Clarence Thomas Hearings Were Like “Getting In A Fight In An Alley”

Leading up to a new HBO film about Anita Hill’s testimony during Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation hearings before the Senate, the Washington Post has collected first-person accounts written by those who were present. Former Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), who served as mentor to Thomas during the hearings, told NPR, “It was like walking down the street and getting in a fight in an alley. I mean, it was just awful. … It was absolutely the worst experience of my life.” In the New York Review of Books in 1995, history professor Garry Wills wrote, “But weren’t Hill’s charges false, or at least suspect? Even if they were, Thomas’ performance did not merit confirmation. It is also a mark of character – of judicial temperament if you will – to face criticism as a lawyer, with arguments, not with torrents of invective against the committee for asking questions one does not want to hear.” In her memoir, Anita Hill wrote, “My world has been forever changed by the events that culminated in the ‘Hill-Thomas’ hearings. I am not longer an anonymous, private individual – my name having become synonymous with sexual harassment.”