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Anita Hill 'Ready to Hold Joe Biden Accountable' for Thomas Confirmation

Anita Hill/ Youtube Screenshot
October 24, 2019

Anita Hill on Thursday said she wants to hold Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden "accountable" for his role in the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Hill, who accused the conservative jurist of sexual harassment during the hearings, indicated she may get involved in the 2020 Democratic primary. She said Biden caused her "harm" during the proceedings and she is "ready" to hold the Democratic frontrunner "accountable."

"Have I forgiven Joe Biden? I'm ready to move on, but I am also ready to hold Joe Biden accountable," Hill said at an event sponsored by CNN. "Accountability means acknowledging your role in the problem and the harm it's caused."

"Acknowledging that you have culpability, or part of it, giving me clear information that you have made a change and that you're going to do something to make us all better off around gender discrimination," Hill continued. "I expect that not only from Joe Biden, but I expect that from every candidate regardless of their gender."

Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 during the controversial confirmation hearing for Thomas.

Thomas vehemently denied Hill's allegations during his testimony, famously denouncing the investigation as a "high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks."

In April, Biden called Hill to apologize for the way she was treated during the confirmation process. Hill did not accept the former vice president's apology, saying, "I cannot be satisfied by simply saying I'm sorry for what happened to you."

"I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose," she told the New York Times. "But he needs to give an apology to the other women and to the American public because we know now how deeply disappointed Americans around the country were about what they saw. And not just women. There are women and men now who have just really lost confidence in our government to respond to the problem of gender violence."

Hill said she has not decided who she will support in the Democratic primary, adding, "I've never endorsed a presidential candidate."