2-18-18
Writer Makes the Case for Impeaching Clarence Thomas
Breaking Newstags: Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, impeachment, sex scandals, sexual harassment, Anita Hill
... Thomas’s inappropriate behavior — talking about porn in the office, commenting on the bodies of the women he worked with — was more wide-ranging than was apparent during the sensational Senate hearings, with their strange Coke-can details.
But, most of all, because Thomas, as a crucial vote on the Supreme Court, holds incredible power over women’s rights, workplace, reproductive, and otherwise. His worldview, with its consistent objectification of women, is the one that’s shaping the contours of what’s possible for women in America today, more than that of just about any man alive, save for his fellow justices.
And given the evidence that’s come out in the years since, it’s also time to raise the possibility of impeachment. Not because he watched porn on his own time, of course. Not because he talked about it with a female colleague — although our understanding of the real workplace harm that kind of sexual harassment does to women has evolved dramatically in the years since, thanks in no small part to those very hearings. Nor is it even because he routinely violated the norms of good workplace behavior, in a way that seemed especially at odds with the elevated office he was seeking. It’s because of the lies he told, repeatedly and under oath, saying he had never talked to Hill about porn or to other women who worked with him about risqué subject matter.
comments powered by Disqus
News
- A Secret Joke Clouds Harvard's Affirmative Action Case
- An Amateur Historian Helped Find Richard III's Remains Under a Parking Garage. Her Story Hits the Screen
- Why LAUSD Teachers Walked Out
- The Role of US Evangelicals in Radicalizing Ugandans Against LGBTQ Rights
- Culture Warrior Chris Rufo is DeSantis's Most Important Ally
- The PR War for Cancer Awareness has Reduced the Stigma, but not the Cost, of Illness
- The Jim Crow Reign of Terror
- Francesca Morgan Dissects the American Obsession with Genealogy
- Florida Legislation Recalls the Tragic History behind Fights for Sex Education
- Kate Strasdin Breaks Down Authenticity on Bridgerton and other Costume Dramas