Anita Hill — whose allegations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reverberate across American politics more than three decades later — is defending New York state Attorney General Tish James’ report into claims against Andrew Cuomo that eventually forced the Democrat from office.
James’ damning conclusions drove Cuomo from the executive mansion in August as he faced impeachment. Hill spoke Wednesday on WAMC’s Book Show:
"It was apparently transparent, it was thorough, it was independent, it didn't choose sides from the beginning and then build a system around it," Hill said. "And I believe it put to rest a lot of the follow-ups that we hear in these cases where people say, 'Well, we don't know what happened. We don't have any evidence. We can never know. It's just a he said-she said thing.'"
Hill, now a professor at Brandeis, is the author of the new book “Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence.”
"By putting those things to rest, by providing facts and evidence, I think she enabled the state of New York to move forward and the public to move forward, as well as to have some accountability for the individuals who had been harassed and stepped forward to raise their claims," she added.
Cuomo denies the findings of the report, which concluded he sexually harassed multiple women.