Anita Hill’s Testimony, 1991
Anita Hill was the attorney-advisor to Clarence Thomas in 1981 and assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. She followed as Thomas’s assistant when he served as the chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1982. Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court by President George H. W. Bush in 1991. After the Senate confirmation ended, a report of an interview with Hill by the FBI was leaked to the press. Therefore, the hearings were reopened, and Hill was called to testify in front of an all-male, all-white Judiciary Committee. Hill stated in her testimony that Thomas had sexually harassed her when he was her supervisor at the Department of Education and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Thomas accused the “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves” by “white liberals” on the Judiciary Committee. The hearings were televised and about 86% of Americans watched at least part of the hearings. Finally, the Senate confirmed Thomas to the Supreme Court by a vote of 52-48.
Anita Hill’s televised testimony raised awareness of sexual harassment women received at work. The year 1992 was known as “the year of the woman”, as the number of female politicians elected to Congress had reached a historic high, and seats in the Senate and House doubled from 6 to 47.
The Violence Against Women Act, 1994
The Violence Against Women Act （VAWA） is designed to enhance criminal justice responses to sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, as well as stalking and to increase the availability of services for victims and survivors. It was first passed by Congress in 1994 as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. It is signed by President Bill Clinton.
United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 1996
The Supreme Court affirms male-only admissions policy of the Virginia Military Institute violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
Elaboration of Title IX, 1997
The College athletics program must involve about the same number of male and female athletes to apply for federal support.
Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 2000
The Supreme Court holds that Nebraska’s statute criminalizing the performance of partial-birth abortions violates the U.S. Constitution.
United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 2000
The Supreme Court invalidates parts of the Violence Against Women Act, allowing victims of rape, domestic violence, and so on to sue their attackers in federal court.
Reauthorization of VAWA, 2005
Federal funds are allocated to aid victims, including providing housing to victims, ensuring victims’ access to the justice system, and starting intervention programs to help children who witnessed domestic violence and those at risk of domestic violence.
The upholding of the ban on the “partial-birth” abortion procedure, 2006
The Supreme Court upholds The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2006, a federal law passed in 2003 which was the first to ban a specific abortion procedure.
The gender-related events I summarized in the 1990s and 2000s are mainly related to the change of law because each judgment reveals the debate and struggles regarding women’s rights behind, which generally accumulate and lead to changes. Laws to raise gender equality in the workforce and schools as well as to protect women’s safety were signed during this period, but women’s rights to abortion were also banned in the early 2000s. The writers and illustrators of children’s books completed their works in this complicated period.