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By Newsweek Editors
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Crisp and self-assured, Anita F. Hill only occasionally slipped into the broader cadences of rural Oklahoma during last week's hearings, betraying at those moments just how far she has traveled in 35 years. The youngest of 13 children, Hill helped with the chores on the family's hardscrabble farm and worshiped at the local Baptist church. She excelled at her studies and would pick up a law degree from Yale University before seeking her fortune in Ronald Reagan's Washington. It was there, in the early '80s, that her path intersected with that of Clarence Thomas, another black lawyer who had transcended poverty and provincialism by dint of intelligence and hard work. He was on the rise in the new administration. Hill, eager to move from the private to the public sector, hitched herself to his star.
Given the irreconcilable differences between their accounts, the true nature of Thomas and Hill's relationship may never be known. Was Thomas her mentor or tormentor? Was she his weakness or nemesis? Beyond the "he said, she said" of last week's testimony, there seemed to be something that remained unsaid. Mentor-protegee relationships are usually complex matters, particularly when they involve a man and a woman; it's hard to believe that Thomas and Hill's relationship was an exception. Thomas has said he treated Hill no differently from his other aides, keeping a correct professional distance. Yet he claims he occasionally drove her home from work, stopping in for an afterhours Coke or a beer. Hill says Thomas's sexual talk caused her immeasurable pain, yet she admits she didn't "feel it was necessary to cut off all ties, burn all bridges or treat him in a hostile manner."
Given their similar backgrounds, Thomas and Hill had every reason to make common cause, and last week's testimony suggests that they at least got off to a promising start. After an introduction from mutual friend Gil Hardy--Thomas's best friend and best man--Hill took a job as Thomas's assistant at the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. "During this period..., my working relationship with Judge Thomas was positive," Hill testified. "I thought he respected my work and that he trusted my judgment." But within a few months, according to Hill, Thomas's conversations took a lurid turn--a charge he categorically denies.
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Little in Hill's life suggested she would one day discuss sexual matters before an audience of millions. Quiet and intensely private, Hill apparently has always been a straight arrow. Neighbors say that the law professor--still known back home by her middle name, Faye-was an unusually bright and determined child. Like four of her brothers and sisters, she was her high school's valedictorian. Colleagues at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where Hill teaches contract law, say it is inconceivable that the never-married professor would fabricate the allegations against Thomas. "Every faculty member here believes in Anita's integrity and honesty," says Mark Gillett, a friend and fellow law professor. "She's a good, sincere human being."
In an effort to discredit her testimony, Judiciary Committee members repeatedly asked Hill why she agreed to see Thomas when he twice visited Tulsa on business, on one occasion driving him to the airport at her dean's request. It is idle speculation whether she permitted those contacts, as well as periodic phone calls, out of simple civility, professional opportunism or something else altogether. But when a law student approached Hill (who had already been contacted by the Senate committee) to ask whether she thought Thomas might speak at commencement, the professor was quick to discourage the invitation. "She just said that she thought he would be too busy to be here," said Ed Bonzie, a third-year law student from Ghana. And in an interview last month with a student newspaper, Hill questioned her ex-boss's qualifications for the Supreme Court. "I think his mind is made up on a lot of cases, and I think that's bad," she said, adding that "there were a lot better nominations."
With Thomas's candidacy in the balance, it's his word against hers. They stand now on opposite sides of an unbridgeable divide. But whatever the outcome of the hearings, the names of Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill will remain forever linked in the public's memory.
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