Anita Hill Obviously Thinks The Clarence Thomas Groping Allegations Should Be Investigated

Anita Hill (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Time)

Yesterday, the National Law Journal broke the news that attorney Moira Smith claims that as a Truman Foundation scholar in 1999, she was groped by Justice Clarence Thomas. As the reverberations of the allegations make their way through the legal community, prominent attorneys have begun to speak out about it.

First up, perhaps unsurprisingly to anyone who lived through the 90s (or at least watched Kerry Washington’s dramatization of it), is Anita Hill. Law.com spoke with Hill, now a professor at Brandeis University, and she is calling for an investigation:

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“To say that something like this is coming for political gains—and of course that was an allegation that was directed at me—is undermined by the fact that 16 years before, she went to friends and told people. So this is not something that she’s told for the first time at this point, this is something that people knew and they seem to be confirming,” Hill said.

Hill said she thought there should be a “fair investigation … by an appropriate body.”

Justice Thomas has denied the allegations, saying through a Court spokesperson the allegations are “preposterous” and “never happened.”

But Hill thinks that the allegations around presidential candidate Donald Trump provide a perfect environment for other women to speak up.

“I think that’s what’s happening to a lot of women who are telling about their experiences publicly for the first time,” Hill said. “That they see this moment where other women are stepping up.”