Anita Hill lectures on women’s rights

Hill speaks on 26th anniversary of her testimony to the Supreme Court

Anita Hill spoke at University of Idaho about women’s rights, 26 years after presenting her sexual harassment testimony against then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas in front of the Senate.

Greeted by a standing ovation from the crowd at UI on Wednesday, she spoke about equality, intersectionality and the hearings, which happened in 1991.

Hill is currently a professor at Brandeis University, but was thrusted into the national spotlight in 1991, when she described how Thomas had asked her out on dates multiple times.

He used work situations to discuss sexually explicit topics in conversation after she repeatedly refused him, while she worked as his aide for two years while he was the supervisor of the Department of Education and U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

She spoke of data’s importance to the practice of law and in holding governments accountable.

“Whether you like it or not, it’s new,” Hill said. “In the university, data can be everything, we use figures to calculate how much we need to improve.”

Hill said in courts, “facts, not the alternative kind” are indicators of fairness and injustice.

Mark Adams, dean of UI’s College of Law, said that the timing was especially important because it was not only the day Hill gave her testimony to the Senate, but also International Day of the Girl Child.

“Twenty-six years ago today,” he said, “likely at this moment, Professor Hill presented her testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Adams also said that there are 1.1 billion girls in the world, and that all young women must have the chance and the ability to overcome obstacles that many face on a day-to-day basis.

Hill is one of the lecturers in the Bellwood Memorial Lecture series, which is based in Idaho and brings local, regional and national figures to the UI campus.

The event featured many prominent members of the judicial court system, including Chief Justice Roger S. Burdick of the Idaho Supreme Court and Kent Higgins, president of the …

Please read original article- Anita Hill lectures on women’s rights