Anita Hill

Anita Hill, University Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women's Studies at Brandeis University, is a vital leader in both the civil rights and women’s rights movements. In 1993, Hill made sexual harassment in the workplace a national issue when she testified that Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas had committed sexual harassment against her. Today, Hill continues to push the envelope in pursuit of women’s and civil rights, teaming up with MacArthur Genius Award-winning artist Mark Branford and prominent academics all over the country.

Over the years, Hill has provided commentary on gender and race issues on national television programs, including 60 Minutes, Face the Nation, and Meet the Press. She has been a speaker on the topic of commercial law as well as race and women's rights. She is also the author of articles that have been published in The New York Times and Newsweek and has contributed to many scholarly and legal publications in the areas of international commercial law, bankruptcy, and civil rights.

In 1995, Hill co-edited Race, Gender and Power in America: The Legacy of the Hill-Thomas Hearings. In 1997 Hill published her autobiography, Speaking Truth to Power, in which she chronicled her role in the Clarence Thomas confirmation controversy and wrote that creating a better society had been a motivating force in her life. She contributed the piece The Nature of the Beast: Sexual Harassment to the 2003 anthology Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium. In 2011, Hill published her second book, Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home, which focuses on the sub-prime lending crisis that resulted in the foreclosure of many homes owned by African-Americans. In 2015, the Brandeis Board of Trustees unanimously voted to recognize Hill with a promotion to Private University Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women's Studies.

In 2017, the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace was formed, selecting Hill to lead its charge against sexual harassment in the entertainment industry. In September 2018, Hill wrote an op-ed in The New York Times regarding sexual assault allegations made by Christine Blasey Ford during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination. On November 8, 2018, Hill spoke at the USC Dornsife's event, "From Social Movement to Social Impact: Putting an End to Sexual Harassment in the Workplace"

Hill keeps alive the legacy she bravely began in the early 1990s. She inspires the hundreds of students whom she has taught as University Professor at Brandeis and thousands more who follow her example in creating a better society in America. As long as women and minorities face discrimination in the U.S., for Hill, there is more work to be done.