What happened to Anita Hill after the contentious Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearing?

Before Clarence Thomas reportedly accepted lavish trips from a billionaire Republican donor, his Supreme Court Judgeship confirmation hearing  was marked by the testimony of an Oklahoma native.

Anita Hill, who was born in Lone Tree and graduated from Oklahoma State University, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 that Thomas sexually harassed her while he was her supervisor at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She told the committee that there were episodes of crass behavior and vulgar language by Thomas.

Thomas denied the allegations and would denounced them as “sleaze,” “gossip” and “lies” and characterize the committee’s confirmation hearing helmed by Biden as “a circus” and “a national disgrace.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Thomas concluded of the televised hearing, “it’s a high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks.”

Joe Biden's role in Clarence Thomas Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearing

The committee was chaired by then-Senator and now president Joe Biden. He has faced decades of criticism over the all-male, all-white committee and his responsibility for running the hearing by supporters of both Hill and Thomas.

Those in support of judge criticize Biden for allowing the hearing to turn into an unruly event on television and supporters of Hill have expressed frustration with the line of questioning by Republicans. Such questions included asking for intimate details about her sex life and her mental capacities.

More: Following furor over GOP-donor luxury trips, Joe Biden reckons with another Clarence Thomas scandal

Biden did not ultimately support Thomas' confirmation, but he was confirmed as a Supreme Justice in a 52-48 Senate vote in 1991. He has served as a Supreme Court Justice ever since.

In 2019, Biden expressed regret in a phone call to Hill but she later told the The New York Times the then-Democratic candidate for president didn't understand the depth of harm done.

"I cannot be satisfied by simply saying I’m sorry for what happened to you,” she said. “I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose."

Anita Hill was an University of Oklahoma professor during Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing

Hill began working for Thomas as his attorney-adviser at the DOE in 1981, and continued as assistant to Thomas him at the EEOC in 1982. She left Washington D.C. in 1983, returning to Oklahoma to work as a professor at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa.

In 1986, she took a professor job at the University of Oklahoma, an institute she was employed at during confirmation hearing in 1991. But calls for her resignation following the hearing eventually pushed her to leave the university on her own terms in 1996.

In her resignation letter, she wrote that she wished to work in an "uncompromising″ academic environment and pursue other opportunities.

In 1998 she became a visiting scholar at Brandeis University, and became a professor there in 2015. She teaches Social Policy, Law, and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Massachusetts university today.

She has written several books, too, including "Speaking Truth to Power" in 1997 and "Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence," which was published in 2021.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Clarence Thomas joined Supreme Court, but what happened to Anita Hill?