WEBVTT - For Anita Hill, the work is never done 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.000 Hi, everybody. I'm Katie Couric and this is next question, 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:12.799 Mr Chairman, Senator Thurman, Members of the Committee. My name 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.160 is Anita F. Hill and I'm a professor. This fall 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:20.600 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:26.320 I was introduced to now Judge Thomas by a mutual friend. 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:32.440 On October eleven, Anita Hill testified before Congress that the 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:36.400 Supreme Court nominee had sexually harassed her when they worked 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:41.120 together at two government agencies a decade before. What happened 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:45.400 next and telling the world about it are the two 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.559 most difficult things experiences of my life. It was a 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:54.000 truly historic moment. It's hard to even imagine now given 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.040 the past couple of years and the advent of Me Too. 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.480 But before Anita Hill shared her d tailed testimony in 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.720 front of an all white male panel, the term sexual harassment, 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.959 let alone the act of it, had never really been 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:13.240 talked about publicly and in front of a television audience. 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.920 That was a turning point. It brought sexual harassment into 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:21.520 the national conversation in a way it had not been before. 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:28.480 Countless women, I think, identified with the experiences that Anita 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:33.000 Hill spoke about very movingly, very powerfully at the hearing. 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:38.040 Debor Turkheimer is a law professor at Northwestern University. She's 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.560 also the author of the new book Credible, Why We 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:47.200 Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers. Way back when sexual harassment 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.840 wasn't even a term that anyone recognized. It had to 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:54.120 be coined before there could be this common vernacular, and 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.720 people could then begin to identify their experiences as experiences 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.520 that other people had to other, particularly women in the workplace, 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.040 particularly vulnerable, marginalized women in the workplace, that this was 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:10.120 something that wasn't idiosyncratic, it was patterned and and there 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:14.160 were commonalities to it. And so this consciousness raising is 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.520 a really important aspect of of sort of what feminism is. 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:23.160 And then when you have a high profile event like 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:27.360 the Anita Hill testimony, and you have the the the 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:33.000 entire country transfixed and processing and reaching you know, different conclusions, 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:37.760 but nevertheless focused on this as an issue, I think 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:44.720 it does really galvanized new understandings and important conversations. After 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.679 a brief discussion of work, he would turn the conversation 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:52.560 to a discussion of sexual matters. His conversations were very 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:57.880 vivid on several occasions, Thomas tomy graphically of his own 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:04.080 sexual prowess. This was a really important step in the 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:09.560 direction of societal acknowledgement that this is a problem, and 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.840 a sense on the part of sexual harassment victims that 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.120 this doesn't have to be tolerated, that this isn't something 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.600 that is normalized. It's not something that's okay. Now that 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:26.480 doesn't mean that victims will necessarily come forward. There are 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.480 lots of reasons why that's going to be difficult. But 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:35.000 more so than before her testimony, I think victims of 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:41.320 workplace harassment understood that this was not okay. How reliable 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:48.040 is your testimony in October on events that occurred eight 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.040 and years ago? How sure can you expect this committee 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:56.000 to be on the accuracy of your statement. I guess 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.280 one really does have to understand something about the nature 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:05.080 of sexual harassment. Um, it is very difficult for people 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:09.520 to come forward with these She came forward having worked 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.360 at the e o C, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:20.080 under Clarence Thomas, having, she said, experienced some fairly serious 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.800 sexual harassment at his hands. He commented on what I 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:25.880 was wearing in terms of whether it made me more 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.400 or less sexually attractive? Who has put pubic hair on 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.279 my coat? He referred to the size of his own 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.680 penis as being larger than normal, and he also spoke 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.760 on some occasions of the pleasure. So when Anita Hill 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:44.080 came forward and told her story, she was treated horribly. 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:48.120 She was treated horribly by the senators who were responsible 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:52.600 for conducting these hearings. It is appropriate to ask Professor 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:58.000 Hill anything any member wishes to ask her. Are you 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:00.760 a scorned woman? Do you have have anything to gain 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.200 by coming here is to plumb the depths of her credibility? 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.680 Are you interested in writing a book? You testify this 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:15.359 morning that the most embarrassing question involved this is not 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.280 too bad women's large breast. That's the word we use 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.560 all the time. The witness did not say anything to 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:28.640 the FBI about the described size of his penis, the 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.440 description of the movie Long Dong Silver. You are not 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:39.159 now drawing a conclusion the judge Thomas sexually harassed you. Yes, 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.520 I am joining that conclusion that I don't understand. Pardon 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:48.800 me that I don't understand. This is an example of 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.799 the credibility complex kicked into high gear. This was someone 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.440 who was coming forward against a very powerful man who 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.279 was seen by many as having an entitlement to this 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:04.120 Supreme Court justiceship, to having an entitlement to sit on 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:06.240 the highest court of the land for the for the 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.000 rest of his of his career. And nothing was going 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.960 to disrupt that. The status quo was was not going 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:18.120 to be upended. Even when someone with the I would 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:22.960 say authority on the credibility of an Anita Hill came forward, 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:27.000 it wasn't going to change the course of events. Clarence 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.200 Thomas was of course confirmed to the Supreme Court since 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:34.520 as a justice today, and that experience was so difficult 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:39.720 for many Americans to watch, for many women, in particular 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.840 women who had experienced their own workplace harassment and women 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.000 who had just lived in the world and felt this 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:50.600 to be a very familiar experience. I think I just 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:56.160 felt deeply wounded on her behalf. When I recently sat 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.240 down with Anita Hill, she told me that she heard 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:03.560 from those women men. When I testified, this woman wrote 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.640 me and said, there will be waves of women behind you. 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:14.960 I immediately started hearing from thousands of people. I mean, 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.120 the letters were coming in in flood, and those women 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:24.360 changed the course of her life. I thought after the 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:28.280 hearing that I could just get back to my life, 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.760 and that wasn't possible. It was not going to be 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:37.520 the same. Coming up my conversation with Anita Hill on 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:41.280 her thirty year work to engender violence, her new book, 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:46.160 and the lasting impact of her testimony thirty years later. 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.560 I'm close up this morning the Clarence Thomas nomination. When 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.200 the Ane to Hill Clarence Thomas controversy unfolded in September 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.920 of nine, I was the newly appointed co anchor on 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.560 the Today Show. The Senate is to vote tonight on 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:12.840 whether Thomas should get a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.800 but a charge that Thomas sexually harassed one of his 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.080 employees a decade ago has fueled new last minute debate 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.920 over the nomination. The Clarence Thomas nomination had seemed all 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:27.040 that assured until rumors of his past behavior spurred a 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:31.680 federal investigation. Behind the scenes of the public hearings, Anita 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.240 Hill was privately interviewed by the FBI, and her statement 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.640 was leaked to the press. On October seven, she came 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:43.280 forward publicly and said she would testify. I interviewed her 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.160 on October eight. Why do you think we're not hearing 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.320 about this or we didn't hear about this until the 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:51.280 eleventh hour? What took so long from that date until 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:58.160 these charges actually surfaced publicly. I don't believe that, um, 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.640 they were necessarily taken seriously. I think this is part 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.840 of what the frustration that I'm experiencing, and then a 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.520 lot of women are experiencing that these kinds of UH 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:17.000 claims and are in statements are not taking seriously. Anita 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:21.040 health testimony forced the country to confront sexual harassment, to 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:26.440 take accusations seriously for the first time. When I sat 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.720 down recently with Anita, we talked about how far we 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:35.440 have and haven't come all these years later. I remember 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.760 covering your testimony and it was really the first time 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:45.520 people talked openly and understood what sexual harassment was about. 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:50.000 And since then, whether you're talking about me too, and 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.480 the reckoning that took place in the last three years, 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.560 it has really gotten to be out in the open. 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:03.560 And yet it feels we haven't made enough progress. Why 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:07.400 do you think with so much awareness we haven't made 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:12.240 more progress. One of the things that we do very 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:17.000 often is we depersonalize it. We you know, we talk 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.880 about the numbers, you know one and four college students 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:25.440 will be sexually harassed or assault and account college campuses, 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:27.960 And what we should be saying is that we send 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:34.599 their children to school every year in September, and in reality, 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.760 we know that that daughter or that niece, or that 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:45.000 cousin or sister is very likely to become a victim 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:50.160 of sexual harassment or assault in that space. We know 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.440 that in the numbers are even worse for those who 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.800 don't go to college. But people want to depersonalize that. 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.560 They don't want to think about the fact that when 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.720 you talk about ten million people per year who will 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:08.440 experience intimate partner violence, people don't want to think about 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:12.800 the fact that with a number that large, you're talking 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:17.440 about people who are in York community. You're talking about 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:21.840 somebody who maybe waits on you at a restaurant, or 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:26.760 somebody who's teaching your children in school. So these are 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:32.080 people who you know could be somebody in your own family. 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:37.120 So we we depersonalize it, and because of that, we 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:41.120 pretend not to see it. The other reason I think 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:46.960 that we haven't done more about it is because we have, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.880 over the course of our lives, been groomed to believe 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.240 that it's not such a big problem. Um. Well, we 0:11:55.480 --> 0:12:01.760 hear people tell girls, especially you know, that behavior that 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:06.600 they find that makes them uncomfortable or find even offensive 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:10.920 isn't really that bad. It's not so bad. Deal with 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.360 it and deal with it, or you know, you know, 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:16.920 boys do it because they like it, or that's just 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.240 what boys do. And sometimes that language can escalate that 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:25.280 it's not just deal with it, or it's more you know, 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:27.800 if you if you don't shut your mouth, you're going 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.920 to get in trouble. So there are ways that we 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:37.720 prepare not only girls just to live with this problem 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:46.280 and not complain, we're also preparing abusers to accept their 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:51.120 own bad behavior and expect that other people will tolerate it. 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:55.760 And what we heard when we got those nineteen million 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:01.520 tweets um with me too, with the hashtag too, was 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.360 that it is a problem. It is a significant problem. 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.960 It's a harmful problem, and it's something that women and 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:13.240 men are living with. Your book is called Believing, Our 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.800 thirty year Journey to End Gender Violence. It's your third book. 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:22.400 It's a real representation of you and your work It's 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.600 part memoir but also part legal and social analysis and 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:30.040 a lot of personal accounts of women you've met over 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.600 the years. Why write this book now, Anita, was the 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:38.280 thirty year anniversary the impetus for you to say, let's 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:43.000 look back on our progress, let's tell the stories of 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:47.640 the women I've gotten to know through these years. It 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:52.000 wasn't just the anniversary, although I was mindful of the anniversary, 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:58.000 but more importantly, it was the thirty years between and 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:03.160 my testimony and where we are now. This was an 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:07.520 opportunity to look at all of the things that have 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.280 happened in those thirty years, and you know, take stock 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:16.200 of where we are. And I'm concluding, of course, that 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.640 we have a long way to go. Yet I really 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:24.720 am conceding that we have come far in thirty years. 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:32.640 So why now, Well, because we've got evidence that really 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:39.440 gender violence is at a toxic level when you take 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:45.800 into account this huge range of behaviors that happened under 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:50.360 the guise of of gender violence. All there are so 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.640 many different facets of it. I mean, it ranges from 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:59.080 bullying and harassment and elementary schools to bullying in harassment 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:04.680 and workplaces. It ranges from sexual harassment and assaults and 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:10.680 rape on our streets. It includes intimate partner violence in 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:16.680 our homes, and the phrases don't even capture the experience 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:22.760 as fully. But when you calculate the range, when you 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:27.200 calculate the human cost and the harm that's being done 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:31.120 to us as a society, then what you realize is 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:36.080 that we have this enormous problem that needs to be 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:41.120 called out as a public crisis. When Me too happened, 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.160 I'm just curious what it was like watching it unfold 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:50.240 from your perspective. I have been dealing with this not 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.520 simply through my own experience, but through the experience of 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:59.760 thousands of others. I really, honestly was just grateful that 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:05.320 people were coming forward and talking about it and that 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:11.400 finally we could, you know, convince people that this was 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.040 a real problem, that this wasn't just a few bad 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:21.640 apples or a few people who were too oversensitive, um, 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:24.600 that this was a problem that's a social problem, is 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.760 a stomach problem, and that it should be dealt with 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:32.360 it that way, because you know, even up until in 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:37.560 some cases and even today, you have people say, you know, 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.240 this problem really doesn't exist, it's made up for whatever 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:45.720 political reasons, economic reasons that it doesn't exist, when in 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.800 fact we know all of the facts point to the 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:55.160 reality of it. I still today here women and men 0:16:55.600 --> 0:17:02.280 supporting people who behaved a certain way workplace by saying 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:07.400 women through themselves at this person. A lot of these 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:15.840 kind of familiar defenses surface, And I'm curious what you 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:20.199 think when you hear that, you know it's it's another 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:24.000 form of denial. I think what it comes down to 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:31.119 is our unwillingness to act, our fear of acting, and 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:37.600 really our desire to to uh prioritize the lives and 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:42.119 experiences of men over the lives and experiences of women. 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.520 And I think those will continue. Again, that's still part 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.000 of the cultural problem. But but in fact, you know, 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.600 there are also some systemic problems because in some ways 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:58.080 the culture has been built into our systems. So we 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:03.199 we put an extraordinarily high burden on victims, even in 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:07.879 elementary schools, to solve their own problems, to be the 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:13.240 ones that tell the administrators exactly what's happening, when it's happening, 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.800 why it was wrong, and to be able in some 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.960 of the sense, to prove that they have been bullied 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:25.359 or harassed and or to prove that they deserve to 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:30.160 have some attention brought to it. And the problems aren't 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.880 just in schools. The problems the systemic problems, because it's 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.879 in the criminal justice system throughout. When you take the 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.359 problem of rape and sexual assault, you know the fact 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:48.119 that we have rape kits that our backlog that after 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:53.920 an individual goes through the the grueling process of having 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:59.639 an examination done and participated in this effort to find 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:03.800 out who her assailant is, that then they get put 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.840 on the show and then warehoused. I mean that shows 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:12.680 us how broken the system is. When I started out 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:14.840 this book, I thought, Wow, this is really kind of 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.880 like boiling the ocean because there's so much out there. 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.400 I thought about you many times over the years, and 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.280 one of those times was in in two thousand and 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:31.000 eighteen during Christine blassie Ford's testimony against Brett Kavanaugh. There 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:37.040 were many differences, but some similarities. Were you shocked by 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.399 the familiaria of the event and were you expecting a 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:47.080 different outcome? I wanted a different outcome. I wanted a process. 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:52.200 I wanted, you know, something that wasn't even possible from 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.000 the beginning. I would have wanted her to have a 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.080 place to complain. She didn't have a place to complain. 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.760 I wanted her to have a thorough investigation. What we 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:09.600 had was one that was deliberately limited by President Trump then, 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:13.720 who was a sponsor who had invested interest in Kavanaugh 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:17.200 being confirmed. You know, I wanted, of course, I wanted 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:22.119 a different outcome, But I think that the country would 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.160 have been better off even if the outcome had remained 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:29.040 the same, if there had been a different way for 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:34.560 her to come forward and to be heard. And that's 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:42.560 really what I wanted. Um, that's not what we got. However, 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.960 that wasn't the end of it. And we do know 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:52.919 that the public reacted very strongly in a negative way. 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:58.880 Or the outcome and the confirmation specifically of just now 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:05.600 Justice Kavanaugh. We know that again a sign of progress 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:13.560 because there were so many similarities between but the public 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:18.880 response was quite different. I did hear from people who 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.160 would say, you know, are we going to go back 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:28.040 to high school and blame people for you know, a 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:35.120 boorish behavior or drinking too much? Is this an sort 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:42.280 of an unrealistic purity test? And when people say that, 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:48.679 you say, what this is? There is no purity test 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:58.520 so much as there is full disclosure, honesty and transparency. 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:02.520 And if you can't up that with the cord, where 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:06.440 can you get it? Um. The people who sit on 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:11.080 the Supreme Court are making decisions about all sorts of cases, 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:15.159 some of which will include very likely sexual harassment or 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:20.280 sexual assault, and we need to understand the full character 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.040 and integrity of those people who are making us to 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:28.120 us us And if that means, you know, going back 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.959 to the high school, we go back to the high school. 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:36.159 You know, we do that anyway for candidates, you know, 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:42.000 but you know they've had elementary teachers testify or write 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:45.680 statements in support of Canada that's nominees to the Supreme Court. 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:52.240 So you know, it's it's dishonest then to hide the 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:56.760 things that are not so positive, in fact are very negative. 0:22:57.200 --> 0:22:59.880 So we need to have all of that and then 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:04.560 the public gets city side. Why did you call the 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:10.960 book believing? Because it takes a lot of believing too 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:17.800 actually boil those should I mean to to look at 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:22.679 the whole of this problem and realize that if you 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:26.160 don't look at the whole, if you don't look at 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:32.880 this this enormous um body of behavior that is happening. 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:36.320 That's injuring all of us. You're not going to be 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.720 able to solve the different pieces and to believe that 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:43.919 that it is solvable, because you know, another one of 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:48.480 the excuses that people raise is that, gosh, this is 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:50.320 just the way it is. This is the way it's 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:53.600 always bad. It's much too big for us to get 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:58.280 our arms around, and so let's just you know, you know, 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:01.639 let's just deal with it. Let's push it off on 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:05.440 the victims to deal with So believing for me included 0:24:06.119 --> 0:24:09.679 not only that we need to enlist and believe in 0:24:09.760 --> 0:24:17.520 survivors and victims, we also need to believe that we 0:24:17.600 --> 0:24:23.800 are worthy of solutions and that change is possible. I 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:28.920 remember the buttons that people were I believe, Anita Hill, 0:24:29.920 --> 0:24:34.439 after your testimony, and one question I wanted to ask 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:40.639 you about was the notion of believing all women. You know, 0:24:40.720 --> 0:24:45.000 as a journalist, I've not necessarily struggled with it, because 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:48.280 I know the statistics, Anita, I know the fact how 0:24:48.760 --> 0:24:52.919 much courage it does take to move forward. But in 0:24:52.960 --> 0:24:56.359 the aftermath that the Me Too movement, as some people 0:24:56.480 --> 0:25:01.159 felt the pendulum had swung too much, what do you 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:05.520 think about the notion of believing all women. I've talked 0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:07.760 to Jodie Canter of The New York Times a little 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:12.480 bit about this, and it it um. It does fly 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:16.199 in the face of what journalists are really supposed to do, 0:25:16.520 --> 0:25:20.359 search for truth and facts. So I would love you 0:25:20.400 --> 0:25:22.760 to weigh in and and tell me how you feel 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:28.080 about that. Well, we now have a culture that assumes 0:25:28.080 --> 0:25:32.920 that women are lying despite all the facts. There's this 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:38.080 persumption that women lie about their experiences. Do you think 0:25:38.119 --> 0:25:43.000 that still exists even today? Oh? I do think it exists. 0:25:43.520 --> 0:25:46.080 I mean either they believe that women are lying, or 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:51.960 that that that what happens doesn't matter, or that it 0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:55.960 was their fault or that it was their fault. Yeah. 0:25:56.119 --> 0:26:03.320 So so either way, we have decided that men are 0:26:03.320 --> 0:26:08.520 always telling the truth to some extent, or men are 0:26:08.560 --> 0:26:12.879 all the matter. And so you know, we've got we've 0:26:12.960 --> 0:26:15.840 we've really, in the face of all the damage that's 0:26:15.880 --> 0:26:18.280 being done, we have to sort of change our way 0:26:18.320 --> 0:26:22.480 of thinking. And so that's one part. I mean, the 0:26:23.440 --> 0:26:30.240 term believe all women is for me, just our invitation. 0:26:31.560 --> 0:26:38.280 Two put in place systems in processes that allow us 0:26:38.320 --> 0:26:43.879 to be heard and believed, and we're not there yet 0:26:45.000 --> 0:26:50.280 and so that is what it means to me believe 0:26:50.440 --> 0:26:54.960 in us enough to care enough to put systems in 0:26:55.240 --> 0:26:59.439 that allows us to get to the truth more with 0:26:59.480 --> 0:27:12.879 the need of right after this, much of this book 0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:17.200 has a sort of before and after feel of your 0:27:17.280 --> 0:27:24.080 life before nine when you gave that testimony against up 0:27:24.280 --> 0:27:29.520 then Supreme Court nominee Clearance Thomas, and when you were 0:27:29.520 --> 0:27:33.320 a tenured law professor at the University of Oklahoma College 0:27:33.320 --> 0:27:36.359 of Law, the first African American ever be tenured. And 0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:41.359 then after that testimony ultimately up ended your life, you 0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:44.880 moved to Massachusetts, you took a full position at Brandis 0:27:45.040 --> 0:27:48.920 and and embarked on this journey to end gender violence. 0:27:49.880 --> 0:27:54.000 Can you talk about that moment in between and what 0:27:54.119 --> 0:28:00.679 led you to that life change chain decision? I after 0:28:01.119 --> 0:28:05.400 the hearing that first of all, I thought I could 0:28:05.400 --> 0:28:09.200 just get back to my life, and that wasn't possible. 0:28:09.720 --> 0:28:13.399 It was not going to be the same. And people 0:28:13.520 --> 0:28:16.960 think that after I testified, I went back and things 0:28:17.040 --> 0:28:20.719 were all normal, But you know from having talked to 0:28:20.720 --> 0:28:24.320 me about what happened afterwards, that there were threats and 0:28:24.320 --> 0:28:28.439 there was hostility, and there were efforts to get me 0:28:28.520 --> 0:28:32.240 fired from my job. But after you know, I got 0:28:32.280 --> 0:28:35.480 over the realization that it was not going to get 0:28:35.600 --> 0:28:39.320 back to normal, I actually started looking at what I 0:28:39.360 --> 0:28:45.240 could do to understand and help other people understand how 0:28:45.320 --> 0:28:48.640 we might solve the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace. 0:28:49.480 --> 0:28:55.320 What I realized was that the law alone, and I 0:28:55.400 --> 0:28:59.480 was trained, you know and teaching law, the law alone 0:28:59.600 --> 0:29:03.920 was not going to be the answer. That the problem 0:29:04.200 --> 0:29:08.080 was bigger than the laws that we now have in place. 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:15.480 So I ended up moving from Oklahoma, leaving a tenure 0:29:15.600 --> 0:29:21.200 job for a contract position, because it decided I needed 0:29:21.240 --> 0:29:25.680 to learn more about all of the ways that systems 0:29:25.760 --> 0:29:31.160 and policies work together to keep this problem in place. 0:29:32.320 --> 0:29:35.040 And so that's what I did. I just I left 0:29:35.240 --> 0:29:38.320 and I started teaching at a policy school, and I 0:29:38.360 --> 0:29:42.720 was surrounded by people with various disciplines um and I 0:29:42.800 --> 0:29:47.920 was surrounded by people who were interested in solving social 0:29:47.960 --> 0:29:52.959 problem generally. And that was an environment that allowed me 0:29:53.120 --> 0:29:57.680 to really grow and to develop many of the ideas 0:29:57.720 --> 0:30:03.320 that that came into ultimately into the book. Had I 0:30:03.440 --> 0:30:07.680 not made that change, I think I might have still 0:30:07.920 --> 0:30:12.480 been somewhat stuck in terms of my thinking. But you 0:30:12.520 --> 0:30:16.320 know what, Katie, how fortunate I am that I could 0:30:16.360 --> 0:30:19.320 do that. I had training as a lawyer. But I 0:30:19.400 --> 0:30:25.880 was also fortunate because I had a job that was transferable, 0:30:26.960 --> 0:30:30.040 and I had skills that were transferable to somewhat place else. 0:30:30.080 --> 0:30:33.120 And I didn't have to worry about a family that 0:30:33.320 --> 0:30:37.440 would get suffered because of changes that I made, not 0:30:37.520 --> 0:30:39.720 my immediate family, and you know, I did have to 0:30:39.800 --> 0:30:46.120 leave my parents and siblings in Oklahoma, but I left 0:30:46.120 --> 0:30:49.200 with their support. You must have heard from so many 0:30:49.280 --> 0:30:53.400 people through the years, Anita, who didn't have transferable skills, 0:30:53.440 --> 0:30:56.960 who didn't really have marketable skills, who were stuck and 0:30:57.200 --> 0:31:03.040