Accuser says she told truth on Thomas harassment
WASHINGTON, Oct 2 (Reuters) Anita Hill today said she testified truthfully in 1991 in accusing Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment and responded to a new book by the US Supreme Court justice by saying he had unfairly attacked her character.
It was Hill's first response to the Thomas memoir that denounces his former aide and liberal interest groups who wanted to stop his nomination to the highest US court.
''I'm really concerned that the approach that Clarence Thomas is taking now is so typical of people accused of wrongdoing. They trash their accusers ... and I don't want this to become the model of how we can react to bad workplace behavior,'' Hill said on ABC.
In an article on The New York Times op-ed page, Hill said Thomas in the book offered a litany of unsubstantiated representations and outright smears that Republican senators made when she testified.
''A number of independent authors have shown those attacks to be baseless,'' she wrote.
The sensational charges by Hill resulted in one of the most contentious Senate confirmation battles in history.
Hill, then a law professor in Oklahoma, charged that Thomas had badgered her for dates and offended her with sexually explicit talk when she was his aide at a government agency from 1981 to 1983.
A furious Thomas denied the charges and raised his own countercharges of racism and victimization. Both Thomas and Hill are black.
In
the
televised
interview,
Hill,
now
a
professor
at
Brandeis
University
in
Massachusetts,
said,
''I
understand
that
he
is
very
angry
and
he
wants
to
vindicate
himself.
But
when
I
testified
in
1991
I
was
truthful.''
She
added,
''I
look
back
and
think
what
could
I
have
done
to
make
this
less
combative,
less
tumultuous,
and
I
can't
think
of
anything
I
could
have
done
to
change
that
at
all.''
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