Lakhota
Diamond Member
“He said, ‘I am sorry if she felt she didn’t get a fair hearing.’ That’s sort of an ‘I’m sorry if you were offended.’”
Anita Hill said former Vice President Joe Biden’s recent apology for his handling of her 1991 Senate testimony against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas is “not enough” to make up for his failure at the time “to show leadership on this issue on behalf of women’s equality.”
“He said, ‘I am sorry if she felt she didn’t get a fair hearing.’ That’s sort of an ‘I’m sorry if you were offended,’” Hill said in a wide-ranging Washington Post interview published Wednesday in which she also compared her time in the spotlight with unfairness that remains for women facing workplace sexual harassment.
Biden, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing considering Thomas’ Supreme Court nomination, was asked on Nov. 13 about his widely criticized handling of Hill’s testimony that Thomas had sexually harassed her when they worked together.
Hill’s testimony led to attacks on her credibility. Thomas, meanwhile, was narrowly confirmed to the high court.
“Let’s get something straight here: I believed Anita Hill. I voted against Clarence Thomas,” Biden said. He added: “I am so sorry that she had to go through what she went through.”
“The only issue in the Anita Hill case was whether or not there could be information submitted in a record without a name attached to it, anonymously accusing someone of something,” he continued, referring to criticisms that other women were not permitted to testify against Thomas.
Neither Biden nor Thomas would comment on Hill’s remarks reported in The Washington Post.
Hill said Biden’s apology omits “his role in what happened.”
“He also doesn’t understand that it wasn’t just that I felt it was not fair,” Hill said. “It was that women were looking to the Senate Judiciary Committee and his leadership to really open the way to have these kinds of hearings. They should have been using best practices to show leadership on this issue on behalf of women’s equality. And they did just the opposite.”
Hill also said that she does not feel Biden has taken “responsibility for” victimization she experienced as a result of the hearing.
More: Anita Hill: Joe Biden's Apology Is 'Not Enough'
I watched that hearing live. Biden really screwed over Anita Hill. Biden panicked after Thomas made his "high-tech lynching" comment. Anita Hill was credible then and she is credible now. She is a fine lady.