In October 1991, 35-year-old law professor Anita Hill sat in front of the U.S. Senate Judiciary committee to testify about the sexual harassment she said she had experienced while working for Clarence Thomas, who was waiting to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.
For three days, millions of Americans watched the hearings that were broadcasted on live TV. They heard Hill describe the sexually explicit comments she was subjected to in the workplace, and they watched an all-male, all-white panel question her every word.
Thomas, for his part, called the entire process a "high-tech lynching."
The testimony, described in a 1991 Newsweek story as "an X-rated spectacle that was repulsive and irresistible at the same time," did not stop Thomas from being confirmed to the Supreme Court. But it did bring public attention to the widespread issue of sexual harassment -- and signaled just how ill-equipped a Senate almost exclusively made up of white men was to deal with it.
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