Clarence Thomas’s Wife Asks Anita Hill for Apology
WASHINGTON - Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, left a message last weekend on the voicemail of Anita Hill, who accused her husband of sexual harassment during his confirmation hearings, a spokeswoman for Ms. Thomas confirmed on Tuesday.
In a message left at the office of Ms. Hill, who is now a professor at Brandeis University, Ms. Thomas apparently brought up Ms. Hill’s accusations against her husband during the 1991 hearings.
In response to questions about the call relayed through a publicist, Ms. Thomas confirmed that she had left a message on Ms. Hill’s voicemail.
“I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get passed what happened so long ago,” Ms. Thomas said in a statement provided to The New York Times.
“That offer still stands,” her statement went on. “I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”
Ms. Thomas did not explain why she had reached out to Ms. Hill at this time.
ABC News quoted from the voicemail.
“Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas,” she said, according to ABC News. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”
While Ms. Thomas described the call as an attempt to reach out, the university appeared to be taking the matter more seriously.
Andrew Gully, senior vice president of the Brandeis University Communications office, confirmed that Ms. Hill had received the message, that she had turned it over to the campus Department of Public Safety Monday. They, in turn, passed it on to the FBI.
“I though it was certainly inappropriate,” Ms. Hill said in an interview. “It came in at 7:30 a.m. on my office phone from somebody I didn’t know, and she is asking for an apology. It was not invited. There was no background for it."
Ms. Thomas has long been active in conservative circles in Washington, and in the past year has risen to greater prominence as the founder of a new nonprofit activist group, Liberty Central, which opposes what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats.
Her activities with the group have raised questions of judicial ethics because the group, which pays her, has accepted large contributions from unidentified donors. She began the group with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000 from undisclosed contributors, tax forms show.
The allegations by Ms. Hill, a former aide to Mr. Thomas when he worked at the Department of Education and then the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, emerged late in Mr. Thomas’s confirmation hearings.
Called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she claimed that Mr. Thomas had repeatedly made inappropriate sexual comments in the workplace and described several in lurid detail. In response, Mr. Thomas denied the allegations and called them “a high-tech lynching.”
In her 1998 book, Ms. Hill noted that she had been accused of harboring a romantic interest in Justice Thomas by his wife. “Virginia Thomas and I have never met,” Ms. Hill wrote. “And one can imagine that she is guided by her own romantic interest in her husband when she assumes that other women find him attractive as well.”
Justice Thomas eventually weighed in with his own autobiography in 2007, “My Grandfather’s Son.” He meticulously picked apart the allegations against him, referring to Ms. Hill as “my most traitorous adversary” and asserting that liberal advocacy groups stooped to “the age-old blunt instrument of accusing a black man of sexual misconduct” to block his ascent.
The confrontation between Ms. Hill and the future Justice Thomas deeply divided the country during what became a national debate about the nature of sexual behavior in the workplace. Ms. Hill’s descriptions of unseemly conduct and his adamant denials produced one of the most polarizing Supreme Court confirmation battles of modern times. In the end, the Senate confirmed Justice Thomas by a vote of 52 to 48.
The confirmation produced a backlash that singed many of the participants, and encouraged a new generation of women to run for Congress. Both of the main protagonists were scarred by the searing battle. Ms. Hill tried to move forward with her academic career, although she later wrote a memoir called “Speaking Truth to Power.” Justice Thomas became a largely silent figure on the Supreme Court, but a forceful advocate behind the scenes.
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In a message left at the office of Ms. Hill, who is now a professor at Brandeis University, Ms. Thomas apparently brought up Ms. Hill’s accusations against her husband during the 1991 hearings.
In response to questions about the call relayed through a publicist, Ms. Thomas confirmed that she had left a message on Ms. Hill’s voicemail.
“I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get passed what happened so long ago,” Ms. Thomas said in a statement provided to The New York Times.
“That offer still stands,” her statement went on. “I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”
Ms. Thomas did not explain why she had reached out to Ms. Hill at this time.
ABC News quoted from the voicemail.
“Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas,” she said, according to ABC News. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”
While Ms. Thomas described the call as an attempt to reach out, the university appeared to be taking the matter more seriously.
Andrew Gully, senior vice president of the Brandeis University Communications office, confirmed that Ms. Hill had received the message, that she had turned it over to the campus Department of Public Safety Monday. They, in turn, passed it on to the FBI.
“I though it was certainly inappropriate,” Ms. Hill said in an interview. “It came in at 7:30 a.m. on my office phone from somebody I didn’t know, and she is asking for an apology. It was not invited. There was no background for it."
Ms. Thomas has long been active in conservative circles in Washington, and in the past year has risen to greater prominence as the founder of a new nonprofit activist group, Liberty Central, which opposes what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats.
Her activities with the group have raised questions of judicial ethics because the group, which pays her, has accepted large contributions from unidentified donors. She began the group with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000 from undisclosed contributors, tax forms show.
The allegations by Ms. Hill, a former aide to Mr. Thomas when he worked at the Department of Education and then the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, emerged late in Mr. Thomas’s confirmation hearings.
Called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she claimed that Mr. Thomas had repeatedly made inappropriate sexual comments in the workplace and described several in lurid detail. In response, Mr. Thomas denied the allegations and called them “a high-tech lynching.”
In her 1998 book, Ms. Hill noted that she had been accused of harboring a romantic interest in Justice Thomas by his wife. “Virginia Thomas and I have never met,” Ms. Hill wrote. “And one can imagine that she is guided by her own romantic interest in her husband when she assumes that other women find him attractive as well.”
Justice Thomas eventually weighed in with his own autobiography in 2007, “My Grandfather’s Son.” He meticulously picked apart the allegations against him, referring to Ms. Hill as “my most traitorous adversary” and asserting that liberal advocacy groups stooped to “the age-old blunt instrument of accusing a black man of sexual misconduct” to block his ascent.
The confrontation between Ms. Hill and the future Justice Thomas deeply divided the country during what became a national debate about the nature of sexual behavior in the workplace. Ms. Hill’s descriptions of unseemly conduct and his adamant denials produced one of the most polarizing Supreme Court confirmation battles of modern times. In the end, the Senate confirmed Justice Thomas by a vote of 52 to 48.
The confirmation produced a backlash that singed many of the participants, and encouraged a new generation of women to run for Congress. Both of the main protagonists were scarred by the searing battle. Ms. Hill tried to move forward with her academic career, although she later wrote a memoir called “Speaking Truth to Power.” Justice Thomas became a largely silent figure on the Supreme Court, but a forceful advocate behind the scenes.
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