Volume 38, Number 18 · November 7, 1991
Justice for Clarence Thomas
By Ronald Dworkin
As this article goes to press, the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court apparently hinges on how many senators accept the charges made by Professor Anita Hill, of the University of Oklahoma Law School, that Thomas sexually harassed her when she was his assistant at the Department of Education and the E E O C Though the Senate Judiciary Committee knew of the accusation before it voted on the nomination, no member of that committee mentioned it publicly until it was leaked to the press only two days before the whole Senate was scheduled to vote on the nomination. Thomas's supporters were ready to insist on a vote as scheduled, but so much of the public was outraged at the nearly all-male Senate's seeming indifference to a charge of sexual harassment, and so many senators who had planned to vote for him were reluctant to do so without further investigation, that the supporters agreed to a one-week postponement, and the Judiciary Committee undertook to hold further hearings, restricted to investigating these and perhaps other charges of similar misconduct, at which Thomas and Hill agreed to appear.
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