Ginni Thomas said Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas were 'highly offensive': book
- Ginni Thomas in a new book said Anita Hill's claims against her husband were "highly offensive."
- "I know the man," she told "Created Equal" co-editor Michael Pack. "I know the people in his life."
Ginni Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in a newly-released book called Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment against her husband "highly offensive."
In the book, "Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words," co-edited by Michael Pack and Mark Paoletta, Ginni Thomas sat down for interviews with Pack in 2017 and 2018, in what became an expanded companion to the 2020 documentary of the same name.
During her conversation with Pack, Ginni Thomas spoke of her initial knowledge of Hill, an attorney who had worked with Clarence Thomas at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the early 1980s.
"Anita Hill worked with Clarence at the request of his friend Gil Hardy at the Education Department, and then she wanted to follow him to EEOC where he was going to be the chairman. She wanted to continue her career working with him. And Clarence allowed that to happen and honestly never assumed that there was any problem with Anita Hill and all the other people he was employing and helping," she said.
She continued: "He was an advocate against sexual harassment at EEOC. He was working on policies and disciplining employees that were crossing the line. So sexual harassment and Anita Hill was never something that he would have put together until the FBI was at our door saying that she was making accusations."
Ginni Thomas told Pack that it was "devastating" for her husband to hear of Hill's allegations, as he had considered her to be a friend. He has always maintained that he did not act inappropriately with Hill.
"Clarence was shocked that Anita Hill was the person that was making allegations because he had helped her," she said. "So it was stunning to him, devastating, that she would be the one coming out from the shadows to launch an attack against him in any way."
Ginni Thomas then said she was confident of husband's character and dismissed Hill's testimony as fiction.
"I know the man. I know the people in his life. I know what he's like with everyone in our world, and everyone in the workplace," she said.
"So to hear someone, one person, come from the dark recesses of her imagination and tell a tale about him that contradicts every other person's experience of my husband was highly offensive," she added.
Clarence Thomas was eventually confirmed to the Supreme Court by the Senate in a 52-48 vote.
Ginni Thomas in 2010 reached out to Hill and left the Brandeis University professor a voicemail asking her to apologize for speaking out against her husband.
"I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband," she said in the voicemail, according to The New York Times. "So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. O.K. Have a good day."
Hill told The Times that the message "was certainly inappropriate."
After Ginni Thomas confirmed that she had left the message, she said in statement through a publicist that "no offense was ever intended."
However, Hill stood by her testimony, telling The Times: "I appreciate that no offense was intended, but she can't ask for an apology without suggesting that I did something wrong, and that is offensive."
In recent years, and especially after the 2016 death of close friend and fellow Justice Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas has emerged as a pillar of the court's now-dominant conservative wing.
But the justice now faces calls to resign or recuse himself from cases related to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, due to his wife's documented conversations with Trump allies in support of efforts to overturn President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory.