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Thanks so much. This is Our Body Politic. I'm the creator and host, Farai Chodea.

30 years ago on October 11th, 1991,

Anita Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee

that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas

had sexually harassed her.

Then Senator Joe Biden was the chair of that committee.

When an allegation of consequence comes forward,

I do not have the recourse to send it to the courts.

I have the recourse only to send it to my colleagues.

There is no other institutional way of doing it.

That's a clip of Biden at the hearing in 1991.

Biden voted against confirming Clarence Thomas,

who still made it to the Supreme Court. Anita Hill is now a professor at Brandeis University,

an author of the new book, Believing, Our 30-year Journey to End Gender Violence. In it, she talks

about something Biden said in 2019 when he was running for president, that he

did, quote, everything in my power to do what I thought was within the rules.

In this book, Professor Hill asks, are these rules fair?

And do they prevent all the facts from getting out like they did in 1991?

...