On Monday’s edition of the tax-supported Amanpour & Co., airing on PBS and CNN International, host Christiane Amanpour interviewed Anita Hill, a professor and of course the woman who accused now-Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.
Hill has been hailed in the liberal media since her nationally televised 1991 confrontation with the U.S Senate and Thomas, and Amanpour shoehorned her into her show, ostensibly to talk about the African-American emancipation holiday Juneteenth, but really to bash the Supreme Court and claim affirmative action was a civil right.
First, Amanpour furthered the lie that black history wasn’t being taught in some schools because of conservative backlash to Critical Race Theory.
Now, today, America observes Juneteenth. It's the newest federal holiday, a bittersweet celebration of June 19, 1865, when news that slaves were free finally reached Galveston, Texas, a full two years after Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. It is a time for celebration and reflection in the White House and across the United States, even as an honest appraisal of black history is impossible in many school districts in the country today. Law professor, Anita Hill, sees Juneteenth as a moment to take stock of racial and gender rights in America. We also spoke about her own family's historic connection to the holiday. Anita Hill, welcome back to our program.
After Hill said she had tried to put herself in her enslaved ancestor’s mindset, thinking about voting rights and education and sexual harassment, a list of issues that gave Amanpour a convenient lead-in to bring up the alleged “assault on voting rights, the reversal of women’s rights” happening today as if there was any comparison to the slavery era and 2023.
AMANPOUR: Well, it's so interesting because you list a whole load of major and, obviously, vital issues that, frankly, are still on the table and still haven't been fully resolved. You yourself are an activist for civil rights, for women's rights. So, I want to ask you, today, of all those things you listed, what concerns you the most? Is it the assault on voting rights, the reversal of women's rights, the issue about, you know, domestic abuse, those kinds of things?
After Hill conflated preferential racial treatment under affirmative action to a “protected right,” Amanpour actually outflanked her in rhetorical intensity in passionate defense:
Amanpour: Let me ask you, to talk -- let's talk about affirmative action because it's almost incredible that this law that allowed, you know, black people and other minorities to come to higher education may be reversed….
After Hill said affirmative action programs should be prolonged, Amanpour again ranted:
Amanpour: You know, it does seem extraordinary, this relentless attack on civil rights, whether it is voting rights, what you're just talking about -- well, we're just talking about affirmative action and many, many others….
Amanpour asked Hill about Justice Clarence Thomas’s current “ethics questions,” as if Hill could possibly provide an objective viewpoint on Thomas:
Amanpour: Let me ask you about Clarence Thomas himself. Obviously, your history is closely aligned with that awful time all those decades ago. Now, you know, that there are ethics questions swirling around him. A Senate panel last week is focusing on a bill that would implement a range of ethics and transparency reforms at the Supreme Court after reports of a pattern of Thomas's nondisclosure on his financial report for years and having taken significant gifts, the allegations from a rich benefactor. Does this surprise you? And especially that the court's credibility and trust is about -- you know, down to about 59 percent of Americans who disapprove of the job the court is doing?
This biased episode was brought to you in part by Mutual of America.
A transcript is below, click “Expand” to read:
PBS and CNN International
June 19, 2023
AMANPOUR: Now, today, America observes Juneteenth. It's the newest federal holiday, a bittersweet celebration of June 19, 1865, when news that slaves were free finally reached Galveston, Texas, a full two years after Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. It is a time for celebration and reflection in the White House and across the United States, even as an honest appraisal of black history is impossible in many school districts in the country today. Law professor, Anita Hill, sees Juneteenth as a moment to take stock of racial and gender rights in America. We also spoke about her own family's historic connection to the holiday. Anita Hill, welcome back to our program.
ANITA HILL, PROFESSOR, BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY: Thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: So, this must be --
HILL: It's a great day.
AMANPOUR: Yes. I was going to ask you, you feel that it's a great day. It's obviously celebrating the freedom of slaves. It goes back all the way to 1865. You say that your parents, your heritage, was in Texas where they heard last, I guess, about being free. Tell me about your -- that part of your story.
HILL: Well, as a matter of fact, this morning I woke up trying to channel my great, great grandparents. They were living in Texas, living as slaves in Texas in 1865. And I kept trying to think, you know, what were they thinking in the days that they found out about emancipation. You know, what was on their minds when they thought about what freedom was going to look like and what would it mean for them in their everyday lives? And that's -- you know, they were enslaved there. They had come from other states, but Texas was their home. And in some ways, it was the last bastion of slavery because it was always moving westward to find some kind of protection. But Emancipation Day came. And so, I think that my parents, my great, great, great, great, great grandparents and their children must have been thinking about how are they going to find work? What's it going to be
like when the only people who they've worked for have been their enslavers? What will education mean for their children? And what will their voting
rights be? Will they be able to even register to vote? And if they are voting, will their votes be counted? I also -- you know, I also think about black women though at that time because, you know, I was thinking about the rape and harassment and assault that they went through in slavery. And for them, freedom involved being free from that kind of behavior. And I don't know if it was always on their minds that morning, or when they found it out, but I'm really sure that all of those things were up for grabs in terms of their imagining what their freedom would be.
AMANPOUR: Well, it's so interesting because you list a whole load of major and, obviously, vital issues that, frankly, are still on the table and still haven't been fully resolved. You yourself are an activist for civil rights, for women's rights. So, I want to ask you, today, of all those things you listed, what concerns you the most? Is it the assault on voting rights, the reversal of women's rights, the issue about, you know, domestic abuse, those kinds of things?
HILL: Well, you know, I can't rank them because I realize that all of them are important. And if we don't you know, if we don't address all of them and each of them then we are never going to be fully free. We're never going to reach that point where we can say everyone comes into our legal systems or into our society as free people and that justice will prevail throughout their lives. You know, I think about, for example, the voting rights cases that we have had recently but even in the past few years, many of them have been restrictive. The affirmative action cases that we have coming up in universities and where we're going to be deciding what's going to happen with education in the future, you know, are case -- are areas where the rights that we have developed are at risk, the legal precedents that have
expanded rights and protected rights are really subject to being reversed dramatically. But the same is true when it comes to gender, that these reversals are happening. So, we are at a very troublesome time in the -- in terms of what the courts are doing and what states are doing throughout the country.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, to talk -- let's talk about affirmative action because it's almost incredible that this law that allowed, you know, black people and other minorities to come to higher education may be reversed. Justices Thomas and Alito actually keep asking what does diversity even mean, and there is a fear that they may, the court, might reverse this. Now, it's -- it involved Harvard, the University of North Carolina. But Justice Kagan says that she's worried and she voiced her worries in a dissent about, you know, how it could affect black and Latino students. Let's just play what she said.
COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE: I mean, I guess what I'm saying is your brief -- and this is very explicit in your brief -- is, like, it just doesn't matter if our institutions look like America. You say this on page 11 in your reply brief, and I guess what I'm asking you is, doesn't it? I mean, doesn't it? These are the pipelines to leadership in our society.
AMANPOUR: So, that's a very pointed question, Anita Hill. And I just wonder what you think the consequences would be and why are these two -- well, this court, why is it set potentially to reverse affirmative action?
HILL: Well, I think they're set to reverse affirmative action because they are relying on this very faulty logic that, you know, the time is up for it. I mean, there is a part of Justice O'Connor's opinion in the (INAUDIBLE) case that said, in 25 years, maybe we won't need affirmative action. And they're relying on that to say, OK, you've had your chance, but what they are not recognizing is that the problems of getting school equality, equal access to higher education, have not been resolved. You know, we are in this period of time where we are starting to see positive impacts, they are not enough. But now, there are members of the court, like Alito and Thomas, who just want to say, OK, let's put an end to the policies and procedures that have actually helped us get to where we are. And it makes absolutely no sense when we look back -- you know, when we look at the entire context of where we are in terms of education. Justice Kagan who's right, leadership will be lost. It will revert back to where we were, you know, decades before. And we need to continue affirmative action as well as other policies that will help students of color become leaders and will help the entire society to become more equaland just.
AMANPOUR: You know, it does seem extraordinary, this relentless attack on civil rights, whether it is voting rights, what you're just talking about -- well, we're just talking about affirmative action and many, many others. But I want you to comment on a recent Supreme Court vote regarding the Alabama case of redistricting. Essentially, they upheld and they said that basically, they ordered the state to redraw the congressional map, allow, you know, the additional district to make sure that the black majority district accounts for the fact that it is in fact, you know, 27 percent black. So, does that -- is that positive? And why do you think the chief justice, you know, who's previously worked to restrict voting rights, changed his mind here?
HILL: Well, I think what -- it is a positive outcome, but what it shows is that the holding in the Shelby -- the Holder v. Shelby County case should never have happened. That redistricting may not ever have happened if, in fact, we still had Article 5 in effect in the voting rights -- under voting rights. If we still Article 5 we would've had a preclearance for that particular redistricting. And it may never have gone into effect and had to go to the Supreme Court to be reversed. So, that, again, is one of those areas where we have reversal of a policy that was doing what we needed it to do and that shows us that more and more cases are going to have to go to the Supreme Court as opposed to being evaluated and really treat it before we even put them in place. That's been a history of the Voting Rights Act in this country, and it should continue.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you about Clarence Thomas himself. Obviously, your history is closely aligned with that awful time all those decades ago. Now, you know, that there are ethics questions swirling around him. A Senate panel last week is focusing on a bill that would implement a range of ethics and transparency reforms at the Supreme Court after reports of a pattern of Thomas's nondisclosure on his financial report for years and having taken significant gifts, the allegations from a rich benefactor. Does this surprise you? And especially that the court's credibility and trust is about -- you know, down to about 59 percent of Americans who disapprove of the job the court is doing?
HILL: You know, I think, you know, this being Juneteenth, we have to look back over at history. We have -- we must, in fact, understand that -- especially when it comes to marginalized people, under-resourced people, we have always relied on the court and believed in the integrity of the court to hear our cases, to hear our claims before the court and deal fairly without any sense that some organization or some individual behind is funding members of the court, and therefore, they're going to vote in favor of what those people want to happen in this society. We are at this point now where the American public has lost confidence in the Supreme Court. When that happens, we've lost confidence in our laws.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
HILL: And we can't just allow that to continue without somebody intervening to really respond to what I think are reasonable claims for some kind of investigation and actually holding the Supreme Court members to the same standard that other federal courts judges are being held to.
