In October 1991 the Oklahoma law-school professor Anita Hill went before a Senate hearing (and TV cameras) to give testimony in the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oh, you remember this? The drama of the moment is difficult to forget. Hill was alleging that while working as an assistant to Thomas years earlier, he had offered unwanted dating inquiries, made inappropriate remarks about anatomy, and talked about pornography. The spectacle was a watershed moment in the public understanding of sexual harassment, and a true battle in the gender wars. From Thomas’s perspective, it was a “high-tech lynching,” to use the memorable phrase he unleashed when called to testify after Hill’s session.