Clarence Thomas' Wife Asks Anita Hill For Apology

nytimes.com

WASHINGTON — Nearly 20 years after Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Justice Thomas’s wife has called Ms. Hill, seeking an apology.

In a voice mail message left at 7:31 a.m. on Oct. 9, a Saturday, Virginia Thomas asked her husband’s former aide-turned-adversary to make amends. Ms. Hill played the recording, from her voice mail at Brandeis University, for The New York Times.

“Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas,” it said. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”

Ms. Thomas went on: “So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day.”

Ms. Hill, in an interview, said she had kept the message for nearly a week trying to decide whether the caller really was Ms. Thomas or a prankster. Unsure, she said, she decided to turn it over to the Brandeis campus police with a request to convey it the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

For those who are too young to remember:

In the mid 1990's the first President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to fill a vacant seat, formerly held by Thurgood Marshall, on the Supreme Court. At first it looked like a shoo-in. Then Anita Hill, a woman who had worked as an aide to Thomas in his tenure at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, came forward and testified against him. She gave a lengthy and detailed account of sexual harassment by Thomas, and supported her allegations with concrete examples. Her testimony was front-page news for days.

In the end, Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court and Hill was dismissed by conservatives as politically motivated in her complaint. Today Clarence Thomas is one of the most -- if not the most -- conservative justices on the Court.

Thomas' wife, Virginia Thomas, has since made a name for herself in conservative politics, and has been far more outspoken in her views than the spouses of Supreme Court justices traditionally are. She has drawn criticism for her political activism when the justices of the Supreme Court are expected to leave politics out of their decisions and to keep a low profile on controversial issues.

It says something about the political ascendancy of Virginia Thomas that she would suddenly demand an apology from Hill (now a professor) all these years later. As someone who followed the Clarence Thomas hearings closely in the 1990's, I am interested and curious as to what sort of motives Mrs. Thomas has in demanding this.

We shall see, I assume, within the next few days.

Maybe this thread belongs in another forum?

I think this subject is important because it shows that Supreme Court Justices, who are supposed to remain impartial, are now becoming political activists. Ginny Thomas is unusual among justices' wives because she is so involved in partisan politics. That means political issues are more and more informing Supreme Court decisions. For example, the recent ruling that corporations have the same rights as individual citizens.

Does anyone remember the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings? I'm beginning to feel old.

They're always "activists" to some extent. If they werent why would any President appoint them?

They're picked by a partisan to be partisan.

Find me a completely non-partisan and wholly objective president and I'll show you a non-partisan wholly objective justice.


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reply to post by Sestias


I think it's fine.

I remember them well. The grief that Clarence Thomas was put through by a certain Senator from Massachusetts was, to my mind, unforgivable...

Having said that? this is kind of silly, to wait twenty years to ask for an apology? Maybe there isn't an ulterior motive behind this, but sure feels like there is.

What's that old saying? Let sleeping dogs lie...?

...and no, you're not old. You're just well seasoned...

She doesn't owe them a apology...She told the truth and that's what matters...She thought the American people deserved to know that he is a perv...So he is a Supreme Court Judge...Representing American values...In my experiences he is the perfect representative....

Anita Hill is the one who should be demanding an apology.

reply to post by zbeliever


As I recall there was no, as in none, evidence of Justice Thomas being a "perv". Save her word. He said/she said.

Now, I'd hate to be wrong about this...but please feel free to link something resembling evidence of this. People who knew/know Clarence Thomas have never come forward to say anything even vaguely resembling and someone would.

So?

reply to post by seagull


I'm not sure if you are from the United States...Here men say stuff...Well, lets just say its kinda the norm...So, most around them are not shocked or find it news worthy...Do I think he said those things."Oh yes I do!"
Do I think he shouldn't been able to be Supreme Court Justice because of it."No," he's a man.
Men are like that...He wasn't up for position of Pope...he was up for position to judge common men in the U.S...
There for it makes him perfect for the job....

that he's a perv...

Z

reply to post by zbeliever

I don't think it was just a few remarks that Anita Hill was charging him with. It was a campaign of intimidation and outright propositions and other sexual harassment that lasted over a period of time. To this day he has expressed no embarrassment or remorse.

A question a lot of people (including me) have is: Why did she put up with it for that long? Why didn't she just quit and find another job? The answer to that, evidently, is complicated but had something to do with her insecurity about making a fuss and about whether anyone else would hire her after she left or was fired for charges of sexual harassment.

I disagree that Thomas' behavior has no bearing on his role as a Supreme Court justice. The Court rules on many equal rights cases and I do not want these rulings to be made by a man so obviously contemptuous of women.

I understand that it was over a period of time...As a once attractive young female(I am longer young or attractive)...In a male dominated world I came to understand there is just talk that you expect,but it works both ways a young attractive female has more opportunities in the work place... Its a sad reality...

An update on Clarence Thomas and another woman, Lillian McEwen, who confirms Anita Hill's charges against him:

Lillian McEwen Breaks Her 19-Year Silence About Justice Clarence Thomas

For nearly two decades, Lillian McEwen has been silent -- a part of history, yet absent from it.

When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his explosive 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Thomas vehemently denied the allegations and his handlers cited his steady relationship with another woman in an effort to deflect Hill's allegations.

Lillian McEwen was that woman.

Later in the article, she states:

To McEwen, Hill's allegations that Thomas had pressed her for dates and made lurid sexual references rang familiar.

"He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners," McEwen said matter-of-factly. "It was a hobby of his."

McEwen's connection to Thomas was strictly personal. She had even disclosed that relationship to Biden, who had been her boss years earlier.

* * * * *

"He was obsessed with porn," she said of Thomas, who is now 63. "He would talk about what he had seen in magazines and films, if there was something worth noting."

McEwen added that she had no problem with Thomas's interests, although she found pornography to be "boring."

According to McEwen, Thomas would also tell her about women he encountered at work. He was partial to women with large breasts, she said. In an instance at work, Thomas was so impressed that he asked one woman her bra size, McEwen recalled him telling her.

And later in the same article:

However bizarre they may seem, McEwen's recollections resemble accounts shared by other women that swirled around the Thomas confirmation.

Angela Wright, who in 1984 worked as public affairs director at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- which polices sexual harassment claims -- during Thomas's long tenure as chairman, shared similar accounts with Senate investigators.

Once, when walking into an EEOC seminar with Thomas, he asked her, "What size are your breasts?" according to the transcript of her Senate interview.

Her story was corroborated by a former EEOC speechwriter, who told investigators that Wright had become increasingly uneasy around Thomas because of his comments about her appearance.

And still later:

Another woman, Sukari Hardnett, who worked as a special assistant to Thomas in 1985 and 1986, wrote in a letter to the Judiciary Committee that "If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female" by Thomas.

If one is cynical, one might suspect that all these women are coming forward now because they do not like the decisions Thomas is making on the Supreme Court and want to bring him down again.

I'm inclined to believe them, as I was inclined to believe Anita Hill back during the hearings, but that doubt is still in my mind.

reply to post by seagull


Not true. There was Angela Wright, but she was never called to testify. She totally backed up Hill's story. Justice Thomas lied, and that is called perjury. And, what about witness tampering, ever heard of that?