Anita Hill, the woman who told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 that Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her, warned Tuesday that the committee is rushing its examination of sexual assault charges against President Trump’s nominee to the court.
Republicans decided Monday to hold a new public hearing next week to consider the charges against Brett Kavanaugh raised by Christine Blasey Ford, and have made it clear they still want to move quickly to confirm Kavanaugh soon. But in an op-ed for the New York Times, Hill said the rush shows sexual assault allegations are “not important” to the committee.
“Simply put, a week’s preparation is not enough time for meaningful inquiry into very serious charges,” Hill wrote.
Hill charged that years after her dramatic testimony, the committee still doesn’t have a process for dealing with these sorts of issues.
“That the Senate Judiciary Committee still lacks a protocol for vetting sexual harassment and assault claims that surface during a confirmation hearing suggests that the committee has learned little from the Thomas hearing, much less the more recent #MeToo movement,” Hill wrote.
She suggested the committee should instead put a “neutral investigative body with experience in sexual misconduct cases” to investigate the incident Ford says happened at a party in high school. Such an investigation, Hill said, would be “less likely to be perceived as tainted by partisanship.”
Senators should base their questions to Ford and Kavanaugh on the conclusions of the investigation as well as advice from experts, she said.
Hill also warned that as the #MeToo movement brings heightened awareness of sexual misconduct, lawmakers now hold more accountability in addressing allegations in a “fair, neutral and well-thought-out course.” But she questioned whether lawmakers had learned anything from her testimony decades ago.
“With years of hindsight, mounds of evidence of the prevalence and harm that sexual violence causes individuals and our institutions, as well as a Senate with more women than ever, ‘not getting it’ isn’t an option for our elected representatives. In 2018, our senators must get it right,” she wrote.
