Thomas Second Hearing

Fund For Feminist Majority Eleanor Smeal and Armstrong Williams commented on the second day of the reopened Supreme Court confirmation hearings of U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Clarence Thomas during a recess of the hearings. Ms. Smeal said pro-choice groups had nothing to do with the testimony of University of Oklahoma Law Professor Anita Hill, who charged Judge Thomas sexually harassed her when both of them were employed at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during the early and mid-1980s. She said the insinuations that Professor Hill was a tool of the pro-choice forces in attempting to block the confirmation of Judge Thomas were objectionable. Mr. Armstrong supported Judge Thomas’s contention that the charges served to reinforce the stereotypes of black men as obsessed with sex, and said the proceedings sent an unfavorable message to the younger generation of black Americans. close