Anita Hill Repeatedly Reached Out to Thomas even after she left the EEOC
Anita Hill claims she left the EEOC to get away from Thomas’ alleged sexual harassment, but she continued to call him and meet with him after she left. Diane Holt, Thomas’ secretary at the EEOC, kept detailed phone logs, which proved that Hill called and left messages for Thomas on more than ten occasions. Holt testified that Hill made additional calls to Thomas not included in the phone logs because Thomas was in the office and able to speak with her directly.
Sen. Hatch: Now there are 10 messages recorded by you in the telephone log book which…I had entered into the record yesterday. Now…do these represent all of the times that Anita Hill called or might have called Judge Thomas during the 7 years that you worked for Judge Thomas?
Diane Holt: There were other times she called and he was available to take the call, which would mean that there was no, no indication in the…phone log.
Sen. Hatch: So there were a number of other times besides the at least 10 that you wrote down, mentioned in these logs?
Diane Holt: Right
Watch this exchange between Sen. Hatch and Diane Holt:
Diane Holt further rejected Hill’s claim that the phone calls were really calls to Holt, not Thomas:
Sen. Hatch: As I mentioned, Professor Hill spoke of you this last Friday as a friend and, you know, attempts to diminish the significance of these messages…it seems to me, were made by her…at least at the one press conference, by claiming that many were calls placed to you and not to Judge Thomas, or Clarence Thomas at the time…that the messages to Judge Thomas were only accidental developments from her conversations with you. Have you heard that?
Ms. Holt: I heard that, yes.
Sen. Hatch: Is that true?
Ms. Holt: That is not true. Had Anita Hill called me…and even asked that I pass on a hello to Judge Thomas…I would have done just that, but it would not have been an official message in his phone log.
Watch this exchange:
Examples Of Some Of Hill’s Phone Messages To Thomas:
Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) summed up what many were probably thinking about Hill’s peculiar behavior by exclaiming:
But let me tell you, if what you say this man said to you occurred, why in God’s name, when he left his position of power or status or authority over you, and you left it in 1983, why in God’s name would you ever speak to a man like that the rest of your life?
Watch Sen. Simpson question Hill at the hearing here:
Hill’s Dismissal Of The Phone Logs’ Significance
Hill lied about these calls when initially confronted by a reporter from the Washington Post with these phone logs. As reported by The Washington Post in October 9, 1991:
Hill called the telephone logs “garbage” and said she had not telephoned Thomas except to return his calls.
In a discussion about the phone logs with Sen. Specter, Hill again tried to dismiss the phone logs:
No, [the phone logs] have very little, if any, relevance at all to the incidents that happened before those phone calls were made.
Later in her exchange with Sen. Specter, Hill was forced to concede that she had in fact made these calls to Thomas.
Watch the full exchange with Sen. Specter here:
After Hill Left the EEOC, she joined Thomas for a breakfast and volunteered to drive him to the airport
In addition to the phone calls, Hill eagerly visited with Thomas when he was invited to give a speech in Oklahoma. Dean Kothe, former dean of the law school, testified at the hearing that Hill enjoyed her time with Thomas when he visited the school and even volunteered to drive him to the airport:
In 1986 ORU law school was closed, and Anita went to OU. I didn’t keep in as close a touch with her at that time. In April of 1987 a speech was made by Clarence Thomas in Tulsa before a personnel group, that I believe was arranged by Anita. She and I and my wife sat at the table together, and Clarence Thomas was there at that dinner. After he spoke, he stayed at my home, which he has on several other occasions. The next morning we had breakfast together, and she attended the breakfast, and it was one of joviality and just one of joy. After that, as I recall it, she volunteered to take him to the airport in her sports car, of which she was quite proud.
At the hearing, Sen. Specter questioned Hill about why she would “voluntarily” drive the man who allegedly sexually harassed her to the airport:
One of the comments which was made by Dean Kothe related to your voluntarily driving Judge Thomas to the airport on an occasion when he came to speak at Oral Roberts Law School. My question is that in a context where you had responded to some people who asked you to make inquiries of Judge Thomas, in a context of his having said these things to you as you represent, being violations of the Civil Rights law, constituting sexual harassment, given that background, why would you voluntarily agree to drive Judge Thomas to the airport?
Hill, of course, denied volunteering to drive Thomas, though she admitted to having driven him. Watch the exchange between Sen. Specter and Hill here:
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