On Feb. 20, the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and Dartmouth Dialogues co-hosted attorney, women’s rights activist and Brandeis University professor Anita Hill for the final event of the 2024 Election Speaker Series.
Hill, who gained national attention in 1991 after accusing then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, discussed the Court and gender-based violence. She focused on judicial partisanship and argued that it is the public’s responsibility to pressure politicians into protecting survivors of sexual harassment.
The event was moderated by Montgomery Fellow and playwright Anna Deavere Smith and held in the Hanover Inn Grand Ballroom. More than 200 individuals attended in-person, while an additional 150 attendees joined virtually, according to Rockefeller Center assistant director for public programs and special events Dvora Greenberg Koelling. Montgomery Fellows program director Steven Swayne introduced Hill at the start of the event.
Smith, who is currently writing a play about Hill’s life, opened the conversation by asking Hill to describe what she attributes her success to. Hill, who is the youngest of 13 children and originally from rural Oklahoma, became the first Black professor to be tenured at the University of Oklahoma, College of Law in 1989. Hill responded that she reached her success through “a lot of hard work.”
“I got there by continuing to believe in … the need for the law to produce equality … and my belief that I could play a role in making that happen,” Hill said.
Smith asked Hill to describe how the government can restore the Supreme Court to an “unbiased, non-political entity” at a time when “confidence in and approval of the court … are at near historic lows.” According to a 2024 Gallup poll, Americans’ confidence in the Supreme Court currently sits at 35%, a “record-low.” Hill explained that the public has historically believed “politics should not invade the court.” Now, however, she argued that justices have been selected based on their “political affiliation.”
“We all start to lose out if we don’t have a court that to some extent … is there because they are the best legal minds,” Hill said.
Smith then shifted the conversation to gender-based violence, asking Hill how allies and survivors should approach “presidential indifference” on sexual harassment and gender-based violence. Hill said the public needs to make a “conscious effort” to prevent perpetrators of harassment from holding public office.
“We’ve got to make [gender-based violence] an issue that we will vote about, that we will lobby about, that we will expect that our representatives will take seriously and do something about,” Hill said.
Smith then asked Hill to speak about her experience testifying against Thomas. In 1991, Hill testified before Congress that Thomas had sexually harassed her while he was her supervisor at the Department of Education. Ultimately, Thomas was confirmed with 52 senators voting in favor of his confirmation and 48 against, the narrowest margin in a century. According to Hill, her testimony was about “theater” instead of “the real message and heart of it” for much of the public.
“Even journalists were looking for that spectacle,” Hill said. “They weren’t just covering the news.”
Speaking from her position as a professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Smith asked Hill to explain what responsibility educators hold to prepare their students to enter the workforce and assume positions of power. Hill said educators’ primary concern should be the government’s “assault on higher education.” While Hill did not reference specific policies, one order affecting higher education is a Department of Education memo from Feb. 14 stating that schools and universities have two weeks to eliminate diversity initiatives or risk losing federal money. However, on Feb. 22, a federal judge temporarily blocked the order.
“I see [the dismantling of education systems] more as an attack on knowledge and change than it is on any kind of deficit that people are claiming exist in educational institutions,” Hill said.
Smith’s next question referenced a private conversation she and Hill had “many years ago,” during which she had asked Hill where she felt at home. Smith read out Hill’s response from a sheet of paper, which stated that “home is as much psychological and spiritual as it is physical.” In her response, Hill also said home reminds her to “act to create [her] own belongingness,” according to Smith.
Smith then asked Hill how to “fulfill the promise” of making a home for oneself and others. Hill explained that “you have to create that space for yourself.”
“It can be just your own physical house, or it can be your town or your community or your neighborhood,” Hill said. “You have to find that in yourself in order for you to be able to begin to build it in the lives of others.”
Hill concluded the conversation by speaking about how to “focus our belief” and the belief “that we can do better.”
“We can’t just be making decisions based on the political whims of the moment,” Hill said. “Our decisions have to be grounded in something that is critical to who we are as a country.”
In an interview after the event, attendee Nastasia Caole said Hill’s talk made her “feel more hopeful” and “highlighted” that people have to individually work to create community and connection.
“To hear someone reiterate [that] we have this constitution, we have this framework, we have all of these wonderful people — … it just makes me think about everyone who’s living in this country, all of these different people with different abilities,” Caole said. “… That’s what matters.”
Attendee Angel Castillo ’28 described Hill as “brave.”
“To attend events with such incredible people encourages you to do brave things in the future like they have done,” Castillo said.
