Who’s going to be the one to explain to Anita Hill and the #MeToo crowd how Supreme Court confirmation hearings work?
Hill told the New York Times on Thursday that though Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden personally called her to express his regret over her experience in 1991 during Clarence Thomas’ hearing, she didn’t find it sufficient.
“I cannot be satisfied by simply saying, ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you,’” Hill told the Times. “I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose.”
She added that Biden, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee when Thomas’ hearing took place, should also apologize for declining to call forward more witnesses and “to the American public because we know now how deeply disappointed Americans around the country were about what they saw.”
She also claimed that because of her experience, “There are women and men now who have just really lost confidence in our government to respond to the problem of gender violence.”
And with that, Hill had officially gone off the reservation. Her own claims against Thomas had nothing to do with “gender violence.” She never testified that Thomas so much as laid a finger on her. Her graphic testimony only said that when she worked for Thomas, he had made inappropriate remarks to her about pornography and pubic hair.
Hill has learned well from the social justice movement. Biden, as a “privileged” white male, can never be sorry enough for having presided over the committee that supposedly victimized Hill. She’s such a victim that she’s now an esteemed professor at Brandeis University and to this day lauded by glossy magazines and sympathetic biopics portraying her as an irreproachable feminist hero.
What precisely is Biden supposed to have done that he didn’t do? He allowed her to testify right before Thomas was scheduled for a vote. He then ended up voting against Thomas’ confirmation. Yes, Republicans on the committee aggressively cross-examined Hill on the bizarre details of her claims — for example, why did she remain under Thomas’ employ for so long? — but that’s how a hearing works. No one gets to make an inflammatory accusation and then walk away without scrutiny. As a law professor, Hill certainly understands this.
Biden has been apologizing for the Hill hearing since even before he officially launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination. And naturally, he’s also been apologizing for being a white man. He should have known that wouldn’t have been enough. It never is.
The dejected women of ABC’s “The View” on Friday asked Biden again to apologize for the way he himself treated Hill, and he was appropriately confounded. Was he supposed to physically shield her from questioning? We know what happens when Biden so much as touches a woman on the shoulder.
Unfortunately for Biden, this won’t end here. The social justice movement is just getting started.
