Anita Hill was an attorney who earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1980. She soon began working for Clarence Thomas at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights and later the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After Thomas was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991, Hill brought national attention to workplace sexual harassment during the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas. when she famously testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had been sexually harassed by her former employer.
Ms. Hill’s testimony made her a national symbol and brought new attention to matters of equality and discrimination in the workplace. She is currently a professor at Brandeis University.
Anita Faye Hill was born in the rural town of Lone Tree, Oklahoma, on July 30, 1956. The youngest of 13 children, she was raised in a strongly religious environment on her parents’ farm. She attended Morris High School and was an excellent student, earning straight As and graduating as valedictorian of her class. After high school, Hill enrolled at Oklahoma State University, where she again excelled, graduating with honors and a B.A. in psychology in 1977.
After a brief internship with a local judge redirected Hill’s interests to law, she was accepted to the prestigious Yale Law School, where she was one of the few Black students in a class of 160. Hill received her J.D. from the institution in 1980.
Following a stint with the private law firm Ward, Harkrader & Ross, Hill in 1981, Hill accepted a position as legal adviser to Clarence Thomas, then head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. According to Hill, it was during this time that Thomas began his harassment of her, making frequent sexual advances and explicit remarks.