March 3, 2022 • 23 mins
What’s on the line as Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson begins the Supreme Court confirmation process? Anita Hill and journalist and social critic Marc Lamont Hill discuss the importance of this historic nomination and what it means for representation, justice and equality in the United States. In this series-opening episode, you’ll hear what the appointment of a Black woman to the Supreme Court means for America, and what Getting Even means to Anita Hill.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin Getting Even is produced by Pushkin Industries. Join Pushkin
Plus and you'll hear all of our shows ads free
and get access to exclusive bonus content. Subscribe now in
(00:36):
Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin dot Fm. I'm Anita Hill.
This is Getting Even, my podcast about equality and what
it takes to get there. On this show, I'll be
(01:00):
speaking with trailblazers, people who are improving are imperfect world
people who took risks and broke the rules. But I
have to start off this series by addressing the historic
moment we're in right now. As a lawyer and a
(01:20):
former witness at a Supreme Court confirmation hearing, I've been
laser focused on President Biden's recent nomination. On February twenty fifth,
I watched anxiously as he stood at the podium with
Vice President Kamala Harris on one side and on the
other Judge Katanji Brown Jackson. The announcement that was weeks,
(01:44):
actually centuries in the making finally became real. It's a
first for our country and speaks to so much of
my work and what I'm talking about on this podcast.
The whole country will be watching as Judge Katanji Brown
Jackson goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I'm very familiar
(02:09):
with that committee. They're the same body that I stood
in front of in nineteen ninety one when I testified
about sexual harassment I experienced working at the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission under Clarence Thomas. My name is Anita F. Hill,
and I am a professor of law at the University
(02:29):
of Oklahoma. Back then, the committee was made up entirely
of white men, and the chair in nineteen ninety one
with Senator Joe Biden, the same Joe Biden who's making
history today as President. My nominee for the United States
Supreme Court is Judge Katangi Jackson, who brings extraordinary qualifications,
(02:54):
deep experience and intellect, and a rigorous tradicial record to
the Court. I wanted to have a conversation with someone
who I know appreciates the significance of this moment, so
I called up Mark Lamont Hill. He's a journal social
critic and professor, and no, we're not related. We spoke
(03:15):
a few days before Judge Jackson was announced as a nominee,
which is why you won't hear us refer to her
in our conversation, but the larger conversation remains unchanged. Mark
Lamont Hill and I set out to discuss what this
moment means for justice, what it means for a representation,
(03:37):
and the benefits to everyone of this historic nomination. Professor
Anita Hill, it is so good to see you. It
is so good to talk to you. This is a
big deal. Then you're certainly no stranger to big deals
around Supreme Court nomination, so I know you understand how
important it is, Oh absolutely, and I'm looking forward to
(03:58):
the really positive things that can come out of this.
Nineteen was a moment where the Senate Judiciary Committee had
an opportunity to listen to the voice of a credible
black woman, and not only did they not do it,
but their attitude seemed to reflect an inability to recognize
a black woman as intellectual and capable and balanced and fair, etc.
(04:23):
And so I'm wondering if they can't even do that
at the level of a witness, if they're able to
think about a black woman jurist, and now it's been
thirty years, how do you think about the ability of
the Senate Judiciary Committee to even assess the qualification of
a black woman for this job. Well, fortunately, the Senate
(04:45):
Judiciary Committee has changed so it is much more diverse
than it was thirty years ago. I think that there
is so much to be gained from this nomination and
the public discussion about our sense of justice in this
country and the importance of the Supreme Court in representing
(05:06):
our sense of jobs death. The first place where the
conversation about justice emerged was when President Biden said that
he was going to honor his campaign trail commitment to
choosing a black woman. And this is something that I
think was left out of the public conversation to some extent,
is that the decision to consciously select a black woman
(05:27):
is not the first moment where there was a conscious
intent to choose people. The hundreds of years where the
courts were all white male didn't happen by happenstance. It
wasn't a meritocracy that somehow being interrupted. They were very
intentionally not choosing Jewish people at one point, very intentionally
not choosing black people, and then somehow the subtext keeps emerging,
and that's one around qualification. Yeah, I think again that's
(05:51):
a part of our history that we want to pretend
to us on excess. Those judges are there, they have
been their constant. Spaker Mobley, who was on the Second Circuit,
wanted a kid stout who was one of the first
black woman appointed to a state supreme or back in
the eighties, Paully Murray, who wrote Richard Nixon and laid
(06:15):
out her resume and all her credentials for being on
the Supreme Court, and told him that he should nominate her.
And she was right, of course, I mean she's I mean,
she was a brilliant legal theorist. But we have so
erased that history it is though we're invisible. In other words,
(06:36):
Joe Biden isn't the first person to identify qualify black women.
And this isn't the first generation of qualified Black women
by any stretched. Every women for decades, and certainly it's
not centuries who have been equally qualified and deserved a
place on the court, they simply didn't have the opportunity.
(06:57):
I think that's an important piece to add, particularly against
the backroom of this public outcry that that Joe Biden
is suddenly going rogue and being selective or intentional about
who he's selecting for Supreme Court, as if again for
centuries that hadn't been qualified black women who were intentionally
left to offabilities. My worst fear in this conversation is
(07:19):
that we will resort to racist tropes, sexist tropes, and
we are going to miss this opportunity to ask some
really important questions today. What are those questions? Well, I
think we should be asking who's missing from positions of
power and influence in our political systems, and that includes
(07:43):
our judiciary. What do we do to step out of that?
How do we imagine equality in the future. You know,
we have been operating for a while from what I
think is a nineteen sixty four version of equality, and
it has worked very well, but it has not finished
(08:06):
the job of creating equality. For one, what is the
nineteen sixty for context right? Because there were people who
are saying, well, that sounds like a good idea. We
didn't have access to public accommodations, we didn't have access
to civil rights. We needed to be in places that
wouldn't let us in. What's wrong with the nineteen sixty
four vision or what's limiting about it? There's nothing wrong
with it. In fact, I've benefited from it, so I
(08:29):
would not say that there is anything wrong with it.
But what we know is that we still have huge
disparities on many, many fronts. So we need to be
thinking about if our goal is equality, what more can
we do. We have been having challenges over the last
(08:50):
few years, things like the Me Too movement and like
Black Lives Matter, and I think at the core of
those movements is a cry for new ways of thinking
about justice and equality. And so far we have people
who are buying into the messages of those movements, but
(09:14):
we haven't had the leadership that follows, and we haven't
had any changes in the structures that are limiting our
advances toward this new way of thinking about equality inclusively
and broadly as fundamental to our democracy. When we come back,
(09:40):
Mark Lamont Hill and I get into the question of
objectivity in judging and whether or not it's possible. You're
listening to getting even my podcast about equality and what
it takes to get there. I'm Anita Hill. A few
(10:02):
days before Biden announced Katangi Brown Jackson as his pick
for our next Supreme Court justice, I called up Mark
Lamont Hill. We spoke about what it means to the
country to have a black woman nominated to the highest court.
One of the things that will definitely come out of
the conversation is whether the person can be impartial, and
(10:26):
rather than simply proving that black women have the same
capacity to be impartial as white men, or to make
the case that everybody's impartial on some level, is this
an opportunity or should we take this as an opportunity
to reshape the language around impartiality and objectivity rather than
to try and wedge ourselves into the framework that always
(10:48):
has the world looking at us like we're short. This
is just like the questions about competence. They only come
when you have a person of color, and they come
up for the purpose not of finding the right person
for the bench, but they come up to discredit thinking
(11:13):
yep and ideas in resistance to the status quo. And
so I think we're at a moment where we know
that if we are going to move us as a
country to expand our thinking about the role that the
law can play in creating a more just and equal society,
(11:38):
then we have got to resist those old ways of
eliminating people by simply saying they're not qualified or they
can't be objective, assuming that there is one standard or
qualification or one standard of objectivity. You know, there's an
(12:00):
interesting story about Constance Baker Motley, who I mean, she
may have been considered, but she was certainly never nominated
to be on the Supreme Court work. But she was
a judge in a case. It was an employment discrimination case,
and what the council defending against the lawsuit asked was
(12:23):
that Constance Baker Motley recuse herself, and this was in
the papers that were submitted to the court, because her
race and her gender would make her suspect and unable
to be objective in this case. I love her response
because she said, if that is the standard we began
(12:46):
to hold, then we must recognize that everybody on the
bench is incapable of being objective, because everybody on the
bench has both the quality of a race and agenda.
But we only see that when we see people of color.
Of course, she did not recuse herself, but I think
(13:09):
she made the best argument. That is our best response.
When we start talking about the objectivity of black women,
then we have to start talking about the objectivity of
all of the white male judges and the black male judge.
I mean, is anybody ever objective? You're pointing to something
(13:30):
very interesting, right. That's beyond partisan politics, and that is
a question of political imagination, of judicial imagination, the ability
to take different approaches to the law, different traditions, different beliefs,
different worldviews, and to incorporate them into one's practice. These
are things that aren't limited to the Democrats or the Republicans.
(13:51):
This is about a worldview that comes across them both.
And so diversifying the Supreme courtnel on some level allows
us to push back against that trend. And it doesn't
seem like we even realize many of us don't even
realize that that's a trend to push back against. One
of the things that Ruth Bader Ginsburg did was it
very often called out her colleagues for not understanding the
(14:13):
experiences of women. We talk about the judicial imagination. Her
imagination for what justice is is quite different from her colleagues,
and she was not afraid to say so. Yes. And
this nomination and the way that it was announced was
intentional challenge to the status quo, an opportunity for us
(14:36):
to say, we need a judiciary that reflects the population
that is going to come before it, that reflects ideas,
new ideas based on different lived experiences in terms of
deliberations and decision making, and even their new ideas or
(14:58):
new experiences about the path to becoming a judge and
what judging is and how it happens, and the value
that can be brought in where new ideas about how
to define justice are allowed to be considered. It's an
(15:19):
intersection again of gender and race, right because when Trump
said I'm electing a woman, no one thought that he
meant anything other than a white woman. When Reagan made
the same determination, no one thought that he was considering
anything other than a white woman. And when Joe Biden says, well,
I'm going to choose a black woman, I think it's
(15:39):
that intersection that was just untenable for so many people.
And the wonderful thing about the moment is that we
not only have a chance to look at intersectional bias
against women of color, but in this case black women,
we have a chance now to look at the intersectional value,
(16:02):
the value that having lived experiences as both a female
and a black person is really something that can contribute
to the thinking that goes into judging and that goes
into our definitions of justice today. And if we if
(16:28):
we don't, if we don't see that as this opportunity.
If the Senate Judiciary Committee isn't asking questions about those
two things, then there's a missed opportunity for the entire
American public. And the problem is they don't know what
to ask, They don't even have the self awareness to
ask those questions, and they didn't understand the thing that
(16:50):
you're that you're speaking to now, which is it's not
just a nice act of liberal generosity to diversify the court,
but that there's some inherent value to diversity, that there's
something that it's an added value to say this court
should look different. It offers differences in terms of what
the judges talk about in their deliberations, what is the
(17:13):
conversation like in their deliberations, And those conversations are driven
by experiences. Even as I say that our thinking is
not unilateral, I know very few black women who cannot
tell you how race and gender, separately and combined have
(17:35):
impacted their life experiences. But we know that diversity in
those kinds of conversations can lead for a richer understanding
of what the law is and how it impacts people.
And I'll go back to Santra Day O'Connor, who talked
about how Justice Marshall influenced her thinking about the law
(18:00):
and maybe that's how we got affirmative action, because she
wrote the opinion and maybe she was influenced by listening
to just this Marshaw. But if you don't have someone
bringing that to the conversation, not only do you not
have a chance to change the outcome, you don't have
(18:21):
a chance to change the reasoning. And judging is more
than about outcomes. It's about the reasoning. It's about the
explanations for the law and telling the people why decisions
are made in the way that they are. And I
think those need to be filled with experiences from multiple perspectives.
(18:41):
I have to ask you, what's the smoke clears and
a black woman has been confirmed to the US Supreme Court,
how will you given everything you've been through, everything you've witnessed,
your entire set of experiences, how will you feel? I
will be absolutely elated, absolutely elated. Now I typically think
(19:04):
of myself as a glass half full, but one of
the things that I want to be cautious about is
that we don't start seeing this as well. We have one.
That's it. That's all wherever you know the black women,
please check the box. This is not about checking the box.
This is about a judiciary that represents our country and
(19:28):
the best in our country and the values of equal
protection under the law and justice being blind. And so
I will relish in that moment, and then I will
hopefully suggest some other ways that we can get some
(19:48):
of the work done that needs to be done. I
like that attitude, and that's that's what it means to
be black in this country. In so many ways, we
celebrate the victories that we struggle for what we understand
that the work is undone. It's understand that you get
to keep fighting. That's right, absolutely, because it was a pleasure, pleasure,
pleasure talking to you. Thanks so much for let me
hang out with you. Oh listen, this was great. I
(20:11):
couldn't have asked for a better partner to have this conversation.
Of course, Mark Lamont Hill and I don't know what
the outcome of this historic confirmation hearing will be, but
we have hopes about how the process will go and
hopes that we can learn from the mistakes made throughout
the history of the Senate and the Court. We can't
(20:33):
shy away from difficult questions about what equality under the
law means, what it really looks like, and more importantly,
how diversity on our courts could change people's lives and
our country. On the next episode of Getting Even, you're
going to hear new revelations about a familiar piece of history.
(20:56):
When you heard Mark and I refer to in our
conversation the nineteen ninety one Supreme Court nomination hearing for
Clarence Thomas. It was not unusual for Clarence to act
that way with people and especially black women at the commission.
Like I said before, he was like a fox in
a hanhouse, and I wanted to make the committee aware
(21:19):
of the fact that you were not lying to them
or making up statements, that this, in fact is what
was happening at the EOC. Later in the season, I'll
be speaking with w Kamal Bell, Kimberly Crenshaw, Nicole Hannah Jones,
Misty Copeland, and many others about the realities that keep
(21:42):
us up at night and what it takes to get even.
What we're looking for is outcomes. We want results, measurable
outcomes in the way that people live every day. Getting
(22:06):
Even is a production of pushkin in this Streets and
is written and hosted by me Anita Hill. It is
produced by Molaborg and Brittany Brown. Our editor is Sarah Kramer,
our engineer is Amanda kay Wang, and our showrunner is
Sasha Matthias. Luis Gara composed original music for the show.
(22:28):
Special thanks to Vicki Merrick for her help with this episode.
Our executive producers are Mia Lobel and le tal Malaud.
Our director of Development is Justine Lane. At Pushkin thanks
to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton, John Schnars,
(22:51):
and Jacob Weisberg. You can find me on Twitter at
Anita Hill and on Facebook at Anita Hill. You can
find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods, and
you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot Fm.
If you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries,
(23:15):
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(23:38):
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Pushkin Getting Even is produced by Pushkin Industries. Join Pushkin
Plus and you'll hear all of our shows ads free
and get access to exclusive bonus content. Subscribe now in
(00:36):
Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin dot Fm. I'm Anita Hill.
This is Getting Even, my podcast about equality and what
it takes to get there. On this show, I'll be
(01:00):
speaking with trailblazers, people who are improving are imperfect world
people who took risks and broke the rules. But I
have to start off this series by addressing the historic
moment we're in right now. As a lawyer and a
(01:20):
former witness at a Supreme Court confirmation hearing, I've been
laser focused on President Biden's recent nomination. On February twenty fifth,
I watched anxiously as he stood at the podium with
Vice President Kamala Harris on one side and on the
other Judge Katanji Brown Jackson. The announcement that was weeks,
(01:44):
actually centuries in the making finally became real. It's a
first for our country and speaks to so much of
my work and what I'm talking about on this podcast.
The whole country will be watching as Judge Katanji Brown
Jackson goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I'm very familiar
(02:09):
with that committee. They're the same body that I stood
in front of in nineteen ninety one when I testified
about sexual harassment I experienced working at the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission under Clarence Thomas. My name is Anita F. Hill,
and I am a professor of law at the University
(02:29):
of Oklahoma. Back then, the committee was made up entirely
of white men, and the chair in nineteen ninety one
with Senator Joe Biden, the same Joe Biden who's making
history today as President. My nominee for the United States
Supreme Court is Judge Katangi Jackson, who brings extraordinary qualifications,
(02:54):
deep experience and intellect, and a rigorous tradicial record to
the Court. I wanted to have a conversation with someone
who I know appreciates the significance of this moment, so
I called up Mark Lamont Hill. He's a journal social
critic and professor, and no, we're not related. We spoke
(03:15):
a few days before Judge Jackson was announced as a nominee,
which is why you won't hear us refer to her
in our conversation, but the larger conversation remains unchanged. Mark
Lamont Hill and I set out to discuss what this
moment means for justice, what it means for a representation,
(03:37):
and the benefits to everyone of this historic nomination. Professor
Anita Hill, it is so good to see you. It
is so good to talk to you. This is a
big deal. Then you're certainly no stranger to big deals
around Supreme Court nomination, so I know you understand how
important it is, Oh absolutely, and I'm looking forward to
(03:58):
the really positive things that can come out of this.
Nineteen was a moment where the Senate Judiciary Committee had
an opportunity to listen to the voice of a credible
black woman, and not only did they not do it,
but their attitude seemed to reflect an inability to recognize
a black woman as intellectual and capable and balanced and fair, etc.
(04:23):
And so I'm wondering if they can't even do that
at the level of a witness, if they're able to
think about a black woman jurist, and now it's been
thirty years, how do you think about the ability of
the Senate Judiciary Committee to even assess the qualification of
a black woman for this job. Well, fortunately, the Senate
(04:45):
Judiciary Committee has changed so it is much more diverse
than it was thirty years ago. I think that there
is so much to be gained from this nomination and
the public discussion about our sense of justice in this
country and the importance of the Supreme Court in representing
(05:06):
our sense of jobs death. The first place where the
conversation about justice emerged was when President Biden said that
he was going to honor his campaign trail commitment to
choosing a black woman. And this is something that I
think was left out of the public conversation to some extent,
is that the decision to consciously select a black woman
(05:27):
is not the first moment where there was a conscious
intent to choose people. The hundreds of years where the
courts were all white male didn't happen by happenstance. It
wasn't a meritocracy that somehow being interrupted. They were very
intentionally not choosing Jewish people at one point, very intentionally
not choosing black people, and then somehow the subtext keeps emerging,
and that's one around qualification. Yeah, I think again that's
(05:51):
a part of our history that we want to pretend
to us on excess. Those judges are there, they have
been their constant. Spaker Mobley, who was on the Second Circuit,
wanted a kid stout who was one of the first
black woman appointed to a state supreme or back in
the eighties, Paully Murray, who wrote Richard Nixon and laid
(06:15):
out her resume and all her credentials for being on
the Supreme Court, and told him that he should nominate her.
And she was right, of course, I mean she's I mean,
she was a brilliant legal theorist. But we have so
erased that history it is though we're invisible. In other words,
(06:36):
Joe Biden isn't the first person to identify qualify black women.
And this isn't the first generation of qualified Black women
by any stretched. Every women for decades, and certainly it's
not centuries who have been equally qualified and deserved a
place on the court, they simply didn't have the opportunity.
(06:57):
I think that's an important piece to add, particularly against
the backroom of this public outcry that that Joe Biden
is suddenly going rogue and being selective or intentional about
who he's selecting for Supreme Court, as if again for
centuries that hadn't been qualified black women who were intentionally
left to offabilities. My worst fear in this conversation is
(07:19):
that we will resort to racist tropes, sexist tropes, and
we are going to miss this opportunity to ask some
really important questions today. What are those questions? Well, I
think we should be asking who's missing from positions of
power and influence in our political systems, and that includes
(07:43):
our judiciary. What do we do to step out of that?
How do we imagine equality in the future. You know,
we have been operating for a while from what I
think is a nineteen sixty four version of equality, and
it has worked very well, but it has not finished
(08:06):
the job of creating equality. For one, what is the
nineteen sixty for context right? Because there were people who
are saying, well, that sounds like a good idea. We
didn't have access to public accommodations, we didn't have access
to civil rights. We needed to be in places that
wouldn't let us in. What's wrong with the nineteen sixty
four vision or what's limiting about it? There's nothing wrong
with it. In fact, I've benefited from it, so I
(08:29):
would not say that there is anything wrong with it.
But what we know is that we still have huge
disparities on many, many fronts. So we need to be
thinking about if our goal is equality, what more can
we do. We have been having challenges over the last
(08:50):
few years, things like the Me Too movement and like
Black Lives Matter, and I think at the core of
those movements is a cry for new ways of thinking
about justice and equality. And so far we have people
who are buying into the messages of those movements, but
(09:14):
we haven't had the leadership that follows, and we haven't
had any changes in the structures that are limiting our
advances toward this new way of thinking about equality inclusively
and broadly as fundamental to our democracy. When we come back,
(09:40):
Mark Lamont Hill and I get into the question of
objectivity in judging and whether or not it's possible. You're
listening to getting even my podcast about equality and what
it takes to get there. I'm Anita Hill. A few
(10:02):
days before Biden announced Katangi Brown Jackson as his pick
for our next Supreme Court justice, I called up Mark
Lamont Hill. We spoke about what it means to the
country to have a black woman nominated to the highest court.
One of the things that will definitely come out of
the conversation is whether the person can be impartial, and
(10:26):
rather than simply proving that black women have the same
capacity to be impartial as white men, or to make
the case that everybody's impartial on some level, is this
an opportunity or should we take this as an opportunity
to reshape the language around impartiality and objectivity rather than
to try and wedge ourselves into the framework that always
(10:48):
has the world looking at us like we're short. This
is just like the questions about competence. They only come
when you have a person of color, and they come
up for the purpose not of finding the right person
for the bench, but they come up to discredit thinking
(11:13):
yep and ideas in resistance to the status quo. And
so I think we're at a moment where we know
that if we are going to move us as a
country to expand our thinking about the role that the
law can play in creating a more just and equal society,
(11:38):
then we have got to resist those old ways of
eliminating people by simply saying they're not qualified or they
can't be objective, assuming that there is one standard or
qualification or one standard of objectivity. You know, there's an
(12:00):
interesting story about Constance Baker Motley, who I mean, she
may have been considered, but she was certainly never nominated
to be on the Supreme Court work. But she was
a judge in a case. It was an employment discrimination case,
and what the council defending against the lawsuit asked was
(12:23):
that Constance Baker Motley recuse herself, and this was in
the papers that were submitted to the court, because her
race and her gender would make her suspect and unable
to be objective in this case. I love her response
because she said, if that is the standard we began
(12:46):
to hold, then we must recognize that everybody on the
bench is incapable of being objective, because everybody on the
bench has both the quality of a race and agenda.
But we only see that when we see people of color.
Of course, she did not recuse herself, but I think
(13:09):
she made the best argument. That is our best response.
When we start talking about the objectivity of black women,
then we have to start talking about the objectivity of
all of the white male judges and the black male judge.
I mean, is anybody ever objective? You're pointing to something
(13:30):
very interesting, right. That's beyond partisan politics, and that is
a question of political imagination, of judicial imagination, the ability
to take different approaches to the law, different traditions, different beliefs,
different worldviews, and to incorporate them into one's practice. These
are things that aren't limited to the Democrats or the Republicans.
(13:51):
This is about a worldview that comes across them both.
And so diversifying the Supreme courtnel on some level allows
us to push back against that trend. And it doesn't
seem like we even realize many of us don't even
realize that that's a trend to push back against. One
of the things that Ruth Bader Ginsburg did was it
very often called out her colleagues for not understanding the
(14:13):
experiences of women. We talk about the judicial imagination. Her
imagination for what justice is is quite different from her colleagues,
and she was not afraid to say so. Yes. And
this nomination and the way that it was announced was
intentional challenge to the status quo, an opportunity for us
(14:36):
to say, we need a judiciary that reflects the population
that is going to come before it, that reflects ideas,
new ideas based on different lived experiences in terms of
deliberations and decision making, and even their new ideas or
(14:58):
new experiences about the path to becoming a judge and
what judging is and how it happens, and the value
that can be brought in where new ideas about how
to define justice are allowed to be considered. It's an
(15:19):
intersection again of gender and race, right because when Trump
said I'm electing a woman, no one thought that he
meant anything other than a white woman. When Reagan made
the same determination, no one thought that he was considering
anything other than a white woman. And when Joe Biden says, well,
I'm going to choose a black woman, I think it's
(15:39):
that intersection that was just untenable for so many people.
And the wonderful thing about the moment is that we
not only have a chance to look at intersectional bias
against women of color, but in this case black women,
we have a chance now to look at the intersectional value,
(16:02):
the value that having lived experiences as both a female
and a black person is really something that can contribute
to the thinking that goes into judging and that goes
into our definitions of justice today. And if we if
(16:28):
we don't, if we don't see that as this opportunity.
If the Senate Judiciary Committee isn't asking questions about those
two things, then there's a missed opportunity for the entire
American public. And the problem is they don't know what
to ask, They don't even have the self awareness to
ask those questions, and they didn't understand the thing that
(16:50):
you're that you're speaking to now, which is it's not
just a nice act of liberal generosity to diversify the court,
but that there's some inherent value to diversity, that there's
something that it's an added value to say this court
should look different. It offers differences in terms of what
the judges talk about in their deliberations, what is the
(17:13):
conversation like in their deliberations, And those conversations are driven
by experiences. Even as I say that our thinking is
not unilateral, I know very few black women who cannot
tell you how race and gender, separately and combined have
(17:35):
impacted their life experiences. But we know that diversity in
those kinds of conversations can lead for a richer understanding
of what the law is and how it impacts people.
And I'll go back to Santra Day O'Connor, who talked
about how Justice Marshall influenced her thinking about the law
(18:00):
and maybe that's how we got affirmative action, because she
wrote the opinion and maybe she was influenced by listening
to just this Marshaw. But if you don't have someone
bringing that to the conversation, not only do you not
have a chance to change the outcome, you don't have
(18:21):
a chance to change the reasoning. And judging is more
than about outcomes. It's about the reasoning. It's about the
explanations for the law and telling the people why decisions
are made in the way that they are. And I
think those need to be filled with experiences from multiple perspectives.
(18:41):
I have to ask you, what's the smoke clears and
a black woman has been confirmed to the US Supreme Court,
how will you given everything you've been through, everything you've witnessed,
your entire set of experiences, how will you feel? I
will be absolutely elated, absolutely elated. Now I typically think
(19:04):
of myself as a glass half full, but one of
the things that I want to be cautious about is
that we don't start seeing this as well. We have one.
That's it. That's all wherever you know the black women,
please check the box. This is not about checking the box.
This is about a judiciary that represents our country and
(19:28):
the best in our country and the values of equal
protection under the law and justice being blind. And so
I will relish in that moment, and then I will
hopefully suggest some other ways that we can get some
(19:48):
of the work done that needs to be done. I
like that attitude, and that's that's what it means to
be black in this country. In so many ways, we
celebrate the victories that we struggle for what we understand
that the work is undone. It's understand that you get
to keep fighting. That's right, absolutely, because it was a pleasure, pleasure,
pleasure talking to you. Thanks so much for let me
hang out with you. Oh listen, this was great. I
(20:11):
couldn't have asked for a better partner to have this conversation.
Of course, Mark Lamont Hill and I don't know what
the outcome of this historic confirmation hearing will be, but
we have hopes about how the process will go and
hopes that we can learn from the mistakes made throughout
the history of the Senate and the Court. We can't
(20:33):
shy away from difficult questions about what equality under the
law means, what it really looks like, and more importantly,
how diversity on our courts could change people's lives and
our country. On the next episode of Getting Even, you're
going to hear new revelations about a familiar piece of history.
(20:56):
When you heard Mark and I refer to in our
conversation the nineteen ninety one Supreme Court nomination hearing for
Clarence Thomas. It was not unusual for Clarence to act
that way with people and especially black women at the commission.
Like I said before, he was like a fox in
a hanhouse, and I wanted to make the committee aware
(21:19):
of the fact that you were not lying to them
or making up statements, that this, in fact is what
was happening at the EOC. Later in the season, I'll
be speaking with w Kamal Bell, Kimberly Crenshaw, Nicole Hannah Jones,
Misty Copeland, and many others about the realities that keep
(21:42):
us up at night and what it takes to get even.
What we're looking for is outcomes. We want results, measurable
outcomes in the way that people live every day. Getting
(22:06):
Even is a production of pushkin in this Streets and
is written and hosted by me Anita Hill. It is
produced by Molaborg and Brittany Brown. Our editor is Sarah Kramer,
our engineer is Amanda kay Wang, and our showrunner is
Sasha Matthias. Luis Gara composed original music for the show.
(22:28):
Special thanks to Vicki Merrick for her help with this episode.
Our executive producers are Mia Lobel and le tal Malaud.
Our director of Development is Justine Lane. At Pushkin thanks
to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton, John Schnars,
(22:51):
and Jacob Weisberg. You can find me on Twitter at
Anita Hill and on Facebook at Anita Hill. You can
find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods, and
you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot Fm.
If you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries,
(23:15):
consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and
you can hear Getting Even and other Pushkin shows add
free and receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up on the
Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin
dot fm to find more Pushkin podcasts listen on the
(23:38):
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
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