Biden Talked With Anita Hill, Aide Says, Decades After Hearing

(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden had a private conversation with Anita Hill, whose accusations of sexual harassment rocked the nomination hearing for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that Biden led almost three decades ago, a spokeswoman for the former vice president said Thursday.

Biden has expressed regret for the way he handled Hill’s allegations when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. His treatment of her harassment claim has been considered a vulnerability with female voters as he enters the 2020 Democratic presidential race.

Biden announced his official campaign on Thursday.

“He shared with her directly his regret for what she endured and his admiration for everything she has done to change the culture around sexual harassment in this country,” said Kate Bedingfield, communications director for Biden’s campaign. She declined to say when Biden and Hill talked or provide more information about their private conversation.

Hill, in her testimony before the committee in 1991, accused Thomas, who had been her boss, of sexual harassment, a charge he strongly denied. Members of the committee, all of whom were men, sharply questioned her account, and Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, accused her of lying. Thomas was later narrowly confirmed by the Senate, 52 to 48.

Biden’s most recent contact with Hill did not quite amount to an apology, she told the New York Times in an interview published Thursday. Hill said she won’t support Biden’s bid for the Democratic nomination and couldn’t be “satisfied” until there is “real change and real accountability” for how women are treated, according to the paper. The Times said the conversation took place earlier this month.

Biden said last month that he regrets that he “couldn’t give her the kind of hearing she deserved.” In retrospect, he said, he should have held a hearing “where the tone and questioning was not hostile.” An aide to Biden declined to comment last month on whether he had spoken with Hill.

Hill’s treatment at the hearing, which was televised nationally, angered women around the country. The following year, 1992, became known as the Year of the Woman as four women were elected to the Senate and two dozen to the House of Representatives for the first time.

Biden offered a public apology to Hill in late 2017. Hill, now a professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University, told Elle magazine last year that she hadn’t heard directly from him and that “there are more important things to me now than hearing an apology from Joe Biden.”

Hill didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment on Thursday.

--With assistance from Justin Sink and Margaret Talev.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Anna Edgerton

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