September
Speaker 1: third of nineteen ninety one. And it's that day in
Speaker 1: September when you first received contact from the staff of
Speaker 1: Senator Howard Metzenbaum, a Democrat from Ohio. As he said
Speaker 1: in a sworn statement on page twenty nine of the
Speaker 1: Congressional Record for the Senate on October seventh, nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: Anita Hill was one of three women who worked with
Speaker 1: Thomas at the e EOC who were contacted by my staff.
Speaker 1: They were asked about a range of women's issues, including
Speaker 1: rumors of sexual harassment at the agency. I want to
Speaker 1: emphasize and point out that Miss Hill did not make
Speaker 1: an allegation against mister Thomas during that September third or
Speaker 1: September fourth conversation. On September fifth, Miss Rickey Sideman, a
Speaker 1: second labor aid working with then Democratic Senator Ten Kennedy,
Speaker 1: called you. As Kennedy said again from that Senate record
Speaker 1: I quoted from the call was a systemic review of
Speaker 1: people who had worked with Judge Thomas, and Hill indicated
Speaker 1: that she needed time to decide whether she was willing
Speaker 1: to discuss the issue, the issue being of sexual harassment.
Speaker 1: Then on September ninth, you leave a message on the
Speaker 1: phone of James Brudney, the Chief Council of Metz and
Speaker 1: Baumbs subcommittee. I want to go back to that. What
Speaker 1: were you wrestling with in those four days between September
Speaker 1: fifth and the ninth. First of all, what I was
Speaker 1: wrestling was it was the way that they had framed
Speaker 1: the question. They asked not whether I had been sexually harassed,
Speaker 1: They asked if I was aware of sexual harassment. The
Speaker 1: way the question was framed, I thought that perhaps somebody
Speaker 1: else had come forward and was I aware of that
Speaker 1: person's situation, And I was only aware of my own.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't quite sure that that's what they were
Speaker 1: asking for. And I was also grappling with the fact
Speaker 1: that these are political processes. The confirmations for the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court are highly political. That you do it sounds like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's for the Supreme Court. Everybody's concerned about the judiciary
Speaker 1: and the legal system. Well, some people are really concerned
Speaker 1: or about politics and political power and aligning with political power.
Speaker 1: And I was very concerned that this could possibly be
Speaker 1: one of those situations. Where there wasn't really any concern
Speaker 1: about sexual harassment, but there was just a chance to
Speaker 1: make political points, and I didn't want my experience to
Speaker 1: be used just for political points. In the end, I
Speaker 1: decided that I would step forward because I thought about
Speaker 1: what the process should be, and what the process is
Speaker 1: billed as is a concerted effort including an investigation into
Speaker 1: the character and fitness of a nominee for a position
Speaker 1: on the highest court in the country, and it's a
Speaker 1: lifetime position. So I decided that I did have something
Speaker 1: relevant to say about my own experience, and that if
Speaker 1: the Senate Judiciary Committee took it seriously as a process
Speaker 1: for vetting an individual's qualifications, which to me includes integrity
Speaker 1: and honesty and respect for the law, then they would
Speaker 1: take my testimony series. So you signed up because you
Speaker 1: had this kind of lingering hope about what the process
Speaker 1: could and should look like, knowing all well that the
Speaker 1: process was likely to fail. You absolutely think about it.
Speaker 1: I'm a lawyer. I was teaching law students at the time.
Speaker 1: I'd teach my law students to have respect for the
Speaker 1: law and to value process and to really understand that
Speaker 1: they should have an investment in making sure the systems work,
Speaker 1: and that means participating, not standing on the sidelines. That was,
Speaker 1: in part what was driving me. Another thing that was
Speaker 1: driving me was the fact that I grew up after
Speaker 1: the round versus Board of Education system. I'm the youngest
Speaker 1: of thirteen children. Ten of my siblings went to segregated schools.
Speaker 1: I and two of my siblings graduated from integrated schools.
Speaker 1: Our lives, our opportunities were different because of those different experiences,
Speaker 1: so I know firsthand the importance of the court. A
Speaker 1: lot of people think of the Supreme Court it's a
Speaker 1: remote out there. They don't understand their process, they don't
Speaker 1: understand their role, and they don't see how it affects
Speaker 1: their lives. But I had grown up believing that the
Speaker 1: court affected my life. I saw it was my responsibility,
Speaker 1: ultimately to at least challenge the system. You know you're
Speaker 1: talking about growing up in Oklahoma, the youngest of thirteen children.
Speaker 1: You grew up with the belief that the courts can
Speaker 1: affect change. But I also know that you grew up
Speaker 1: with the belief that, as your uncle George, your mother's brother,
Speaker 1: once said, if you talk about harm done to you,
Speaker 1: those people will use it against you. I wonder how
Speaker 1: much those words lingered inside of you in that window
Speaker 1: of time before deciding to take part in the hearing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those words are part of what we grew up with,
Speaker 1: and it's part of what my family had grown up with.
Speaker 1: And you know, I was born in nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six, their segregation was legal. Schools were
Speaker 1: being desegregated, not quickly, but we didn't have a Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Act of nineteen sixty four, so jobs were segregated,
Speaker 1: education was segregated. So it wasn't as though I grew
Speaker 1: up in a time where I didn't see that the
Speaker 1: law could do bad as well as to do good.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I realized that you have
Speaker 1: to take risk for change. I grew up through the
Speaker 1: Civil rights era. You know, it was happening on television,
Speaker 1: but what I saw was that people were taking risks,
Speaker 1: and for them, the risks meant marching with the risk
Speaker 1: of being beaten up by police. It meant people fighting
Speaker 1: for voting rights, trying to enroll black people to vote
Speaker 1: in Mississippi might die. It meant taking risks, real risk,
Speaker 1: and so I knew that there was risk. Am I
Speaker 1: coming forward, but I had this model in the back
Speaker 1: of my head that that's what it takes if you
Speaker 1: want change. I took the risk and still held out
Speaker 1: hope that some change would come. And I believe that
Speaker 1: even though the outcomes of the hearings and the vote
Speaker 1: that it clearly wasn't a change that I would have
Speaker 1: liked to have come. But change can come in different ways.
Speaker 1: That we shouldn't necessarily measure our impact by the change
Speaker 1: that comes out of the official process. And that's a
Speaker 1: lesson from nineteen ninety one, because we know that since
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, we have seen change around the issue
Speaker 1: of sexual harassment, around the issue of sexual assault, around
Speaker 1: the issue of many forms of gender violence. We've seen
Speaker 1: people from all ways of life coming forward, people of
Speaker 1: all races, people of all genders coming forward talking about
Speaker 1: their experiences in the Me Tooth movement. And I like
Speaker 1: to believe that nineteen ninety one was a part of that,
Speaker 1: But I don't want to rest on that. I want
Speaker 1: to hold that moment of risk that you took. On
Speaker 1: October eleventh, nine eleven thirty one am you sat alone
Speaker 1: in your blue linen suit in a long table in
Speaker 1: room three twenty five of the Russell Senate Office Building,
Speaker 1: and began your statement in Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearing, Mister Chairman,
Speaker 1: Senator Thurma, Members of the Committee. My name is Anita F. Hill,
Speaker 1: and I'm a professor of law at the University of Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: I was born on a farm in Oakmogee County, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty six. I am the youngest of thirteen children.
Speaker 1: When you hear that version of yourself at age thirty five,
Speaker 1: what do you here? Let the record show that I'm
Speaker 1: looking down now because I'm actually visualizing that. Let me
Speaker 1: just describe what else was going on. Yes, I was
Speaker 1: sitting at that table and I was alone. It wasn't though,
Speaker 1: that I was alone in the room. As I looked
Speaker 1: to my right, there was a bank of photographers ready
Speaker 1: to take a photo of any move that I made.
Speaker 1: I remember at one point doing a gesture to my
Speaker 1: face or something, or pulling a picking up a glass
Speaker 1: of water, and flashes, lights flashing, because everyone, I assume,
Speaker 1: thought they were going to capture a moment. I remember,
Speaker 1: of course, the bank of people sitting in front of me,
Speaker 1: the senators, all white, all male, most of them middle
Speaker 1: aged or older, many of whom were entirely incredulous, some
Speaker 1: very hostile, some ambivalent. I think everyone was actually ambivalent.
Speaker 1: Nobody wanted to be there. They didn't want me to
Speaker 1: be there anyway. But I also have a memory of
Speaker 1: my family sitting behind me, and my family and friends
Speaker 1: were there, and the people who supported me had come
Speaker 1: together like magic because they believed that I had the
Speaker 1: right to be heard. I really felt that, because my
Speaker 1: family was there, because all of those people were there,
Speaker 1: that I, in fact did have as close to a
Speaker 1: level playing field in that space as anybody could possibly get.
Speaker 1: And as long as I kept that in my head,
Speaker 1: then I was ready to proceed. You know, you mentioned
Speaker 1: some of the incredulous behavior coming from the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 1: If some of their comments were considered insensitive in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one, they're considered horrifying in twenty twenty two. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking now specifically about Senator Howell Heflin, a Democrat from Alabama.
Speaker 1: Here he is during the confirmation hearing on October twelfth
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety one. I've got to determine what your
Speaker 1: motivation might be. Are you a scorned woman? Do you
Speaker 1: have a militant attitude relative to the area of civil rights.
Speaker 1: Do you have a modern complex the issue of fantasy
Speaker 1: has arisen? Are you interested in writing a book? People
Speaker 1: will say, though, that he was not well understood line
Speaker 1: of questioning. He was trying to sort of do this
Speaker 1: tactic thing to our We'll just put all of these
Speaker 1: out here. I think the real antagonism came from people
Speaker 1: like Arlen Spector, like Alan Simpson, and like Orn Hatch. Yes,
Speaker 1: Howell Heflin, who was a Democrat from the South didn't
Speaker 1: do me any favors in a sense, But the direct
Speaker 1: hostility really came from the really snide and snarky in
Speaker 1: the looks of disdain from those individuals. And then the
Speaker 1: worst of it was also from all of the collective
Speaker 1: decision led by Joe Biden for not bringing on extra witnesses,
Speaker 1: not including all of the information. So it was a
Speaker 1: combination of things. It wasn't just one person, It was
Speaker 1: the entire culture of the Senate, and it was their
Speaker 1: lack of understanding and unwillingness to bring and experts who
Speaker 1: could inform them. It was a lack of consideration for
Speaker 1: how this hearing was impacting people around the country. And
Speaker 1: around the globe. There were so many things that were wrong.
Speaker 1: I will tell you this story quickly. You know, I've
Speaker 1: been doing some discussions in a podcasts and radio shows
Speaker 1: about a book that I wrote, and one woman who
Speaker 1: was watching the hearings in nineteen ninety one called up
Speaker 1: the radio station and said, you know, I remember nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one. She said, just hearing your voice makes me
Speaker 1: sick to the stomach now because I recall what you
Speaker 1: went through. So it was all of the above that,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of sent people into this like visceral
Speaker 1: response of what is happening here? What are our leaders doing?
Speaker 1: And can this even be possible? Even in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: I think more people today have that feeling. We've moved
Speaker 1: since in nineteen ninety one. As a public we understand
Speaker 1: that we should not have tolerated all of the innuendos,
Speaker 1: Howell Hefflin's innuendos and suggestions. We are a better country
Speaker 1: for it, and that's why I think now is the
Speaker 1: time for us to move beyond just understanding the problem
Speaker 1: and being aware that it's in existence, but now we
Speaker 1: should be talking about solutions and repairing the harm that's
Speaker 1: been done. Well, I want to talk about the solution
Speaker 1: to one problem which I think you alluded to from
Speaker 1: Senator Hatch and Senator Simpson, which is this recurrent comment
Speaker 1: if she felt unsafe in the fall of nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: one at the Department of Education, why did she go
Speaker 1: with Thomas when he went to the EOC in April
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty two. Here's Senator Simpson, the Republican from Wyoming,
Speaker 1: pursuing the same line of question. If what you say
Speaker 1: this man said to you occurred, why in God's name
Speaker 1: when he left his position of power or status or
Speaker 1: authority over you and you left it in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: why in God's name would you ever speak to a
Speaker 1: man like that the rest of your life. You describe
Speaker 1: some of the psychology of this in your book Believing.
Speaker 1: Can you speak on how that response from Thurman, Hatch
Speaker 1: and Simpson reflects a kind of collective denial of women's
Speaker 1: experiences with abuse and how we may go about fixing
Speaker 1: that problem. Well, first of all, it suggests that the
Speaker 1: behavior is so exceptional that automatically people are going to
Speaker 1: respond and leave it. And the reality is that even
Speaker 1: today there are people who are experiencing harassment who are
Speaker 1: continuing to live in those situation and work in those
Speaker 1: situations because they don't feel they have any other real choices.
Speaker 1: I knew that Clarence Thomas was an individual who was
Speaker 1: powerful enough to eliminate my livelihood with a single call.
Speaker 1: He could make sure that I did not have a job.
Speaker 1: And I knew that. And at the time that I
Speaker 1: went to the department, I left the Department of Education
Speaker 1: and went to the EOC, some of the behavior had
Speaker 1: actually stopped. It picked up again that part. I don't
Speaker 1: even understand how it picked up again, but I do
Speaker 1: understand that I kept wanting nothing more than the behavior
Speaker 1: to stop. And I knew that leaving would be a
Speaker 1: risk because I would still have to find another job.
Speaker 1: And I knew that leaving wouldn't necessarily mean that I
Speaker 1: would go to another job where there would be no harassment,
Speaker 1: because there is harassment at a lot of jobs. What
Speaker 1: you saw in those senators all very powerful men, all
Speaker 1: of them very wealthy. It would have been in their
Speaker 1: power bubble for so long that they didn't understand vulnerability,
Speaker 1: that they didn't understand any kind of vulnerability, let alone
Speaker 1: the vulnerability of a young twenty five year old working
Speaker 1: in one of our very first professional jobs in a
Speaker 1: place like Washington, DC. And I think that's a huge
Speaker 1: gap between our leadership and where the average worker is
Speaker 1: because I now know the rates of harassment for young
Speaker 1: people people in that age group that I was in
Speaker 1: when I was working for Thomas. I know how high
Speaker 1: the rates are, regardless of whether they moved from a
Speaker 1: job you stay. So I think what is missing the
Speaker 1: conversation about why do women stay? I think what is
Speaker 1: missing is the question of why don't our leaders understand
Speaker 1: the experiences of workers everywhere who are not as powerful
Speaker 1: as they are, who don't have the resources to bounce back,
Speaker 1: whose jobs are not as secure as theirs. Leaders who
Speaker 1: can look at situations from the perspective of the people
Speaker 1: who are marginalized or more vulnerable. We should expect that
Speaker 1: of our representation. If it were truly represented in Congress,
Speaker 1: then we would have had somebody who understood what my
Speaker 1: experience was, and they wouldn't have had to ask the
Speaker 1: questions in the way that they asked them, and maybe
Speaker 1: not even had to ask them at all. And if
Speaker 1: they did have to ask them, they should have had
Speaker 1: an expert help them understand. I'd like to better understand
Speaker 1: your experience, because, as you write in your book, believing
Speaker 1: survivors insulate themselves with their own form of denial by
Speaker 1: adamantly rejecting the notion that they are vulnerable. They develop
Speaker 1: a thick skin to defend themselves against being labeled as snowflakes,
Speaker 1: not tough enough, over sensitive, and in some cases that
Speaker 1: means denying that their own pain exists or that it matters,
Speaker 1: either before, during, or after the hearing. Do you think
Speaker 1: you participated in some of that insulation? Oh, absolutely I did.
Speaker 1: That feeling that I'm describing in the book doesn't come
Speaker 1: from our heads. It comes from the culture. The culture
Speaker 1: that tells us throughout our lives that what we're experiencing
Speaker 1: isn't so bad, That tells us, you know, just get
Speaker 1: over it, or don't make a big deal out of it.
Speaker 1: Those are the voices that we have heard. So when
Speaker 1: we encounter these experiences, that's what comes back to us.
Speaker 1: Give this example of the things that we tell children,
Speaker 1: and there is an enormous amount of harassment of children
Speaker 1: in elementary school, and it can escalate as it moves
Speaker 1: up to high school grades and then of course in college,
Speaker 1: but often where there is a male who is being
Speaker 1: accused of being abusive and a female who is a victim,
Speaker 1: you hear two things. One you hear, well, boys will
Speaker 1: be boys, and that's just what boys do. So in
Speaker 1: that instance, we're telling the victim to accept bad behavior
Speaker 1: because it's inevitable, and we're telling the abuser that bad
Speaker 1: behavior is acceptable. So that's one message. The other message
Speaker 1: is that we tell young girls that boys behave in
Speaker 1: these kinds of abusive and sometimes violent ways because they
Speaker 1: like them. And in that sense, we're telling girls that
Speaker 1: they should welcome a certain level of aggressive, in even
Speaker 1: violent attention because it's a sign of their attractiveness and
Speaker 1: that they should be submissive to it. Now, what we
Speaker 1: are also again telling boys, is that that's the way
Speaker 1: that you show your interest, and it's an acceptable way
Speaker 1: of showing interest. And so we have to deal with
Speaker 1: this as a cultural issue. Instead of telling boys that
Speaker 1: this is, you know, okay, because you know you're a
Speaker 1: boy and you'll just grow out of it, we should
Speaker 1: be teaching more positive ways to interact with folks, that
Speaker 1: aggression is not the answer to social relationships. You know,
Speaker 1: we could talk endlessly just about what's going on in
Speaker 1: our elementary schools. If we don't understand three things. First
Speaker 1: of all, the cultural issues that allow for gender violence
Speaker 1: and aggression. We aren't understanding the systems that are in
Speaker 1: place that are supposed to be protecting people against it,
Speaker 1: but really are allowing it to happen. Systems like what
Speaker 1: happened in nineteen ninety one and twenty eighteen, and institutions
Speaker 1: that support it, like the US Senate, like the Senate
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee, that support really and sort of house this
Speaker 1: culture in the systems. And so those are the things
Speaker 1: that we have to deal with as a society if
Speaker 1: we're going to get beyond where we are. But right now,
Speaker 1: what we do is we have systems that put the
Speaker 1: entire burden of understanding the problem on the victims, and
Speaker 1: as a society, we don't take responsibility for even understanding
Speaker 1: what they're going through. And that needs to change. But
Speaker 1: I think that there are, you know, there's signs that
Speaker 1: we are changing. And the response to Christine blassie Fort
Speaker 1: was very different from the response to me. It took
Speaker 1: a while to get to the response, but the immediate
Speaker 1: response was in Brett Kavanaugh in a majority of the
Speaker 1: population Brett Kavanaugh should not be confirmed. That didn't happen
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one. You know, it's a process of
Speaker 1: the society really listening and understanding and hearing from many
Speaker 1: people who have survived various forms of abuse. I think
Speaker 1: many people watched the twenty eighteen Justice Kavanaugh hearings and
Speaker 1: felt it was eerily similar to nineteen ninety one. You
Speaker 1: mentioned the cultural response had changed, But something you write
Speaker 1: in your book is that one of the things that
Speaker 1: are not changed were the structures. And if you don't
Speaker 1: change the process, you're going to continue to get the
Speaker 1: same outcomes. Now. Of course, the twenty eighteen Senate Judiciary
Speaker 1: Committee had more gender and racial diversity, and yet in
Speaker 1: spite of that diversity, they reached the same outcome the
Speaker 1: committee reached in nineteen ninety one. Why do you think
Speaker 1: we often focus on making changes in personnel over changes
Speaker 1: in process because it's easier. It's easier for us to
Speaker 1: believe that all this is is a behavioral issue instead
Speaker 1: of a structural issue. What does that mean, Well, it
Speaker 1: means that we don't even think about the process. For
Speaker 1: one thing. We just think that, okay, if we put
Speaker 1: better people or more sensitive people in a position to
Speaker 1: hear a case, then they'll come up with the right decision,
Speaker 1: because it's just about, you know, evaluating behavior. But all
Speaker 1: the evaluations of behavior take place through the lens of
Speaker 1: a process. So in twenty eighteen, when we had an
Speaker 1: investigation into Christine blasi Ford's complaint, you still had it
Speaker 1: filtered through a lens and a process. For an example,
Speaker 1: the President of the United States could say, well, we
Speaker 1: don't have to call any additional witnesses, we don't have
Speaker 1: to take any into context. We are going to limit
Speaker 1: the number of people that the investigators talk to, cutting
Speaker 1: out any number of different voices that might have confirmed
Speaker 1: what she was saying, or maybe even confirmed what are
Speaker 1: you was saying. That is a flawed process. If the
Speaker 1: process is flawed, if you don't give people the information
Speaker 1: that they need, then it doesn't matter who the people are,
Speaker 1: they're not going to be able to necessarily change the outcome.
Speaker 1: I think what we have to do is to create
Speaker 1: structures that will prevent the kind of conflicts of interest,
Speaker 1: the power alignments that occur not because they don't believe
Speaker 1: a witness or because the information doesn't exist, but because
Speaker 1: it's just easier to side with the powerful people and
Speaker 1: exclude the information if it's inconsistent with what the person
Speaker 1: in power. In twenty eighteen, that person was Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: But think about this. Sam nineteen ninety one, Senator Grassley
Speaker 1: was on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Thirty years later, he
Speaker 1: was chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee. In nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: he vowed that he would put in place a process
Speaker 1: that would prevent nineteen ninety one from half again. In
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, instead of introducing that new process, he doubled
Speaker 1: down on the old one. And he did it because
Speaker 1: he could do it, because the system allowed him to
Speaker 1: do it. I think, if we really want to have
Speaker 1: some assurance that this is not going to happen again,
Speaker 1: whether it's a Supreme Court nominee or some nominee for
Speaker 1: another position, if we want some insurance, we will encourage
Speaker 1: our representatives to provide a platform that is a level
Speaker 1: platform so that individuals can come forward. Right now, the
Speaker 1: balance of power is always going to be against victims,
Speaker 1: and we should not have that in our highest bodies
Speaker 1: of the government. Putting a pause on the conversation will
Speaker 1: be right back with Anita him coming back. You were
Speaker 1: talking about the time between nineteen ninety one and twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen percenter Grassley, But I'm curious about that time between
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one and twenty nineteen. For Joe Biden. In
Speaker 1: ninety one, he was the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, he was weighing a presidential bid for
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election. In March of twenty nineteen, you
Speaker 1: sat in a hotel room in Houston, Texas, waiting for
Speaker 1: a conversation that was nearly twenty eight years in the making,
Speaker 1: and then the phone rang. What happened on that call
Speaker 1: between you and Joe Biden, Well, the former vice president.
Speaker 1: Biden introduced himself, you're being awfully polite about this. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a certain kind of politeness that occurs. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a deference to the position of a former
Speaker 1: vice president. I don't know, but maybe it's just my
Speaker 1: deference to being open to hear. He had been asked
Speaker 1: repeatedly by journalists when he was going to apologize. He
Speaker 1: had said that he owed me an apology, so I
Speaker 1: was open to hearing. I was approached beforehand about whether
Speaker 1: I would take a call, and I said, of course,
Speaker 1: I'll take a call now. Keep in mind that it
Speaker 1: was almost thirty years then, and I had really worked
Speaker 1: through a lot of what I had to work through
Speaker 1: after nineteen ninety one, and so I was open to
Speaker 1: hearing from him. And he did say that he was
Speaker 1: very sorry about what happened to me, and that he
Speaker 1: took responsibility for what happened to me in that process.
Speaker 1: How I still don't think he understood, or he certainly
Speaker 1: didn't articulate to me that he understood what had happened
Speaker 1: to many other people who were watching. And many of
Speaker 1: those people I had heard from since nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: and they had told me about how much it hurt
Speaker 1: to watch those hearings and how they felt that if
Speaker 1: I couldn't breakthrough, they would have no chance of breaking through.
Speaker 1: I had heard from people on the whole whole range
Speaker 1: of behaviors, and including very early on an incest survivor
Speaker 1: who said that that Senate Judiciary Committee reminded him of
Speaker 1: his family when he had told his family about being
Speaker 1: abused by a family member, and his parents rejected his
Speaker 1: complaint and sided with the abuser, And how that hearing
Speaker 1: resonated with him and brought back those memories. On that
Speaker 1: phone call you mentioned, which came in the winter of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, he said to you, you've opened a
Speaker 1: whole can of worms. Yes, he said, I had opened
Speaker 1: a whole can of worms, because up to that time
Speaker 1: I had been thinking about sexual harassment, and I had
Speaker 1: heard from many sexual harassment victims. But I started to
Speaker 1: read the letters and I realized that they weren't limited
Speaker 1: to sexual harassment victims. Even before then, when I got
Speaker 1: the call and this man said to me that he
Speaker 1: had been abused and that I had opened a whole
Speaker 1: can of worms, I realized that the experience of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one wasn't my experience alone. It wasn't just harassment,
Speaker 1: It wasn't just women. It was a whole range of people,
Speaker 1: and that in that call in twenty nineteen, it just
Speaker 1: seemed as though Joe Biden didn't recognize that that he
Speaker 1: thought it was just about me, and that he hadn't
Speaker 1: absorbed fact that people all over the country were hurt
Speaker 1: by nineteen ninety one, and I found later that it
Speaker 1: wasn't just people around the country, as people around the globe.
Speaker 1: That's was what I was hoping he would understand at
Speaker 1: that point he was wanting to be the President of
Speaker 1: the United States. As a leader of this country, I
Speaker 1: wanted him to be able to address the harm that
Speaker 1: was done to the country. That was my big disappointment
Speaker 1: that it did not happen that way. I accept the
Speaker 1: apology for what happened to me, but I cannot rest
Speaker 1: knowing that part of the reason that the apology was
Speaker 1: possible was because he could pretend that the rest of
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. Part of your surprise seems to come
Speaker 1: from the fact that he couldn't recognize all of those experiences,
Speaker 1: in part because you received those phone calls, not him. You.
Speaker 1: It was a burden you carried that he and the
Speaker 1: rest of this Judiciary committee thrust it upon you in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. It was your burden suddenly something they created,
Speaker 1: and I just wonder how you sit with that. Well,
Speaker 1: it should have been their burden. Yeah, it should have
Speaker 1: been their burden. It should have been their burden. And
Speaker 1: when someone who says I'm an incest survivor and You've
Speaker 1: opened a whole can of worms, I don't take that lightly.
Speaker 1: I still remember that conversation. I'll never forget that conversation.
Speaker 1: It puts a responsibility because it was my testimony, but
Speaker 1: it was not just my testimony. It was their response
Speaker 1: to my testimony. And that's why it should be their
Speaker 1: burden too. And that's why I believe that Joe Biden
Speaker 1: should be responding to what happened in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: It's never too late to own these issues in our
Speaker 1: roles in them, and he should own his. And what
Speaker 1: that means for somebody who is a senator or vice
Speaker 1: president is different from what it means is someone who
Speaker 1: is the president who can put in place measures, who
Speaker 1: can call cabinet members to say, we need you to
Speaker 1: put together a plan for not only how you're going
Speaker 1: to address gender violence as it exists, but how you
Speaker 1: are going to work to prevent it, especially when we're
Speaker 1: talking about the situations in elementary schools, so we are
Speaker 1: passing along a problem to a generation, and I think
Speaker 1: that every leader in this country ought to be putting
Speaker 1: together a plan for how they're going to make sure
Speaker 1: that we don't. Can I ask you just a personal question,
Speaker 1: that burden that you've carried a can of worms that
Speaker 1: you in fact did not open. Has it weighed you down.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, yeah, it does weigh me down. I
Speaker 1: feel like people are counting on me. But you know,
Speaker 1: I also think it's a great privilege. Again, I go
Speaker 1: back to the era that I grew up in and
Speaker 1: the fact that, you know, I've watched people on TV
Speaker 1: who are bearing burdens heavier than mine, at least visibly heavier,
Speaker 1: during the Civil rights movement, and I think it's a
Speaker 1: great privilege to be able to after thirty years, to
Speaker 1: still be in there trying to make it better. And
Speaker 1: so when I look at it that way, I don't
Speaker 1: focus on the burden so much as I focus on
Speaker 1: the privilege that I have and the opportunity that I
Speaker 1: have to take advantage of to move us along so
Speaker 1: that maybe it happens less, or maybe it happens a
Speaker 1: lot less. I don't spend a lot of time thinking
Speaker 1: about the burden because right now I'm maybe at the
Speaker 1: end of my career, and I want to focus as
Speaker 1: much time and attention as I have to making sure
Speaker 1: that no one else has to carry this burden, whether
Speaker 1: their own individual situation or the problem of society as
Speaker 1: a whole waiting on them. We've been circling that phone
Speaker 1: call with President Biden. In your book, you said mostly
Speaker 1: Biden talked and I listened. Do you think his nomination
Speaker 1: of Judge Katangi Brown Jackson is his way of finally
Speaker 1: listening to you. I don't know. I would like to
Speaker 1: think that that's part of it, but that's not all
Speaker 1: of it. That's not all of it. Yes, this nomination
Speaker 1: of Judge Jackson is monumental. I mean, it's historic, and
Speaker 1: I'm elated that we're going to have a different kind
Speaker 1: of representation on the court, because judicial representation does matter.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what kind of judge she'll be
Speaker 1: or how she's going to show up in the space
Speaker 1: as a justice on the Supreme Court if she's confirmed.
Speaker 1: But I know that having a perspective can change everything. Oh,
Speaker 1: we only have to cite Bruce Bader Ginsburg. We have
Speaker 1: to say Justice Sonya Sotomayor. They have changed the conversation
Speaker 1: and sometimes in the dissent, putting in place reasoning that
Speaker 1: will move us forward in the future. That's one thing,
Speaker 1: but that's not all of it. You know. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I say, just about gender violence, generally
Speaker 1: we look at it in two ways. Either as a
Speaker 1: health issue or as a criminal justice issue. Well, the
Speaker 1: issues are well beyond that. You know, the problem reflects
Speaker 1: economic issues, it reflects cultural issues, It reflects transportation, it
Speaker 1: reflects housing, it reflects education, of course, and I think
Speaker 1: we need to do a comprehensive assessment on audit, if
Speaker 1: you will, of our government agencies and who should be
Speaker 1: in this company station to address the part of it
Speaker 1: that affects them. Let me give you one example. Ten
Speaker 1: million people will be affected by gentlemen partner violence in
Speaker 1: this country, ten million every year. A third of those
Speaker 1: people will become homeless because of that, Think about all
Speaker 1: of the ways that they're going to be affected. If
Speaker 1: they have children, their education will be affected. If they
Speaker 1: have a job, their job may be affected if they
Speaker 1: become homeless. We don't have a comprehensive plan to address
Speaker 1: even what happens after. But I also think that we
Speaker 1: need to be addressing some things in ways that will
Speaker 1: prevent the problems from happening. And we know that people
Speaker 1: are vulnerable to violence based on income, low income people,
Speaker 1: So how do we make sure that that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: Is it a matter of increasing income, Is it a
Speaker 1: matter of putting it into place other kinds of labor
Speaker 1: protections or other kinds of civil rights protection that really
Speaker 1: speak to the experiences of low income people or contract workers.
Speaker 1: So I think that there is so much more to
Speaker 1: be done, but somebody has to be at the top,
Speaker 1: and that person who is at the top has to
Speaker 1: commit to making this a priority. There's so much more
Speaker 1: to be done, and it sounds like, despite everything that's
Speaker 1: happened to you, that you hold out hope that it
Speaker 1: will be done. I do. I've seen a country move forward.
Speaker 1: I know people are ready for change. I mean, we
Speaker 1: had this moment of reckoning around inequalities in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: where all of these inequities were revealed through the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that was revealed was through
Speaker 1: a spike in intimate partner violence. Well, what that says
Speaker 1: to me, it's not just that a pandemic causes intimate
Speaker 1: partner violence. What it says is that some people are
Speaker 1: living in situations where something could happen like a pandemic,
Speaker 1: like a lockdown, like an economic down to her that
Speaker 1: will put them at bodily risk. And so, yes, you know,
Speaker 1: we have this moment where we had the Me Too movement,
Speaker 1: where we've had Black Lives Matter, where we have this
Speaker 1: cry for a different way to address inequalities. And when
Speaker 1: it comes down to it, gender violence, sexual harassment, sexual
Speaker 1: assault in many ways comes from gender inequality. So how
Speaker 1: do we address those things? I am hopeful because I
Speaker 1: think we have come so far, and I hope that
Speaker 1: means that we are really ready to take the next
Speaker 1: step and demand real change. That hope you have today,
Speaker 1: I wonder how much of that comes from your mother.
Speaker 1: She was born in nineteen eleven and the Jim Crow
Speaker 1: South in a country that did not recognize her right
Speaker 1: to vote. And yet you say, and insisting that her
Speaker 1: children get an educatecasion that far exceeded the opportunities available
Speaker 1: to them at the time, she showed her belief that
Speaker 1: the world would change for the better and that her
Speaker 1: children would be prepared to enjoy the benefits. And thinking
Speaker 1: about your work, do you see yourself as continuing the
Speaker 1: work your mother was doing for you? I'm following in
Speaker 1: her footsteps, I'm following her model, and I'm expanding it.
Speaker 1: I don't have biological children. We were her platform. Our
Speaker 1: household was her platform. She had control over that and
Speaker 1: she knew she couldn't control all the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: but she could give her children something that would change
Speaker 1: their lives. I feel like I have a platform that
Speaker 1: she never had to work outside of my own immediate family.
Speaker 1: I feel I had the opportunity. I feel that I
Speaker 1: have public sentiment and support with me, and so, Yes,
Speaker 1: my world is different for my mother's, but the model
Speaker 1: is the same. How do we prepare people even though
Speaker 1: we know that the opportunities aren't immediately available. We want
Speaker 1: them to be ready when the future comes and the
Speaker 1: opportunities are there. Throughout her life, she held on the hope,
Speaker 1: and you have to. No matter how frequently it has
Speaker 1: been tested, both in public and in private, it has
Speaker 1: remained in you and all of your work. Before we go,
Speaker 1: I thought perhaps we could read a poem on the subject,
Speaker 1: a piece that I know means a great deal to you. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is a poem, Dark Testament. It's verse eight, and
Speaker 1: it's a poem written by Polly Murray. Hope is a
Speaker 1: crushed stack between clenched finger's Hope is a bird's wing
Speaker 1: broken by a stone. Hope is a word and a
Speaker 1: tuneless ditty, a word whispered with the wind, a dream
Speaker 1: of forty acres and a mule, a cabin of one's own,
Speaker 1: and a moment to rest, A name and place for
Speaker 1: one's children and children's children. At last, Hope is a
Speaker 1: song and a weary throat. Give me a song of
Speaker 1: hope and a world where I can sing it. Give
Speaker 1: me a song of faith and a people to believe
Speaker 1: in it. Give me a song of kindliness and a
Speaker 1: country where I can live it. Give me a song
Speaker 1: of hope and love and a brown girl's heart to
Speaker 1: hear it. What did that poem make you think of? Oh?
Speaker 1: You know, I do focus on that song hope. It's
Speaker 1: a song and a weary throat, And I don't think
Speaker 1: of myself necessarily as an optimist. When I think of
Speaker 1: that phrase alone, I think and concentrate on the song,
Speaker 1: not the weary throat, because we will get weary and
Speaker 1: there will be chances for us to rest. But as
Speaker 1: long as we have a song, we have hope. I
Speaker 1: will keep thinking it. I will always remain hopeful no
Speaker 1: matter how we are Again, well, I thank you for
Speaker 1: that song, for all that you've done in the last
Speaker 1: sixty five years of your life. I don't know where
Speaker 1: we'd be without you, But I'm very grateful to be
Speaker 1: passing through in this time with you. Thank you. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1: That gives me hope. Anita Hill, thank you for sitting
Speaker 1: with me. It's a pleasure and that's our show special
Speaker 1: thanks to Nicole Mrano and of course, Professor Anita Hill.
Speaker 1: You can hear her new podcast, Getting Even with Anita
Speaker 1: Hill wherever you like to listen. To learn more about
Speaker 1: Anita's work, visit our show notes at talk easypod dot com.
Speaker 1: On the site, you'll find our back catalog of over
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