Anita Hill Rejects Joe Biden’s Apology: I’ll Be Satisfied When ‘There is Real Change’

Former Vice President Joe Biden recently called Anita Hill, the woman who testified against Justice Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court nomination process over claims of sexual harassment, and attempted to apologize for the mistreatment she faced during those 1991 hearings. Hill did not accept the apology.

“I cannot be satisfied by simply saying, ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you,'” Hill told the New York Times. “I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose.”

Hill explained that she needs to see a change in Biden’s public comments on the issue:

“The focus on apology to me is one thing,” she told the Times. “But he needs to give an apology to the other women and to the American public because we know now how deeply disappointed Americans around the country were about what they saw. And not just women. There are women and men now who have just really lost confidence in our government to respond to the problem of gender violence.”

Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said Biden and Hill “had a private discussion” on Biden’s role in the her hearings, during which he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“He shared with her directly his regret for what she endured and his admiration for everything she has done to change the culture around sexual harassment in this country,” said Bedingfield.

In the ramp up to his official campaign announcement on Thursday morning, Biden acknowledged that his committee mishandled the hearing but he did not personally admit that he was at fault.

“She faced a committee that didn’t fully understand what the hell this was all about,” Biden said while speaking in March at an event for sexual assault awareness. “To this day, I regret I couldn’t give her the kind of hearing she deserved. I wish I could have done something.”