OP ED by Anita Hill, (NYT): The Smear This Time

[rodeodance]

edited for link: (its free now)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/opinion/02hill.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

October 2, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
The Smear This Time
By ANITA HILL

Waltham, Mass.

ON Oct. 11, 1991, I testified about my experience as an employee of Clarence Thomas’s at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I stand by my testimony.

Justice Thomas has every right to present himself as he wishes in his new memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.” He may even be entitled to feel abused by the confirmation process that led to his appointment to the Supreme Court.

But I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.

In the portion of his book that addresses my role in the Senate hearings into his nomination, Justice Thomas offers a litany of unsubstantiated representations and outright smears that Republican senators made about me when I testified before the Judiciary Committee — that I was a “combative left-winger” who was “touchy” and prone to overreacting to “slights.” A number of independent authors have shown those attacks to be baseless. What’s more, their reports draw on the experiences of others who were familiar with Mr. Thomas’s behavior, and who came forward after the hearings. It’s no longer my word against his.

Justice Thomas’s characterization of me is also hobbled by blatant inconsistencies. He claims, for instance, that I was a mediocre employee who had a job in the federal government only because he had “given it” to me. He ignores the reality: I was fully qualified to work in the government, having graduated from Yale Law School (his alma mater, which he calls one of the finest in the country), and passed the District of Columbia Bar exam, one of the toughest in the nation.

In 1981, when Mr. Thomas approached me about working for him, I was an associate in good standing at a Washington law firm. In 1991, the partner in charge of associate development informed Mr. Thomas’s mentor, Senator John Danforth of Missouri, that any assertions to the contrary were untrue. Yet, Mr. Thomas insists that I was “asked to leave” the firm.

It’s worth noting, too, that Mr. Thomas hired me not once, but twice while he was in the Reagan administration — first at the Department of Education and then at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After two years of working directly for him, I left Washington and returned home to Oklahoma to begin my teaching career.

--more 'corrections'.....

[indie_voter]

1. I'm so glad she wrote this. Bravo Anita Hill!!

I watched those hearings, it was a farce. I believed her then, I believe her now.

[rodeodance]

2. Yes. she needed to make 'corrections"

[Dhalgren]

3. Excellent op-ed! Good for her! K&R!

[Evergreen Emerald]

4. I am so glad she was given a voice

I remember those hearings, and listening to them endlessly. I remember crying when it was over at the travesty and the lack of justice and how this intelligent, thoughtful, graceful woman was treated to horribly by both democrats and republicans.

Anita Hill stood for the truth while facing the wall of political attackers.