Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Politico-Is Justice Thomas's Wife Threatening His Supreme Court Tenure?

Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has asked Professor Anita Hill to apologize to her husband for accusing him of sexual harassment two decades ago: AP
(Story reported by Ben Smith and Meredith Shiner for Politico)

Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, left a voicemail over the weekend for Anita Hill, the woman who accused her husband of sexual harassment when he was being confirmed for the high court, according to multiple news reports Tuesday night.

Thomas left the message, in which she asked Hill for an apology 19 years after her 1991 accusations, on Hill's work mailbox at Brandeis University where she works as a professor.

“I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get past what happened so long ago,” Thomas said Tuesday to The New York Times.

“That offer still stands. I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”

The full voicemail: “Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas,” she said, according to ABC. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”

Hill, however, did indeed seem to take offense, telling ABC: “Even if it wasn’t a prank, it was in no way conciliatory for her to begin with the presumption that I did something wrong in 1991. I simply testified to the truth of my experience. For her to say otherwise is not extending an olive branch, it’s accusatory.

I don’t apologize. I have no intention of apologizing and I stand by my testimony in 1991.”

(Click here to read the full story on the Political website.)

No comments: