Anita Hill Will Be Voting for Joe Biden in 2020, Opens the Door to Working With Him on Gender Issues

Exhibiting the kind of grace and foresight characteristic to Black women, Anita Hill says she will be casting her vote for Joe Biden in November and would like to work with his administration on issues of gender-based violence and discrimination.

As you’ll remember, Hill was relentlessly and often-derisively questioned during the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991, a hearing which Biden presided over as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Biden’s role in the hearing, where Hill spoke of being sexually harassed by Thomas, has come up during his campaign. He apologized to Hill by phone last year in a conversation she described as “unsatisfying,” after which Biden publicly acknowledged his responsibility as chairman for her not being treated well during the hearings.

Biden’s follow-up statement of accountability seems to have turned the corner for Hill, as well as the disastrous reality of President Trump—who has been no friend to survivors of sexual violence.

From CNN:

“Notwithstanding all of his limitations in the past, and the mistakes that he made in the past, notwithstanding those — at this point, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think Joe Biden is the person who should be elected in November,” Hill told CNN’s Gloria Borger. But it’s not just because he’s running against Donald Trump, she adds. “Its more about the survivors of gender violence. That’s really what it’s about.”

And if that means voting for and working with Joe Biden, then “so be it.”

“My commitment is to finding solutions, and I am more than willing to work with him,” Hill said.

This moment appears to have inspired Hill to return to government, though the lawyer and academic disavowed it after her experience at the hearing in 1993—one that was echoed during the confirmation for Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

It’s beautiful that Hill, whose story forced the nation to recognize the issue of sexual harassment in all kinds of workplaces, now feels driven and willing to push for change by being more involved in the policy-making process.

“I always said, I think I can be more effective as an outsider, as opposed to an insider. And now, I’m willing to evolve myself, to work for change inside,” she said in the interview with CNN, which is part of an upcoming documentary about Biden’s bid for the presidency.

“I want the next president to be somebody that I can go to and talk about the real issues that women, men, and non-binary people are experiencing with violence in this country, that’s directed to them because of their gender.”

Kudos to Biden for earning her endorsement.