Anita Hill says former Vice President Joe Biden still owes her a true apology for the way he handled Justice Clarence Thomas' Senate confirmation hearings, and until she receives one, Hill won't be able to support his 2020 presidential bid.
"I cannot be satisfied by simply saying I'm sorry for what happened to you," she told The New York Times during an interview published Thursday. "I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose."
Biden's campaign announced on Thursday that he called Hill earlier this month to share "his regret for what she endured and his admiration for everything she has done to change the culture around sexual harassment in this country." Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991, when Hill accused Thomas, then a Supreme Court nominee, of sexual harassment. Biden has been criticized for allowing Republicans to attack Hill, and not calling more witnesses to support her.
Hill told the Times that this is about more than just expressing regret, and that Biden "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."