The Thomas Hearings Website

Preface

The Thomas Hearings Website is an electronic archive consisting of the testimony given during the September 1991 Congressional hearings on Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court and during the October 1991 special hearings on Anita Hill's allegations of Thomas' sexual harassment. Other primary documents include the testimony of witnesses and the debate by Senators prior to their approval of Thomas' nomination. The archive also consists of secondary sources--student writing about issues raised by the Hill-Thomas controversy, an annotated list of references, and an article by Jill Brantly, a feminist sociologist, on the gender implications of the case.

The site, located at the University of Virginia, is available to researchers interested in the Hill-Thomas topic and to professional and student scholars who wish to contribute their writings to the archive. All contributions are screened by Yitna Firdyiwek, assistant professor of English at the Loudoun Campus of Northern Virginia Community College.

Features

  1. Introduction. This brief essay gives an overview of the hearings and of Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas.
  2. Timeline. This section of the website contains short descriptions of the major events of each day of the hearings with links to the actual text in the transcript.
  3. Transcript ( Nomination, Hearings, Senate Proceedings, etc.). These pages are the core texts of the archive. The transcripts are organized chronologically and include the testimony of Thomas, Hill, the US Senators, and the witnesses that appeared before the committees. In addition, this section includes other documents entered into the record of the hearings, the final vote, and the swearing in ceremony. Some of the pages are incomplete and still under construction.
  4. Bibliography. This resource is a list of magazine and journal articles, books, and videos on issues raised by the Hill- Thomas controversy. Most of these are on reserve at the circulation desk of the Loudoun Campus library.
  5. Search Hearings. The search tool allows users to enter a keyword or phrase (e.g., harassment, natural law, DuBois, etc.) and gives a list of links to all the files where this term appears. Type in a term and press Enter and follow the instructions. (For a more elaborate search by speaker, gender, party affiliation, stance towards nomination, etc., click here. This is a parallel database set up at the University of Virginia's Alderman Library. It contains only the hearings, but has extensive tags for more complex forms of searching.)
  6. Other Resources. This area contains links to secondary resources pertaining to the Thomas hearings including links to student projects and to a discussion area for posting questions, comments, or responses to other users of the web site. In addition, this area contains links to other relavent sites on the Internet.