Class was in session in an actual classroom today, which was mainly because Brooke was going to rant and then let everyone leave!

"Hope everyone had a good weekend with any family members or friends they had in town, or that you successfully avoided anyone you didn't want to see," Brooke greeted them. "And now we're back to work. I'm not sure how much you guys pay attention to the news here or anything, but if you do, you might've heard some names. So today we're going to learn about Anita Hill. She was born in Oklahoma in 1956, the youngest of thirteen kids, and seems to have had a normal enough life that I couldn't find a ton of detail at first glance, even though she was a black woman growing up in the South. I'm honestly not sure if there's not that much information out there, or if everyone was just itching to get to the big stuff in her story. She graduated from high school as valedictorian, got a degree in psychology, then went to Yale Law School. She got her Juris Doctor degree with honors, which must be smart because I don't even know what that is. Right out of law school she got a job working for a firm in DC, where she became an-" She had to pull a notecard out for this one. "-attorney-advisor to Clarence Thomas, who was the Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which is just too many words. He then became the chairman of the US Equal Opportunity Commission, and she followed him there as his assistant, leaving a year later." Bye, notecard! "She then on to teach at Oral Roberts University and the University of Oklahoma.

"And then she got her life blown up because in 1991, Clarence Thomas was nominated for the Supreme Court. He was a black conservative man who was being presented on the basis of his good character because he didn't have a ton of judge experience. It seemed like he was a lock, except when nominate someone, I guess they have to run all these investigations and background checks to make sure the person isn't terrible, since the Supreme Court are the ones who decide a ton of our laws here. And who did the FBI interview in that process? That's right, his former assistant Anita Hill. She'd told them that while she'd worked with Thomas, he'd sexually harassed her. And, okay, if you're not sure what that is, it's unwanted sexual advances, which might be having to repeatedly turn someone down for a date, or dealing with sexual conversations you're not comfortable with, or dealing with comments about your appearance. All of which you shouldn't be doing at work anyway. What is an isn't okay is a whole conversation and also sometimes up to the person on the receiving end of it, but at best it makes him a terrible boss. I'm also not going to go into the details of what she experienced, because that's a tough thing to spring on you and it's easy enough to look up yourself if you're interested. The FBI interview leaked, and now that that was out, she got called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. And, let it be said, at the time there were only two Supreme Court justices that were female, and neither had any say in whether or Thomas was going to make it in, which is just great.

"Anita Hill testifies for eight hours the first day, the first of three days, by a bunch of dudes who didn't believe her. Mind you, it's not like she started any of this, but she was the one who ended up on trial. Because of course it turns into a case of 'oh she's just doing this to discredit him politically,' or 'well she followed him to a second job so it obviously wasn't a big deal,' or 'he obviously rejected her and she wants revenge,' or Thomas' 'I thought we were friends so I'm really hurt by this,' which is total bullshit and if anyone ever pulls this on any of you, you have my explicit permission to knee him in the groin. I will write you a note." Brooke had Feelings on this! "She got ripped apart in the media, she had other women who were there to testify and back her up and they weren't ever called to speak, probably because of a sneaky deal by guys, and he got confirmed anyway, while she got her name dragged through the mud and was forced to resign from her job. A guy wrote a tell-all on her that years later he admitted was mostly lies and character assassination, and that he regretted it and apologized to her.

"Now," Brooke went on, "this is all really depressing. But good things did come from this. After the hearings a bill was passed that would allow harassment victims to sue for damages and back pay. In a year harassment complaints were up 50 percent. See, before Anita Hill, people weren't talking about sexual harassment. A lot of people didn't know what it was, or just put up with the behavior because they figured it was just what happened. Companies started training their employees on how to deal with and also not commit harassment, which is mostly to protect themselves from liability, but still. A ton of women started running for office. And as for Hill, she went on to other teaching jobs, and sometimes makes the TV rounds to talk about commercial law, and race, and women's rights. She's written two books, including her own point of view of what happened in the hearings, and an HBO movie was made about her. She's said that creating a better society has been a motivating factor in her life, and most recently, in 2017, the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace was created, and guess who was chosen to lead it? She's also got an op-ed in the New York Times that you might want to check out. Shockingly, she had some things to say about the current news cycle. So. Things suck. But because of women like her, they're getting better.

"I didn't prepare an acivity because I felt like I'd probably be ranting for most of class?" Brooke admitted. "So I'm going to let you guys leave early, and for your homework this week, go support a woman somehow."


[Belatedly, not sure I need a content warning for this or if the name says it all, but there is talk of sexual harassment under the cut.]