Film Review: Courage of Testimony is Remembered in ‘Anita’

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CHICAGO – The saga of Anita Hill, an African American law professor from Oklahoma, electrified the United States in the early 1990s. During the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Ms. Hill testified that Thomas had created a workplace atmosphere of sexual harassment. The story is told in the new documentary, “Anita.”

Rating: 4.0/5.0

This event occurred amazingly – in a sense of how time flies – over 20 years ago, in September and October of 1991. The testimony was a lighting rod moment in social evolution, as the cool and calm Ms. Hill sat in front of a group of U.S. Senators, all white and all middle aged, and was grilled about her work experience at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), with Clarence Thomas as her boss. The Republican Senators were charged with bringing her down, to try to obscure her testimony so that the Republican-appointed Thomas could be confirmed. But the Democrats were no better, twisting in utter cluelessness regarding the light of truth about the vital and ongoing circumstance of workplace sexual harassment. This documentary is crucial for summing up the situation of that testimony, and the impact it had on social, gender, race, political and cultural America.

As the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas – vying to be the second African American Supreme Court Justice in history – went on in the fall of 1991, an interview Anita Hill had with the FBI, as part of the vetting process for Thomas, was leaked to the press. She was an attorney that worked with Thomas at the Department of Education and the EEOC. Thomas was her supervisor, and she told the FBI that he would often make comments to her that were of a graphic sexual nature. As a result of the uproar, Ms. Hill was called to testify at the Senate hearings.

What happened next absorbed the nation for days. Ms. Hill told of specific incidences of the peculiarities of the behavior of Thomas in the workplace, including graphic descriptions of pornography and inappropriate banter. Thomas, for his part, called the allegations a “high tech lynching,” and defined the charges through race rather than gender. On October 15, 1991, Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court, by a Senate vote of 52-48.

Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Anita”

Anita Hill Testifies at the Clarence Thomas Confirmation Hearings in ‘Anita’
Photo credit: Samuel Goldwyn Films

Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Anita”