Anita+Hill

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=Anita Hill=



Anita Faye Hill was born on July 30th, 1956 in Lone Tree, Oklahoma. She was the youngest of thirteen children and got straight A's at Okmuglee Country's integrated schools. After high school in 1977 she went to Oklahoma State University where she graduated from with a degree in psychology and then she went to Yale Law School where she was one of 11 African American students in a class of 160. She graduated in 1980. After college she got a full time job as a lawyer with the Washington Law Firm or Ward, Harkrader, and Ross. Anita Hill then began to work for Clarence Thomas as a personal assistant in 1981. He was then the head of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights in Washington. Clarence Thomas made several sexual advances towards her. Though this bothered her greatly, she was willing to forget about it when she went to work at the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 1986, away from Clarence Thomas. She had moved on with her life when in 1991 the Senate Judicial Committee approached her for background information on Thomas who was under consideration for replacing Thurgood Marshal in the Supreme Court. They specifically asked her about her experience working there and if she had encountered any counts of harassment on her or other women that worked there. Although she knew she had been mistreated, she was reluctant to go public with her story. Then she realized that should tell her story to the world. She said "Here is a person [Thomas] who is in charge of protecting rights of women and other groups in the workplace and he is using his position of power for personal gain for one thing, And he did it in a very ugly and intimidating way." She testified against him at the Senate Confirmation and Clarence Thomas denied the claims. After much consideration, the Senate voted Thomas not guilty. This case revealed to the public and made them more aware of sexual harassment and some people began to look to her for standing up for herself. Anita Hill is very important for understanding history because not only was she a great scholar who worked hard throughout her life to succeed, but she realized that just taking the easy path is not the way to go through life. In revealing the fact that she was harassed sexually she faced many critics who either didn't believe her claims and supported Clarence Thomas. From here experiences we can learn that it is important to stand up for the truth and to fight for your rights even if its not the easiest thing to do. Throughout the entire time of the trial and time after, Anita Hill remained strong and collected where many others would have become uncivil. The caused many people who doubted her before, to realize that she meant what she said and that she was telling the truth.