Speaker focuses on race, gender

Woman who accused Clarence Thomas of harassment talks about politics of high court picks at UCI.Anita Hill, the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 Senate confirmation hearing, spoke at UC Irvine on Wednesday evening as part of the campus’ 21st annual Rainbow Festival.

In her speech, which lasted about an hour, Hill touched only momentarily on her experiences with Thomas and her time in the public eye 14 years ago. Most of her presentation, delivered to a packed room in the Humanities Instructional Building, focused on racial and gender politics on the Supreme Court and President Bush’s current mission to replace retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

The selection process, Hill said throughout the evening, is still overtly biased, with candidates being judged more for their credentials than for their actual views on the issues.

“We have to be more proactive,” Hill said. “We have to look at [candidates’] individual speeches, their writings, their backgrounds.”

Hill’s speech was the centerpiece of this year’s Rainbow Festival, sponsored by the campus Cross Cultural Center, which highlights ethnic, cultural and gender diversities around the world. Each year, the festival enlists a keynote speaker and holds events at UCI.

The theme of the 2005 festival is “Where Are We Now?” Workshops and seminars dealing with how race, gender and class issues have changed over the past 40 years. The event started Tuesday on Ring Road with a cultural fair, in which different campus organizations set up booths and gave music and dance performances by the flagpole.

Floyd Lai, program coordinator for the Cross Cultural Center, said Hill was a timely choice to headline the festival.

“It’s relevant to today’s times, with everything going on in the Supreme Court,” he said.

During her speech, Hill talked about the current search for a new justice on the court, often discussing withdrawn nominee Harriet Miers and Bush’s handling of her as a candidate. While Hill expressed mixed feelings about Miers and said she did not favor her for the job, she noted that many previous Supreme Court justices, including civil rights supporter Thurgood Marshall, had been similarly questioned about their intellectual abilities.

Some audience members said they were surprised that Hill did not mention the Thomas hearings in more detail, although they enjoyed Hill’s remarks about diversity.

“I would agree with most of it,” said Ismael Diaz Herrera, a fourth-year sociology and Chicano-Latino studies major. “The issue of gender is something that should be brought up more in the mainstream media.”

In 1991, Hill, then a University of Oklahoma law professor, accused Thomas of having sexually harassed her during the time she worked for him in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In the testimony she gave during Thomas’ Senate confirmation hearing, Hill claimed that he had repeatedly asked her on dates and described pornographic films and sexual acts to her when she declined his invitations.

While the Senate ultimately voted, 52-48, to confirm Thomas as a Supreme Court justice, many credited Hill’s case with raising national awareness of sexual harassment. After the hearings, she penned an autobiography, “Speaking Truth to Power.” She now serves as a professor of social policy, law and women’s studies at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

Thomas only came up during the Wednesday event when an audience member asked Hill to evaluate his performance on the Supreme Court. Hill gave Thomas a mostly negative review, with one comment drawing a laugh from the crowd.

“I think in the area of sexual harassment, ironically, he has a very limited view of employer liability,” Hill said.

Hill’s appearance capped a day of Rainbow Festival events around campus. In the afternoon, the Cross Cultural Center held a panel discussion called “A Future Uncertain? Diversified Curriculum at UCI.” History professor Douglas Haynes, San Diego State Dean Of Students Evette Castillo and Cal State Long Beach professor Jose Moreno discussed how UCI’s curriculum has changed since its inception.

The festival will continue today with a workshop called “Crisis in Labor,” led by TransAfrica Forum President Bill Fletcher Jr., and a screening of the film “Crash,” which deals with racial tensions in the Los Angeles area.

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at michael.miller@latimes.com.