Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, wants Anita Hill to apologize, nearly 20 years after Hill delivered her electrifying testimony of being sexually harassed by Thomas. Hill, a Brandeis University professor, says she has nothing to apologize for, and we agree. Ginni Thomas has a ton of nerve, considering how many women came forward to confirm Hill’s description of Clarence Thomas as a serial harasser with a fixation on hardcore pornography and telling jokes about pubic hairs on Coke cans. Today’s piece by Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus was appropriately titled “It’s not Ginni Thomas who deserves an apology.”
Justice Thomas has spent the past 19 years in a rage, denying the sexual harassment charges and fuming over the Senate hearings, which he called “a high-tech lynching.” Thomas’ “lynching” metaphor didn’t hold up, though, since, A. he had every chance to refute the testimony presented against him, and B. being confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court is hardly the same as being lynched, no matter how paranoid you may be.
Ginni Thomas has obviously bought her husband’s guilt-denial story, and although one hesitates to criticize someone for defending her spouse, the multiple cases, and piles of evidence, regarding Thomas’ lecherous comments and odd suggestions during his younger days are, to put it mildly, very convincing.
If anyone still doubts Hill’s contentions about Thomas, they should ask Charlotte resident Angela Wright, a former Thomas employee, and subsequently a reporter for the Charlotte Observer and a county government PR flack. Wright told Senate investigators at the time of the hearings that Thomas pressured her for dates, showed up unannounced and uninvited at her apartment (obsessive-compulsive, anyone?), and often made comments about her breasts and legs. At one point, Wright told the Senate investigators, “Clarence Thomas would say to me, ‘You know you need to be dating me … You’re one of the finest women I have on my staff.”
Wright, though, did not testify before the full committee. Stories vary on why she wasn’t called, but the general consensus was that the Democrats were getting so much pressure from the Bush administration over Hill’s testimony, they caved in (there’s a surprise) and dropped the idea of having more women testify to Thomas’ behavior.
So if any apologies are due here, it’s Clarence Thomas who needs to be delivering them. Except for one more apology we’d love to see: The Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 (including now-VP Biden) need to apologize to the American people for dropping the ball and letting Thomas slide through to the nation’s highest court, where he is widely regarded as one of the most clueless justices in the Court’s history. Maybe he’s distracted, trying to find pubic hairs on everyone else’s Cokes.
This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2010.
At least Ruth Marcus was temporarily distracted from her pathological obsession with Sarah Palin.
“Clarence Thomas as a serial harasser with a fixation on hardcore pornography and telling jokes about pubic hairs on Coke cans”
He wasnt making a joke about that. What happened is that Thomas put his can of coke down on someones desk, left for a bit, came back and someone had sprinkled a few pubic hairs on top of the coke can. He then yelled about the pubic hairs on the coke can. Indeed, when Anita Hill was working as a professor, one of her students had handed in to her his usual class assignment (some report something or other). to be graded. When the student got it back, it had pubic hairs sprinkled inside it. So now we know who the sicko is that put the public hairs on Thomas’ coke can. and why wouldnt he yell about it? Considering the context of this event, how can anyone hold it up as an example of sexual harrassment?
Marcia, your claim about the pubic hairs on a test paper has been discredited ad infinitum, and the author of the book in which that was published has said it was a false accusation. The fact is that at least three other women who worked with Thomas at EEOC confirmed that he had pulled the same “Coke/pubic hair” stunt with them, and, in addition, would often make jokes about pubic hair around the office. Combine that with multiple reports of Thomas’ porn obsession and his outright admissions that he “dogged” the women in his office, and well, you really need to rethink this thing.
I understand the hairs Thomas referred to on his can of coke were from his moustache. Perhaps they were mixed with pubic hairs!