In 1991, Ffederal Ccircuit Judge Clarence Thomas was nominated by President George H.W. Bush to replace Thurgood Marshall, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Senate hearings had been conducted on Thomas’s reputation, and his nomination had gone through with no organized opposition until an official document surfaced showing a private interview held between the FBI and Anita Hill, a law professor who had worked with Thomas during his tenure in the U.S. Department of Education and also in the EEOC.
The report caused a stir in the media, and the hearings were reopened with Hill testifying against Thomas’s character and fitness. In her testimony before the senate hearings in October 1991, Hill described instances during which Thomas had…show more content… One year later Thomas was offered the job of Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Hill worked for him again, this time as special assistant until she resigned two years later. In her testimony, Hill stated that she followed Thomas to the EEOC because she thought it was a prestigious position and she wanted to work within the civil rights field; also, she said she thought at the time that the sexual overtures had ended.
Hill described occasions during which Thomas spoke in lurid detail about things like pornography, his own sexual prowess and details of his sexual anatomy. Four female witnesses had pledged to support Hill’s credibility but they were never called to testify due to what some people (including the LA Times) have described as a compromise deal between Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Joe Biden and members of the Republican Party (Joe Biden has since apologized to Hill for “not doing enough”).
Thomas denied all the accusations leveled against him and described Hill’s testimony as an elaborate lynching. Public opinion showed that the majority of people believed Thomas over Hill; and after an extensive debate the committee approved his nomination and Thomas was sworn in as the 106th member of the Justice of the Supreme
