[applause] next on the miami book fair a virtual author anita hill on her latest book believing. i very proudly represent your equipment from miami dade. we welcome this thought-provoking conversation that has a declared purpose. talking about gender violence. placing that treacherous path by testifying against then supreme court justice nominee clarence

thomas. sexual harassment by collective consciousness. it was held by her brave words. now, cases later after me too and social justice warrior have elected, the book believing a journey to end gender violence is offering powerful new insight into the roots of that gender violence. that it can create substantive change. we ask you to apply that professor hale has learned to our own community. these are urgent today as they were when you testified. getting even with anita hill still believes as we deal. that our biggest problems can't

be solved. the book has earned international recognition for its incisive critical analysis class, race and gender. it is my pleasure to introduce you to them both and introduce you to this program. >> such a pleasure to be with you today albeit virtually. i am pleased beyond measure to be speaking today with professor anita hill. it is unfortunate to say that she has written both the press yet and authoritative book on our time. we wish that these were not still our times. it is still very much though ruling culture of our time.

if we are going to be living in this moment it is a real gift. i will turn it over we can have a conversation. professor hale. >> i do want to give the simple who i am and the bio that i have written. what it means, actually, the title. first of all, let me just say, i started out by saying my parents, my 12 siblings and i grew up on a farm on a tribal land of the nation. but that part of our system went

largely unnoted until a recent supreme court decision in settling the issue about whether that tribal land still belong to the creek nation. as i was growing up, i loved school. i did well in school and i aspired to be a scientist. that may also surprise people. as a direct beneficiary of brown versus the board of education, brown was decided in 1954. i believe that a career in science was well within my ability and in my life. that belief was shattered when i was a freshman in college. the science was too hard to me,

despite my high grades and scores on standardized tests, he urged the 17-year-old need to choose another less difficult choice of action. and i could not figure out at the time, i don't think i knew enough to figure it out. today i question wasn't my race or my gender or was it both that persuaded him that i could not be a scientist without we should not be. imagining a lack female biologist that i may experience or that i know now that i likely would have experienced or was it his own bias that persuaded him to tell me to do something else. either way, i was discouraged. i got a decree entrée degree in psychology and then i went to law school. i did something less difficult and with to law school.

four years ago, 40 years ago, i finished my training. less than two years later at 25, the reach was broad enough that he could literally derail my career and take away my livelihood with one phone call. that is why he believed then and now. working at the department of education and the eeoc and i moved back to oklahoma to teach contracts in commercial law. enough right to teach contracts. the university of oklahoma college of law. that was true in the early '80s. i thought that my career had

moved on. i was, even though i was poised for a career of national commercial law, nothing happened and we all know that at the senate confirmation hearing for justice clarence thomas. we also know, now, that clarence thomas was confirmed during that hearing. by most accounts, pretty much all of the accounts on the hearing i had lost because he was confirmed. that was not the end of my story. that did not stop me from seeking to understand what had happened on october 1991 in washington, d.c. almost immediately when i returned home, i began hearing

from the victims who experience bullying and incest to intimate partner violence to domestic abuse of all kinds and of course harassment. many people wanted help or had questions about how to keep others from experiencing what they have endured. i had to figure out how i would respond. i studied civil rights and practiced parts of my early career, but i had moved on. not only from the experience of harassment, but the context that had allowed it to happen. when i was faced with all of those letters, all of those calls, all of those people, i

had a weighty choice to make. returning to become a crusader. i had a choice at that point after the hearing. what i become a scholar? or what i take on the world of crusader? trying to fight the good fight. recording the experience to me. not necessarily of gender-based violence. an incident form. i did not have to choose between being a scholar and a crusader. i realize that i could be both. the law is essential to the trajectory. two years after the decision.

confronted with the reality of the human experience, i knew that law was not enough to stop the problem. the court system was large and comprehensive. did not begin to cover the breath and the volume and the experiences that i was hearing about. i was only hearing about the tip of the iceberg. the school name or a supreme court justice. ironically had no program there. the motto is knowledge of social

justice. i think it fits in part because i have these decisions to make about how i was going to pursue the problem. i had experienced it and others had experienced it and how it was going to make millions on my own life and own skills and knowledge to help in that pursuit. i have come to realize it takes all kinds of knowledge and all kinds of courage and wisdom and understanding to eliminate the entrench suffering. i tell you all of this because the personal part as well as the career part of my story because

i know for every survivor of abuse, there is a before, during and after experience that brings turmoil into their life. mostly the people know, mostly what people know is about the worst experience. for me, that was not harassment. it was also the process that i went through in 1991 with the senate judiciary committee. believing is about my journey. my journey to getting to the solution of this pandemic problem that took a lot of turns, and a lot of trial and error. it is also about our instructive journey. it is about our journey as a

society. it is about the kind of changes that we will have to make in our culture. about some changes that will impact our lives. the changes that have impacted my life, my relationship, my career, what i study, what i do and how i present in the world. a society over the last 30 years. a number of the individuals including myself who have traveled as survivors and victims. they are all important. they are all a part of the book believing. i want believing to be inclusive. i wanted to include many behaviors that i had heard about. that i had listened to described, the telephone calls

and face-to-face encounters that i had read about in letters. that i had read about a media supports as well. so, that is why i wrote believing. in part because i wanted to honor those experiences. but i also wanted us to find solutions. the people that i have heard from include people of all ages, shapes, sizes, gender and nationalities. they cannot be captured by a single frame of reference. so, i use this term. but, mostly, i want them to take away, not just -- i want us to take away and really believe

that we as a society can change. can make the right decision. can get to solutions for all of us no matter how large the problem seems. with that, i am looking forward to a conversation. a discussion of what is all involved in this and how each of us can be a part of the change that survivors and victims deserve and that all of us deserve as a society. >> yeah. thank you so much for that. it actually led us to exactly where i hoped we would start. as a sociologist, a person that also thinks a lot about the context of things, i was

pleasantly surprised and really moved by how you put sexual harassment, gender-based violence in a context in this larger framework in context throughout the book. sharing everyone my marked up copy. i suggest everyone else get a mark up copy too. let's start with the big picture here of the context. this idea that this type of violence, especially when we think about it being intimate, interpersonal, it is a private problem. i feel also as a survivor, as i think so many women and people are, that when it is happening to you, it does feel personal. it happened to you. right. what do you mean that, yes, this is a personal problem, a private problem, but there is a collective framework.

what is that framework #. >> that can be the private part of it. the survivors take that on. this is my personal issue. that approach or that framing of the problem has left people to think that they have to solve it on their own. what i mean when i say to correct a problem is that even if you look at the injury alone, which is tremendous to individuals, it is not limited to individuals. injury, it comes from intimate partner dialogue or abuses on college campuses, spread throughout our community, our

schools, our workplaces. you know, we are just beginning. that is why i say it is a collective problem. it is hurting all of us. in either situation for anyone confirmation hearing, maintaining many of the confirmation hearings, having an impact beyond the immediate party, for example, the 1991 hearing, when i testified, brought about a reduction in trust for our nations court. >> yes. that is harmful to us. thinking about the problem that is being experienced in the military where you have scandals

, sexual assault and even death. that is a problem that is impacting our entire nation. i mention our security. there are many ways to measure the economic impact. we have sexual harassment happen in our workforce. we know that there are problems in the cost of health and well-being. we also know that there are costs and lower productivity. our economic costs in terms of litigation on the part of both the people that are bringing the complaint as well as the employer. we have not agreed to measure all the costs. i will give you an example, though. a couple years ago now. a couple senators who pressed the government office and said,

you know, a senator, you know, the group of women that were really concerned about what is the cost of sexual harassment. and, so, a complete calculation of what it was. at least what they found was that those costs were not measured. so, they recognize, the government office recognizes that there is a cost, but they are not measuring the cost. and, so, again, that amended

self to the fact that the cost is private and personal when in fact we know it is very public. we cannot begin to involve what you do not calculate. calculate what is important to you. >> that is why it is important. hammer calculations so that we can know what we need to do as a society. >> it struck me. i think that it resignations so deeply. what we measure is what matters to us. in 2020, we could still be having a conversation about measurement. we have all the tools and all the sophistication to do so. this is about collected values. it actually did stunned me in the book.

i did not think that there was a lot left for me to be stunned about when it came to this subject matter which brings me to my next question. you know the scope and the breath of this work so well. even you kind of chant, a couple of moments of, can you believe this. you are reckoning with the fact of are we still having these conversations in these ways? what surprised you in researching and writing these books #can you still be surprised? >> sometimes i am shocked, but not surprised. i am still shocked by the fact that there is no concerted effort that really covers the range of the harm that is being done. there is so much work that is

being done. so much work being done by the eeoc. so much work that is being done by the department of education. we know that, in fact, some coordination, again, it is not nearly understood. we would take into account the fact that that happened in the pandemic. the pandemic was this enormous surge. what that says to me is that in the homes throughout this country, there are people who are living in fear. and with one catastrophe it could be something like a huge

economic downturn. i talk about that in terms of the city of detroit and the housing market collapse or a pandemic. trim ring this pile. we do not have an agency that really studied that. what the long-term impacts are. we know that from 2020, that what happened was that the shelters overflowed, there was really no way to respond to all the people that were suffering partner violence. let's take it a little bit further because we also know that about 10 million people, 10 million victims. the third, even more than one third will become homeless.

so, we know that we need a housing response to this issue. because, even when you talk about sexual harassment, 50% of the people move their dive. we know that that can result in an economic downturn for those individuals that have to leave their positions. with that goes you don't always get to leave to a job that is better. very often, you have to take whatever is available. we know that for families, that can mean food insecurity or housing insecurity. we have not really started to figure all of that out. going back to the calculations,

how do we measure it. those are the things that are shocking to me. the behavior. i am just dismayed. i am just truly dismayed about what is going on in our elementary schools, and middle schools. when it comes to behavior. the shocking part, the private part, the government resources are not being put together to even measure all the different ways we are being harmed by this and how we can respond. i will talk a little bit about that. >> yes, please do. talking about this as early as elementary school seeing those behaviors demonstrated.

i think that we are uncomfortable. there are young children. what do you mean gender-based violence, what does that mean? what does that look like? >> well, in many cases, it could be tragic. because of a child's gender identity. the real thing is because of these groups of citizens, the context, when children are trying to find themselves, find the places and when it is kind

of burrowing, because of the way they present, a boy that wears skinny jeans and dies his hair, you know, those can be mercilessly bullied to the point of committing suicide. it is a reality in our school. there is no way to sugar coat that. there is just no way. on top of that, though, what we often have is, they don't necessarily start with the viciousness, they start with teasing and what often happens is the behavior is ignored and

if it is taken seriously and addressed early on, you could be saving a lot more abuse. but, one of the reasons that we do not is that we still, as you say, these are children, you know, boys will be always. while, that is not the attitude that we should be taking. it absolutely is not. but, still, we tell our children, don't make a big deal out of it. that is just what they do or leave and tell girls stop it. he just does that because he likes you. >> right. >> and even worse scenario, this

just came to me in a message. i am sure you get e-mails from all different kinds of organizations. this one scenario, title ix enforcement and elementary school. her first experience with sexual assault was when she was in the first grade and she told her teacher, she says i told my teacher on him. she was thinking in the language of a child. i told my teacher on him so the teacher went back, suspended her recess privileges because the teacher said that the girl was behaving inappropriately in describing what it happened to her. you know, so, we tell them that

he likes you or that is what boys do. or we tell them that it is their fault. either way, what we are doing is we are learning children to accept this bad behavior. non-binary children being told to accept this behavior. the bullying, the harassment. we are telling those kids who are behaving badly that their behavior is going to go unchecked. that it is acceptable in some way. that is a cultural issue. >> yes. i am so struck by the way she said that the children did not use the right words to describe it. i am struck by how you could put that on a continuum.

that is the exact same response. using the wrong words, the wrong framing. you complained wrong. >> right. trying to figure out how do i capture, how does an individual tell them what they are experiencing as opposed to trying to explain to people who are very skeptical anyway and ways that they will get it. in a sense, that is what needs the change. we need to take the experiences. not try to put them in a box that is not helpful to anyone. we have known for years this has been going on. but, we need to take people out

of the boxes. it is not so bad or minimize it or be dismissive of it. really tried to empathize the experiences of the people that are being abuse. especially, especially the children. >> yes. [inaudible] it could be homophobic, it could be mythology of coal, it could be racist, they are all experiencing it. trying to process what it means and what it says about their identity. very often, schools are not taking responsibility to be held accountable for understanding

where they are. and, we do not know that it's a person bullying as well as a cyber bully combined will lead to verified in children. >> it may be my age. we have children as young as eight or nine years old thinking about suicide. how does that happen? and how can we not respond to it as educators, parents, grant parents, community people. how can we fail to respond to that? >> i think that that is one of

the most stunning things for me, too. how young it starts. how many different ways harassment can reach a very young child. you talk about tech elegy, the network set children are now in. it feels complex. also the way you describe it is very, very simple. it is exactly what you think it is. so simple that it is stunning to think that in 30 years when you are sort of looking out over the last 30 years, we talk about the failures of policing and defense of those who try to do what that child did. to name what has happened to them. it seems like we are not only still feeling like we did 30 years, but talking about the criminal justice and policing seem to be failing more. >> how do you see where we are

on reporting and investigating claims of sexual assault and gender-based violence and harassment? how do we get here and what do we need to know about where we need to go with that. >> there are three aspects of what i talk about. behavior and the broad behavior and the behavior that escalates to even worse behavior. starting to get a handle on that understand the political entry-level behavior as well as we should. there is some really egregious things going on. that is the culture. and in denial of the significance of it. i talked about that. the criminology used. that's not so bad or don't make a big deal out of it or you've got to keep your mouth shut

about this. an array of responses. but, what we have not done is dealt with the process. people who were fragile and vulnerable in the same processes. let me ask, why don't they report more? >> maybe not even intending to work for them when you look at some of the things that they have done over the years to keep people from coming into the process. when you look at some of the reports about hr, not being responsible, responding negatively, look at what the senate judiciary committee did in 2018 as well as 1991. we also have to understand that

the process tends to negate what is going on. our cultural negation and dismissiveness spirit how do you work on both at the same time? the short answer is that it has to start from the leadership in an organization. a principal in a school has to make sure that when an individual comes forward, the system does not engage in victim blaming. her attack or her assault. that is sort of the beginning of understanding of how we will have to change our process. so, we have to have these

processes where people understand exactly what they are going into. there are some to every different age level. seventy-eight or 10 being able to navigate in a process basically saying that their adult parent would do in a work place. you've got to have culturally and a sensitive process for children that allows them to talk in their own language and that we then begin to accept. you have to have similar investigations. whether it is in the school or a university or in a workplace. an investigation has to take in the context. you have to understand the context of the school being different than the context of the university and workplace.

you also have to understand that every one of those settings has its own culture. and you've got to invest in prevention and changing the culture so they get away with believing they are above the rule. finally, you have got to have accountability. >> one of the things that we have done is we have looked at workers. why don't they come forward. you know, one of the reasons are just about everyone agreed on in every demographic are the people who are high powered, bigger nurse, moneymakers, executive positions not being held accountable.

there is evidence to prove that. if so, the organization has the evidence accountability. i am really sorry for what happened to you because that will not stop what happens to the next person. >> right. you have to be willing to say, look, i am sorry this happened to you and i want to make sure that you are the last person that this happens to. >> data erosion of trust in our social institutions. i have to say is a personal note, i was a young child when you testified i remember it so clearly. probably the first time i've ever heard my mother and aunt talk as children. i am from the south. >> i know. >> this was the first time i was sort of allowed to overhear them

talking. they were talking about what was happening to you. what had happened to in their workplaces. my mother worked in a very male-dominated airline industry. they had all been subjected to these power imbalances. it was my first time understanding that even as an adult, i thought that adults were in charge of everything. i realized that there was this world out there where their workplaces that these things that as a child you are taught to trust could in fact fail you. >> that was my very first lesson. and then i think lots of women, you go through institutions and you see over and over again the failure of accountability. you start to just believe that that is what institutions do. both of us, now in university settings, which you mentioned

briefly, girls are supposed to be the microcosms of a better way. you know. we are supposed to show that this can be done. we can bring diverse people together. work through our social problems. we do not do a significantly better job. what do we learn from universities, if anything about what to do, what not to do. >> i have to go back to you listening in on your mother's conversation. in the past you may have been told -- go play. >> yes. children need to be informed. universities are complex

settings. kind of getting me into this, this thinking about how we stop the behavior. how is it that the so-called liberal institutions, right, can be such problems. the center of the problem. high risk emissions. traditionally thought of as a nimble space. the tech industry. all of these are perceived to think like liberal politically, but in terms of their traditions and operations, they are very traditional. the whole concept of tenure itself. traditional concept. i am not anti-tenure.

i've got it. [laughter] you can work for the good. tenure probably saved me a bit on the street in 1991. so, i understand the value of it. i am not knocking tenure. what i am knocking is that universities are also very multi layered in terms of who they are responding to. those universities respond to what they call their reputation. in many ways, trying to keep quiet these kinds of issues that have existed for decades. talking to someone who -- at a school, you know, in the

northeast, and through years, whenever there was a sexual assault on campus, a student, they were sent to his office for counseling. that was the way the university and the college dealt with the problem, by counseling the victim. not by pursuing any kind of investigation about the behavior and the person who was accused of perpetrating the behavior. no decision to expel people from school. they were just allowed to continue. >> way for the victim to move on.

>> yes. and then say, well, the problem is resolved. she is gone. >> right. that is one of the things that we have to understand. this protecting of this, institution reputation is not working. it especially is not working on today's college campuses. you've got young people now that i've taken to the streets. you have this whole theory of protests and sexual assault. targeting specific institutions with known history. and, so, i see that as a hopeful sign. i think that it is better understanding. a person who had taken over a

leadership role, a student that has taken on all of the misogyny and homophobia and racism. i mean, making plans to acknowledge it and it. the thing that can open. they are more students feeling empowered. students can become the voices. >> yes, yes. >> that is right. if the risk, it's a fear on the institutions part. you said about reputational damage. those people that are the caretakers of the reputation, the alums, the donors, we have a part to play. >> absolutely. i do not think that we have stepped up in the way that we

should. i think we fight to. >> yes. now students are taking it on. the donors, the alums, you know, all of them had a stake. and, so, they need to own it. >> yes. i think that that is, for me, the take away. believing we all have a stake. whether it's in our institutions, whether we matriculated, more broadly, all of our social institutions, we have a state in gender-based violence, whether it happens to us directly or not, that that is

what we mean when we say it is public problem. you say in the opening of the book that when you are young you were patient. by the way, i think it's supposed to be the reverse. [laughter] i am out. [laughter] >> i think, no. honestly, i need people to read this book. even if it is just one chapter. read the chapter about what is going on at universities or workplaces. i need them to become inpatient, too. i need people to understand the urgency of this. they are involved, everybody is involved in one way or another.

the influences that they have on leadership to change. i also want them to recognize equipping all of the pressure on the vulnerable. what i want people to understand is that, yes, you all have a say and we all have a responsibility to use our influence to stop the problem. >> perfect. we have our marching orders. thank you. not only for this book, which is part of your trajectory which is a beacon for how to have these conversations, how to live within the conversations and then for me, the little girl.