--- title: Anita Hill's Sexual Assault Allegation Hearing Echoes Today description: The author helped Anita Hill testify against Clarence Thomas—the stories of sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein feel similar canonical: https://time.com/5018066/anita-hill-sexual-assault-hearing-harvey-weinstein/ author: Wendy Sherman article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-09T22:24:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:59.222Z article:section: Ideas og:title: I Helped Anita Hill Testify. Her Hearing Gave Lie to Our Current Reality og:description: "I have taken out my pink ‘I believe Anita Hill’ button and pinned it to my jacket yet again." og:url: https://time.com/5018066/anita-hill-sexual-assault-hearing-harvey-weinstein/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta6601af52fb61132/6988e549fb4eac7ed58947fe/anita-hill-hearing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4457 og:image:height: 2507 og:image:alt: Lawyer Anita Hill Before Testifying at Senate Judiciary Hearing og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: I Helped Anita Hill Testify. Her Hearing Gave Lie to Our Current Reality twitter:description: "I have taken out my pink ‘I believe Anita Hill’ button and pinned it to my jacket yet again." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta6601af52fb61132/6988e549fb4eac7ed58947fe/anita-hill-hearing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # I Helped Anita Hill Testify Against Clarence Thomas. That Hearing Gave Lie to Our Current Reality > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=5173629c-722b-42c1-974c-6ecd36b6c4b5&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Melissa Harris-Perry Discusses Interviewing Anita Hill [Watch (HLS stream): Melissa Harris-Perry Discusses Interviewing Anita Hill](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/VK3I51Y0.m3u8) (5:43)  _Published 2016-04-06. Twenty-five years ago, Anita Hill testified before a Senate committee that she faced unwanted sexual advances by Clarence Thomas. In an exclusive interview with ESSENCE, Melissa Harris-Perry sat down with Hill to get her side of the story._ by [Wendy Sherman](https://time.com/author/wendy-sherman/) ## Wendy Sherman Nov 9, 2017 10:24 PM UTC  Professor Anita Hill is sworn-in before testifying at the Senate Judiciary hearing on the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination. Professor Anita Hill is sworn-in before testifying at the Senate Judiciary hearing on the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination. Bettmann—Getty Images by [Wendy Sherman](https://time.com/author/wendy-sherman/) ## Wendy Sherman Nov 9, 2017 10:24 PM UTC Twenty-six years ago, while a partner in a Democratic media consulting firm, I was called by a professional friend and asked if I’d spend a few days helping [Anita Hill](http://time.com/4748147/anita-hill-bill-oreilly-fox-news/) and her team manage the upcoming Senate hearing on the allegations Hill had made about Clarence Thomas, then a nominee for the Supreme Court. Hill’s private allegations to the Committee and to the FBI had been leaked to the press, and the Senate had hastily organized a long weekend’s [Judiciary Committee](http://time.com/4228880/antonin-scalia-death-supreme-court-vacancy-congress-republican-women/) hearing to be led by then chairman [Senator Joe Biden](http://time.com/5017464/joe-biden-president-oprah-interview/) and ranking Senator Arlen Specter. [Hill had alleged that Thomas](http://www.history.com/speeches/anita-hill-accuses-clarence-thomas), while her boss at the Department of Education and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, had sexually harassed her with pornographic suggestions, including descriptions of his own sexual prowess. Hill had a very competent legal team from Harvard and Georgetown but needed someone who knew Capitol Hill, could help them get office space, understood the procedures and could deal with the Senators. I was honored to be part of the team, albeit in a support role. Almost immediately, it became apparent that Senator Biden thought he was conducting a hearing and Senator Specter thought he and the Republicans were conducting a trial. The Senators agreed that Thomas could testify first, allowing him to continue the assertion of power over Anita Hill. The Senate committee, all white men, seemed to presume that Thomas was right and Hill was wrong; that if she [felt harassed](http://time.com/5008658/sexual-harassment-house-congress/), she misinterpreted Thomas’ actions, was retaliating for some promotional reason or simply had unfulfilled sexual fantasies of her own. The Democrats sought to be fair to Thomas; the Republicans fought to convict Hill. The Republicans succeeded. Rereading the testimony and the commentary of the times seems almost perversely quaint in the aftermath of the [Harvey Weinstein revelations](http://time.com/5013264/harvey-weinstein-the-new-yorker/). Witnesses at the time believed Hill was lying because she followed her then-boss from the Department of Education to the EEOC, much like one actress after another chose potential stardom over potential targeting by the industry and humiliation at events. Witnesses believed Hill was lying because not every woman working with Thomas had the same experience and had not seen or felt what Hill saw and felt, much like women stars voice their horror now at what colleagues had endured for years. And all the white men on the Judiciary Committee, like the [men in Hollywood](http://time.com/5015204/harvey-weinstein-scandal/), saw power in the accused, but they failed to see that the woman who had to recount the unaccountable act of a man deserved power, too. Just a few months after this depressing episode in [American sexual harassment history](http://time.com/4286575/sexual-harassment-before-anita-hill/), I sat before Senator Jesse Helms, then the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as he led the confirmation hearing for my nomination by President Clinton to become Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs for the Department of State. The hearing was not about national security and foreign policy, the basis for the position I was to assume and for which I was qualified. It was about Anita Hill. Using excerpts from David Brock’s book, _The Real Anita Hill_, which Brock has since recanted, Helms asked if I would lie to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the way Anita Hill had lied and I had lied for her by supporting her effort. I responded that Anita Hill had not lied and therefore I had not and would not lie to the committee. That [hearing and the Clarence Thomas hearing](http://time.com/4295258/anita-hill-confirmation-legacy/), so long ago, did give lie to the reality in which we clearly still live. Twenty-six years ago, and forever before then, [women like Anita Hill](http://time.com/4280829/anita-hill-hbo-drama-clarence-thomas-congress-women/) hesitated to come forward. Even Hill’s lawyerly self wondered if her experience rose legally to sexual harassment. It was [sexual harassment](http://time.com/5012697/men-waking-up/); it still is today; and it will still be tomorrow. Alas, I have taken out my pink ‘I believe Anita Hill’ button and pinned it to my jacket yet again. [In the wake of all of the Harvey Weinsteins](http://time.com/4995946/weinstein-workplace-culture/), maybe we all should. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] It was an extraordinary opportunity to interview Professor Anita Hill. I asked her what she thought about Kerry Washington's portrayal of her. And she said that she thought that Miss Washington was actually more dignified in her portrayal than she actually felt herself during the senate confirmation hearings. Now, I remember those hearings, and I remember thinking that Professor Hill, at just 35, talking there to the senate judiciary committee was the actual paragon of dignity. Exactly what we would think of as Self contained and composed, but she remembers being quite nervous. And so in watching Miss Washington playing that role, she actually sees even more dignity and composure in the character, and that was quite something for me to learn. I also learned from Professor Helb. She said, my mother did not raise her children for the time we were living in. She raised us for the time that was coming. She raised us for a world that had not yet even come to pass. As the mother of young daughters The idea that you would prepare your children in this case, not for a [ UNKNOWN ] pro- world, but for a world in which a young African American woman would be in a position of actually speaking before an elective body, before, in this case, the US Senate, and that she felt prepared by her mother, who herself did not have a college education or even a high school education. That I think of maybe the very goal of parenting, to prepare our children for a world that has not yet even come to pass I learned from Professor Anita Hill, how angry she was when Justice Thomas invoked the language of lynching to discuss what he was experiencing. During the senate confirmation hearings. And her anger was because her own grandfather had in fact faced the threat of an actual lynching. He bought a small plot of land and was trying to raise his large family on it, was working as a share cropper. And the white sheriff in town and other white citizens living in that town did not think he should own that land and he and his wife and his children had to escape under the cover of night because of a threat of a real lynching. So, when Clarence Thomas said during those Confirmation hearings that this was a high- tech lynching. Professor Hill felt particularly irritated. I will always remember Professor Hill asking this question. It was such a simple question, but I've been asking it of myself ever since the interview. She said to me, Melissa What would be different if they had simply taken me seriously? She doesn't say, what if they believed me? i think a lot of us in the 25 years since the hearings have said, what if they believed Anita Hill? Some of us have even worn shirts that say, I believe Anita Hill. But that's not what she asked. What would be different in this country. What would be different for American women if they had not thought of this as a political maneuver? If they had not thought of this as something to get over quickly, if they had taken seriously the possibility of workplace sexual harassment, if they had take seriously the testimony of an African- American woman, if they had fulfilled their responsibilities and duties. As a Senate judiciary committee what would be different in this country? And I keep asking myself that same question. And I keep coming up with a lot, a lot would be different if we had taken Anita Hill seriously 25 years ago. The fifth and final thing that I learned from the interview With Professor Anita Hill. No member of that committee, in 25 years, has reached out to Professor Hill. In 25 years, no person who sat there and asked her those questions over and over again, ever bothered to pick up the phone And call her to simply say 'Professor Hill, you're a citizen. You came and you did your best. You spoke before the U. S. Senate. You spoke before an elected body here in Washington D. C. How was that experience for you? You how could we make it different the next time around? How could we make it better? How can we be sure that the next woman or the next citizen or the next law professor or the next individual who is facing a situation of such disproof power can have a better experience not one Person including the person who is currently the Vice President of the United States has ever reached out to Anita Hill just to ask that question. Much less to do something like apologize. And I think for me That is stunning. We think of ourselves as having moved beyond that moment. And I think in many ways we have. We're a very different country. But I gotta say, it can't possibly be that hard to pick up the phone and call Professor Hill. 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