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Hill Denies Politics Led To Harassment Claim Against Thomas

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The Associated Press

Published: October 3, 2007

WASHINGTON - Anita Hill, whose sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas nearly derailed his Supreme Court nomination 16 years ago, said Tuesday that she stands by her account of his behavior, disputing Thomas' assertion in a new book that the charges were politically motivated.

'I stand by my testimony' at a 1991 Senate Judiciary hearing on the nomination, Hill wrote in a piece in The New York Times. 'I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.'

In his book, 'My Grandfather's Son,' Thomas says Hill, his former employee at the Education Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, was a mediocre employee who was used by political opponents to make claims she had been sexually harassed.

Powerful interest groups were out to stop him at all costs and chose 'the age-old blunt instrument of accusing a black man of sexual misconduct,' he writes. He described Hill as touchy and apt to overreact, and said she complained to him only about his refusal to promote her.

Hill, who also is black, disputed Thomas' assertions.

'I was truthful. What I described happened actually did happen, and what I've learned is that it's happened to many women in the workplace,' Hill said in an interview Tuesday on ABC's 'Good Morning America.'

She said she thinks the workplace environment is better now for women, but added Thomas' approach 'is really so typical of people accused of wrongdoing: They trash their accusers.'

In the 1991 hearings, Thomas denied Hill's accusations that he made inappropriate sexual remarks, including references to pornographic movies. Thomas says he did talk about X-rated movies while at Yale Law School, adding that so did many other young people in the 1970s.

Hill is a professor of social policy, law and women's studies at Brandeis University.

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