User:Wallamoose/draft

Toward the end of the confirmation hearings with the nomination expected to be successful, a new conflict arose. Information was leaked to the press from an FBI interview with Anita Hill, an attorney who had worked for Thomas at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission from 1981-1983. On October 11, 1991, Hill was called to testify during the Senate confirmation hearing.

Hill accused Thomas of inappropriate and harassing comments of a sexual nature (the term sexual harassment was used at the hearing, but was not in common usage at the time the behaviors were said to have happened). The allegations led to a media frenzy. Thomas denied the allegations, and a heated dispute over who was telling the truth ensued.

The hearings were largely partisan, and were seen by Republicans as part of a broader dispute over changes to the court that could move it to the Right and in the direction of overturning Roe v. Wade precedence on abortion. For others, especially Democrats and feminists the hearings highlighted the issue of sexual harassment and aggravated concerns over Thomas's views on gender issues and civil rights. Because of the issues involved, there was an added intensity and heightened emotional quality to the hearings and media coverage.

Hill's testimony included lurid details, and aggressive questioning by some Senators. Hill was the only person to testify at the Senate hearings that Thomas had harassed her or engaged in inappropriate conduct, but several people testified that Hill told them about the harassment. There is a dispute over whether the timeline of these statements and whether the harassment discussions had to do with Thomas or a lawyer at her previous employer. Statements alleging similar improprieties were also entered into the record on behalf of Angela Wright, who worked with Thomas at the EEOC before he fired her, and Sukari Hardnett, a former Thomas assistant.

Several witnesses testified on Thomas's behalf. Diane Holt testified that in the years after Hill left for another job, Hill called at least a dozen times. Nancy Altman who worked with Hill and Thomas at the Department of Education testified that, "It is not credible that Clarence Thomas could have engaged in the kinds of behavior that Anita Hill alleges, without any of the women who he worked closest with -- dozens of us, we could spend days having women come up, his secretaries, his chief of staff, his other assistants, his colleagues -- without any of us having sensed, seen or heard something." Senator Specter said that, "the testimony of Professor Hill in the morning was flat out perjury", and that "she specifically changed it in the afternoon when confronted with the possibility of being contradicted."

Thomas denied all allegations of sexual harassment and sexual impropriety by Hill and the other accusers. Of the committee's investigation of the accusations, Thomas said: "This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree."[32]

After extensive debate, the committee sent the nomination to the full Senate without a recommendation either way. Thomas was confirmed by the Senate with a 52-48 vote on October 15, 1991, the narrowest margin for approval in more than a century.[33] The final floor vote was mostly along party lines: 41 Republicans and 11 Democrats voted to confirm while 46 Democrats and two Republicans (Jim Jeffords (R-VT) and Bob Packwood[34] (R-OR)) voted to reject the nomination.

On October 23, 1991, Thomas took his seat as the 106th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

The debate over who was telling the truth continues, and numerous books and articles have been written about the original hearings and testimony that could have been presented. Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill have both written autobiographies that include their takes on the hearings. The conduct, meaning, and outcome of the hearings are still vigorously disputed by both all sides of the debate.