Contact: Robbie Ward
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A professor of social policy, law and women's studies whose name once briefly dominated the nation's news will speak at Mississippi State March 6 as part of the university's Women's History Month observance.
Anita Hill, an Oklahoma native and Yale law school graduate, will discuss "gender and the legal system" during a 7 p.m. public program in Lee Hall auditorium.
She now is a faculty member at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Her teaching specialties include affirmative action, commercial law, bankruptcy, civil rights, and school vouchers.
National media attention focused on Hill when, during his 1991 Senate confirmation hearing, she accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of past sexual harassment. Hill met Thomas in 1981 and worked as his assistant at the U.S. Department of Education. She later joined Thomas' staff when he became chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
After Thomas was confirmed by the Senate, Hill wrote a book titled "Speaking Truth to Power" (1997, Doubleday and Co.), in which she discussed her personal life--including the experience with Thomas. She also co-edited "Race, Gender and Power in America" (1995, Oxford University Press) with Emma Coleman Jordan.
Lynne Cossman, an associate professor of sociology who directs MSU's Women's Studies Program, said Hill's academic and high-profile personal experience with women's issues should make for an engaging program of interest to all.
"The Women's Studies Program and the Richard Holmes Cultural Diversity Program are excited to host her lecture on this topic," Cossman said. "It is particularly relevant when such issues as abortion, family leave and sexual harassment now are in the spotlight."
"Generations of Women Moving History Forward" is this year's Women's History Month theme, she said.
"Professor Hill moved history forward through her unwitting role in the Clarence Thomas Senate confirmation hearings," Cossman observed. "Her scholarship on women in the legal system will ultimately have a similar effect."
Along with the WSP and Holmes Center, Hill's campus visit is being sponsored by the departments of political science and public administration, and sociology, anthropology and social work.
The Women's Studies Program is a part of MSU's College of Arts and Sciences.
For more information on the program, contact the Women's Studies Program at 662-325-1466 or the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center at 662-325-2033. Cossman may be reached at 662-325-7880 or Lynne.Cossman@SSRC.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.