Rachel Maddow did an important but very hard to watch segment on Anita Hill and the Clarence Thomas hearings tonight. It was brutal stuff, especially in hindsight and given the attempted rape allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.
And it raises a question—Why is Clarence Thomas being given a pass?
According to bustle.com:
Although Hill is the most well-known person to accuse Thomas of sexual harassment, she is not the only woman to do so. Another woman, Angela Wright, also claimed that Thomas had allegedly said inappropriate things to her while the two worked together at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She, like Hill, was subpoenaed by the Senate to testify against Thomas during his nomination, but was never called upon to do so. The reasons for her exclusion are a matter of debate, but one thing remains clear: Wright still alleges that Thomas made unwanted sexual remarks to her.
The Bustle article continues …
One person who is unsurprised by the allegations brought by Hill and Wright is Lillian McEwen, who was in a relationship with Thomas at the time when his alleged harassment of Hill is said to have occurred. Though McEwen never claimed that Thomas had been inappropriate toward her, she has alleged that Thomas would often talk about the women he worked with. "He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners. It was a hobby of his," McEwen claimed in an interview with Michael A. Fletcher of The Washington Post in a 2010.
And there’s more …
[Sukari] Hardnett worked as Thomas's special assistant at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1985 and 1986, and according to the Wall Street Journal, she gave the Senate the following statement during Hill's hearings:
"Clarence Thomas pretends that his only behavior toward those who worked as his special assistants was as a father to children and a mentor to proteges. That simply isn't true. If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female ... Women know when there are sexual dimensions to the attention they are receiving. And there was never any doubt about that dimension in Clarence Thomas's office."
And from Think Progress a couple of years ago …
This week, a new allegation against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas emerged. Moira Smith says that 19 years ago, when she was 23, Thomas groped her while she was helping set the table for a dinner event and told her she should sit “right next to” him. Her story was also corroborated by her friends of the time, who remembered her sharing that story with them.
And, most importantly, from New York Magazine:
[G]iven the evidence that’s come out in the years since, it’s also time to raise the possibility of impeachment. Not because he watched porn on his own time, of course. Not because he talked about it with a female colleague — although our understanding of the real workplace harm that kind of sexual harassment does to women has evolved dramatically in the years since, thanks in no small part to those very hearings. Nor is it even because he routinely violated the norms of good workplace behavior, in a way that seemed especially at odds with the elevated office he was seeking. It’s because of the lies he told, repeatedly and under oath, saying he had never talked to Hill about porn or to other women who worked with him about risqué subject matter.
Yes, earlier this year, Jill Abramson raised the possibility of impeaching Clarence Thomas in New York Magazine. Maybe you’re not aware of all of the evidence of his outright lying (not to mention the Republicans’ participation through character assassination), but I think it’s time—or it will be time VERY soon—to get a drumbeat started.
If Kavanaugh goes down (God willing), maybe the public will finally be ready to give this guy his due.
What do you think?