host: nancy mclernon with the organization for international investment. thank you. guest: thank you. host: we now go live for that conference on anita hill. >> good morning. i'm co-chair with kathleen paratis with today's conference. thank you. [applause] >> in the interest of time we all agreed to introduce ourselves with the briefest of bios. so here's mine. i'm a writer, social justice activist, author of nine books and a family editor of ms. magazine. the end. [applause] >> thank you. 10 months ago when we started planning today's program, the first person we asked to speak was former congresswoman pat sloweder of colorado. you may remember when she first

ran for the house, pat was asked by one of the good ole boys on the hill, how can you be a congress woman and a mother at the same time? pat answered because off brain and uterus and i use both. [laughter] >> unfortunately pat sloweder could not join us today, but she asked me to read you this message. quote, back in 1991 when i was cochair of the congresswoman's caucus, i organized us to make one-minute speeches about our great so-called liberal leaders on the senate judiciary committee. these guys just didn't get it. they were ignoring sexual harassment allegations against clarence tomas and didn't want aany that hill to testify. we decided to march over and

talk to them in person. march, we did. you may remember seeing front page pictures of us striding up the front of the building. we knocked firmly on the door. [knock, knock] majority leader george mitchell opened it. sorry, he said, we don't let strangers into the building. strangers? we were dumbfounded, but we had the presence of mind to point out the huge press corps following in our wake. george mitchell quickly agreed to meet with us later in his office and at that meeting he agreed to pressure the committee into letting anita hill testify. they begrudgingly put her on the witness list but not in primetime and rejected the other women who stepped forward as witnesses. it was hard to watch those

cowardly lions quiver and quake. they were pitiful. anita hill knew real clarence tomas and warned the nation about him. sadly those who could have done something to prevent his joining the supreme court did not listen because in their eyes women's claims of sexual harassment had no graff tae. how i wish i could be with you tie to celebrate in brave, grages wonderful woman. anita hill, you are and will always be my hero. pat sloweder former member of the united states congress from colorado. [applause] and now i would like to read something i wrote to anita

hill. i want to personally thank you for what you did. thank you for speaking up and speaking out. thank you for your quiet dignity. your elegance and eloquence, your grace under pressure. thank you for illuminating the complexities of female powerlessness and for explaining why you didn't complain when the offense first occurred and for describing how coward and coerce a woman can feel when she is hit upon by a man who controls her economic destiny. 20 years ago youed that courage to tell the truth and do what women rarely did then, tell the truth. make a scene. when i was single and self-supporting, i was once trapped in ann elevator with an important and powerful male journalist whos good offices i

depended upon to give favorable coverage to my companies books with no warning if man pinned me against the elevator wall, groped my breasts and shoved a hand under my skirt. did i press the emergency call button? of course not. it would have caused a scene. a scene would have impayrolled my career. a scene would have marked me as is a prude, a troublemaker, and that grimace of all characterize, a girl with no sense of humor. a scene would have infuriated and embarrassed the man. a scene might have made the newspapers, exposing his crude and thuggish behavior to his wife and friends. in the end, the one who would pay a price for his humiliation would be me. he would bad mouth me in the industry. he would give my company bad press, which in turn would reflect negatively on my work and put my job at risk.

that's why ininstead of screaming and pressing the emergency call button, i giggled while i fought him off. i spewed wise cracks as i twisted out of his grasp. i tried scram to believe press the l for the lobby button and then the doors opened and i made a run for the streets. it's not last time i escaped a sexual advance and ended up feeling scared and cowardly and somehow at fault. far worse have happened to friends of mine and to hundreds of thousands of working women in even more difficult working circumstances, but thanks to you anita hill me and our daughters and granddaughters feel free to report offensive

behavior. thank you for your courage and -- we file charges. we no longer protect our attackers from humiliation. we demand that our employers remain and accountable claims of sexual harassment. more and more of us are telling the truth. it all started with you, anita. today, we honor you for what you did. today, we thank you for making a scene, for doing if fearlessly before the eyes of a riveted nation, and thus, inspiring millions of women to defend their dignity, as you did yours.

thank you. [applause] and now it is my pleasure to welcome to the stage, the editorial who will moderate the first session. [applause] >> good morning, everybody. thank you so much to jennifer, who was in the audience here.

and thank you to the co-chair and all of the other organizers. i was honored to be asked to participate. americans were glued to their tv screens. it was so opera and the rigging -- it was soap opera and political all rolled into one. we could talk of nothing else. the ensuing debate over who was telling the truth and whether such behavior by a supreme court nominee, if it occurred, should defeat his nomination at once

united and divided the nation. suddenly, thanks to this mass consciousness raising exercise, the issue of sexual harassment was out of the shadows. and we have been seeing and feeling and living the referrals ever since. her grace and -- the ripples ever since. her grace under such imaginable -- unimaginable pressure. all of us over a debt of gratitude. and so, let today's conversation began. our first panel of the day is a distinguished quintet of individuals, some of whom had direct personal involvement of the events that transpired on capitol hill 20 years ago, all of whom have valuable insights to share that i hope will help us understand what happened in this drama and why it still matters today.

the panels charge for the conference organizers is to kick away the dust of time, help all of us, including those in the audience too young to have their own personal recollections of the event, to conjure what happened before, during, and following the hearing, and the range of reactions brought forth, bringing to bear not just academic and political expertise, but also what they themselves experienced and witness. with the goal in mind of leaving some time with back-and-forth of the panel members, but also lassoing members of the audience into the conversation, opening the floors at to questions, panel members have been asked to limit their remarks after just a few minutes. and in the interest of time, i will briefly introduced the battle in the order they will be speaking.

first up will be charles old ogletree, who served as anita hill's counsel during the hearings. indeed, that is how americans beyond law schools hollow balls came to know him. his yellow pad raised to shield from view, his whispered advice as he sat at the was no -- the witness table in the senate hearing room was something that those of us will never forget. -- those of us who watched the hearings will never forget. he has another covenant that will require him to leave before the panel is over. we are especially grateful. -- grateful that he was able to be here. we're also joined by professor

lanier, the first woman of color appointed to a tenure shut up a law school in 1998. then we will hear from judith resnik, a classmate of mine in college, though is smart and savvy -- who is smart and savvy long before she became a professor at yale law school, where she teaches and provide key intellectual leadership on issues of equality, justice and citizenship. 20 years ago, as i recall, judith was an organizer of the efforts to have law professors around the country put pressure on the senate judiciary committee to postpone the vote on clarence thomas's confirmation in order to allow consideration of anita hill's allegations.

catherine mackinnon is a legendary force for women's equality. she helped frame the legal concept of sexual ruslan writings and litigation in the courts. during the hearings, she helped as an expert commentary for the news. our fifth panelist, jamia wilson is the vice president of the women's media center. if she will talk about the impact of those hearings on her and her thinking as a young woman watching the drama unfold. professor ogletree, to you. [applause]

>> we have one other person who could not join the panel. i will read a statement from maureen dowd. >> i'm sorry i cannot be here today. the hearings were the most influential experience professionally of my life. explore the national consciousness on sex, race, and power. my friend at the "washington post" said everyone in the senate judiciary hearing that we could not wait for it to be over. i felt other rivers. i wanted it to go on longer until the web of lies clarence thomas " with such bravado was cleared away. i could not figure out what really happened between these two intense accomplished people.

i still remember chasing arlen specter down the hall to ask how he could vilify hill as a bitter perjurer. i still remember being outraged when joe biden, the chairman of the committee, cut the hearing short before calling the two women who could have testified to thomas's unseemly and intimidation of women in office. i could not believe that justice kennedy was an altar boy who could not possibly know the language of pornography. and i still remember clarence thomas with his hand on the bible is wearing to defend the supreme court for life. that was maureen dowd. [applause] >> speaking truth to power, that

is what the struggle has been about four centuries for women. i have to say that when anita hill went to testify in washington d.c. in october, 1991, she spoke truth to power. and it may be the power prevailed for a moment, but in reality, truth is finally upon us. and i want to salute my client, my friend, anita hill, for standing up and speaking truth to power in 1991. [applause] high apologize i have to leave early. the on going to washington for the jobs and justice march, as many of you know about. [applause] and the opening of the martin luther king memorial officially

tomorrow. i wish i had three days, not eight minutes. i apologize for the brevity of it. i have been asked to say a word about my mentor, my teacher, derek bell. [applause] many of you know he passed away on october 5, but if he were alive today, he would be in the back row, not a front, the cheering on women saying we have to equalize the society if we are ever going to make progress. thank you, derek, for standing out. [applause] and to give you a context for that, many of you may not remember that he was always an activist. he was the first to be 10 years as an africa -- be was the first african-american to be a tenured in law school, but then left because they did not tender enough. he came back to harvard.

we were there. but there were not many women of color there. in 1990, he said unless harvard appoint a woman of color to the faculty on the tenure track, i am leaving. what you do not know -- hundreds of students were around me on the campus in 1990. derrick bell was about to speak. but he was introduced that day by a skinny kid who was a second year law school student at harvard law school. he was the president of harvard law are viewed -- harvard law review. his name was barack usain obama. [applause] what is significant about that as he talked about his contribution to diversity. but the most important in he said about professor bell in 1990 -- he said as he started this protest, derek bell, to me,

is the rosa parks of the future. barack obama was educated about the past in the fall of 1991 he introduced professor bell. it is interesting when you think about that because it becomes even more interesting a year later -- i was in my own business and not yet tendered at harvard law school. sist professoro asses hill. at about 6:00 a.m., two women not on my door before i took my 8:00 flight heading back to boston. they claimed they were my family. the one was and the kohlman and her -- her friend, pseudo ross. and of course, security let them come up to my room. emma said you cannot leave now. i said, i've got to go back and

be tenured. they said, no, you need to help her. i said, i have helped her. i cross-examined her. they said, no, we want you to beat her lawyer. they said, we have a breakfast at 7:00 a.m. you need to tell the other lead lawyers that you're the lead counsel now. [laughter] we did it. we used everything we could to challenge those -- i want to make one correction. and the senate, democrat from alabama, he was in anita's corner. those questions were rhetorical. he was pointing out circuit was to suggest that she was anything other than a victim of sexual harassment. but the moment that changed my mind about all of this was to see these 14 white men standing in judgment of this black woman, having no sense that they had all been in some way or form connected with some form of harassment. how could they be judging? [applause]

arlen specter and i were on the network to a couple of days after and i went after him. you cannot be the prosecutor and judge. you have to decide your role. at the end of that hearing, he did not shake my hand. [laughter] but the most important moment is every night at midnight or 1:00 a.m. i would column to report to my wife and family what was going on. at one point, my 12-year-old daughter came on the phone and i said, what are you doing up? and she said, dad, i have been watching the hearings. i want you to know i believe anita hill. 12 years old [applause] to make that come full circle, my daughter went on to nyu law school. she is a current fellow here at nyu. and she was taught by and served as a teaching assistant for none other than derek bell. it tells you how the full circle

has come. i and here's today to salute professor hill. to tell her that what she stood for in 1991 still resonates with all of us in 2011. she stood up not just for herself, but she is in this clause with susan b. anthony, with rosa parks, with those who said i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. the with eleanor roosevelt, hillary clinton, my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my daughter, my three granddaughters, 10, 7, and three who are growing up in a world where they know they are and can be the best possible that they can be and neuter gender or race will ever be a barrier because -- in the third gender nor race will ever be a barrier because

of what anita hill did in 1991. we can all stand up in 2011. thank you, professor hill. [applause] [applause] >> istore with a confession. clarence thomas and i were friends in law school. [laughter] i helped to get him his first summer job, which was with its civil rights law firm in savannah, georgia. he and i talked about why blacks

in the south were feeling the bar exam -- failing the bar exam and really disturbing rates because he intended to go back to georgia and be a civil rights lawyer when i knew him as a classmate at yale law school. in fact, he and i were going to write an article together. just imagine how history would have changed how that happened. [laughter] -- if that had happened. [laughter] but clarence chose another road and we have not really communicated since then. but i have to tell you that when i saw him in the clip from the

hearings, it reminded me that his testimony and then the testimony of anita hill had a very important effect on the black committee -- community itself. one of my very good friends remembered getting a phone call on the first day of anita hill's testimony. the person who called her did not say hello. the person who called her did not say, how are you doing. the person who called her asked a simple question, are you blacks or are you a woman? are you black or are you a woman? the assumption obviously was

that if you are black, you will support anybody who is black, and if you are a woman, then your womaloyalties are going toe elsewhere. of course, my friend was both black and a woman. and is that aspect of linking the issues of race and the issues of gender that i found most powerful as a witness, and here i am a witness via television of the hill/thomas hearings. those hearings, for me, where theatrical. there were significant not just because of the affect there were having on the block community waking people up to the idea that -- the black community

waking people up to the idea that some of us are both black and a woman, but they were also theater because i knew so many of the people were coming up to testify on behalf of anita hill. and there was an element of voyeurism, but also, accomplishment that these middle-class black people were on television. when my husband was growing up, for example, in the 1950's, and a black person was on television, he and his brother would run down the street saying there was a black person on television. [laughter] and here there were all of these black people on television. there was a sense that maybe it

was possible to be both black and a woman and on television. [laughter] but i have to say that, for me, this was more than just a sense of professional identity. it was a powerful, culture- shifting moment. it was called for shifting because many of us -- culture shifting because many of us had to deal with the ambivalence and the ignorance of the question, and "are you black or are you a woman?" it was also an important coulter shifting moment because it was changing the face of power itself -- a culture of shifting moment because it was changing the face of power itself. although it appeared that the

power rested with the senators called on all of tone -- senator, all of whom were white, male, but i were maile think as a witness to those hearings at a distance, it made many of us realize that not all the women are white, not all the blacks are men. and some of us, like anita hill, are very brave. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> and i'm sure, too.

[laughter] what do you need to know now 20 years later about what i know about the bad? that is my question. one answer for me in terms of how to think about what to say comes from toni morrison, writing in 1992 and what she said is --"for insight into the complicated and complicating advance the that the confirmation of clarence thomas became, one needs perspective, not the attitude. , context, not anecdotes, analyses, not postures. for any kind of lasting elimination, the focus must be on the history routinely ignored or played down or unknown." for a first perspective, consider a bit of history at risk of being ignored which is to say go back to october 7,

1991 and october 6 as the press reported that i need tech fell, name most people did not know, had allegations of sexual harassment against her former boss. their response was disinterest. the plan was that the next day, october 8, the vote was going to happen because it was a done deal, 58 votes in the bag. a remarkable number of people around the united states said," no, no, we must do something." 120 female law professors have signed a letter to the senate to slow down. the uproar did stop the process albeit briefly for one week. the senate held what was called a hearing on the friday before the columbus day weekend, just a

few days there after, and via that, anita hill went before the senate, the television, and therefore the world. why am i telling you this? that brief respite captured both women's new-found power and also its limitations. the initial disinterest in the senate was reflective of a disinterest in women's equality. no one before the 1970's and nominated to be on the u.s. supreme court was ever asked a question," do you think about women's rights?" nor was the u.s. supreme court interested in equality for women, nor was the equal protection clause read to be protecting women and 1960's before the 1970's that was not until 1986 when the supreme court said sexual harassment is indeed a form of sex discrimination. of course, while women knew well

sexual inequality and sexual harassment, it was only the past work of the women gathered here and many, many others that transformed and named a set of that authorized ownership over our own bodies and instead of it being the way it was, no, it was sexual harassment, it was date raped, it was inequality, it was unequal pay, and the world started to move. just as the collective action moved the senate to push back the hearing, collective action was moving understand what was right and what was legally wrong. but, of course, just as it had moved it somewhat, the brief respite was also a limit of that power as well as an announcement as you walk. hearings have you heard the disparagement of anita hill.

realize a weird and barry said form of accomplishment and victory. only a few years earlier, there never would have been a hearing because people -- men were just allowed to do that. instead, there had to be a defense, it had to be her fault or it was something she had made up and in that move of having to defend was a little bit of a move toward women gaining authority over their own bodies and being able to speak out. the first context is to appreciate the collective social-political action that this room will re-represent and is happening in washington again to change the meaning of what is right and wrong. a second context which we are speaking about is the complexity of identity politics. let me provide another little glimpse of history that is also at risk of being forgotten which is the people who testified and commented during the first phase of the thomas hearing before anita hill raised her

experiences. other voices had objected to the nomination of clarence thomas and his extensive record and personal posture is so anti pedicle to the interests of women and blacks and especially black women that she felt she had to come forth. he had been anti affirmative- action, anti roe v. wade, had a limited interpretation of the equal pay act so it was his civil-rights record and his public statements about the members of his household and how hard they have all worked but he was disparaging of their need to have public subsidies and welfare that had caused several voices to be raised during the first phase of the hearing in opposition to them. [applause] the third context for remembering and regaining perspective and lasting elimination is to look at that

hearing and realize that it was what danny curtis called later a fair trial. there's all this stuff about burdens of proof. the person who was allegedly the accused was supposed to be thomas and he was supposed to be presumptively innocent unless proven beyond a reasonable doubt not to be so. of course, it turned out it was anita hill that was on trial and she had no such presumption of innocence. judges, but itl and call witnesses, an expert of sexual harassment and others and then also the senators style as judges or acting as the clarence thomas' defense lawyers in the process. what people saw on tv as they watched the black woman the disparaged was actually a glimpse at a much wider picture which is the extraordinary provided way to look for a moment at the ordinary. what was the ordinary? in real course around the united

states, women and men of color in all kinds of settings were also facing problems of being not listened to as was -- as witnesses. the face of justice that was seen on the television, 14 white men as judges with much more diverse litigants, mirrors the face of justice around the united states and in the 1960's and 1970's as the fight for equality with the course, there were meant by some prosecutors and judges and lawyers and some jurors who are just as disparaging as some of the clips you saw. once again, they did collective action. the legal defense and education program created a national judicial education program and working with a newly formed national association of women judges want to courts and said we have to fix this. new jersey led the way three times, first with a task force on gender bias and second minority concerns and then in the 1990's, sexual orientation

in the courts. by the time i need tet bill was testifying, there were projects around the united states saying how are we going to fix fairness inside ordinary court rooms? in new york, the task force on women in the courts in 1986 said cultural stereotypes of women in marriage and society daily distort application of the substantive law. women uniquely and disproportionately and with unacceptable frequency must endure a climate of condescension, of indifference, of hostility. in the same year that the hill hearings were, the task force on minorities said that the numerous complaints, testimony, and comments we received reflect a perception that minorities are stripped of their human dignity, their individuality, and their identities in the encounters with the court system. in response, courts changed some rules and a judge or two acted the way you saw the centers act

got reversed for treating people in gender, race, ethnic biased ways and judgment or reverse reported moving to my conclusion -- i want to provide with one last context to get some lasting elimination. let me take you back briefly to the 1930's as the u.s. government in a stimulus package of its time was building new courthouses around the united states, there was a new one in aiken, south carolina. an artist painted a picture of the virtue justice. what did she look like? he was interested -- he wasn't interested mexican muralists. he had read white and blue for her clothes. a very angular and very striking image. a newspaper reporter walked in, look at it, and said that is a "mulatto justice.

what happens? the local uproar. the naacp protested and the artist volunteered to lighten the pigment and the government put it behind drapes where it remains. in the very same year, in idaho, in another courthouse, a mural went up and no one said poo. that merrill was a dark skin the man had dressed, and indians around a bygones about to be listed, a low-tech lynching. mellon said there was a problem showing that merrill until the 1990's and someone said this is pretty terrible, we should drape it. members of indian tribes is said to show it to understand things about american history and the injustice as well as the aspirations for justice. don't put it behind drapes. hill-thomas requires us all to

pull back the curtain at look at how women and men of color were and are treated, understood, heard, mistreated. it reminds us that we all have some power to pull of that court and opened some of the drapes and to reveal how injustices long tolerated as part of life's just the way it is can be found to become intolerable and how we can weave together new understandings of what justice as a virtue and the practice and an aspiration can look like. thank you. [applause] [applause]

>> good morning, everyone. the word first to reach me over what became the big story of a confrontation between anita hill and clarence thomas. it was big because the media decided to make a big, not because the fact of the harassment being so unusual. it was in part because of the prominence of the men involved, no doubt, and in part i think, also because of their feel for the white supremacist voyeurism around black sexuality. anyway, there i was sitting in a public hot tub overlooking the pacific [laughter] it was my birthday. all around me, suddenly everyone was talking about sexual harassment. that is a great present for someone who had pioneered the legal claim as a legal student

20 years before [applause] back when, as gloria steinem was put it, sexual-harassment was just life. i spent the hearings inside nbc watching in their entirety talking with tom brokaw and off the air doing commentary. it felt like being in touch with the entire country in a mass of consciousness-changing session on a subject i have been trying to make real to people other than those who did it or those who had done to them for almost two decades. this, by the way, was back before the ideological move had been made, making the term " victim" to a dirty word. a victim-blaming move casting it into a false mode so passive that no victimized person would ever want to recognize themselves in it. [applause]

all that came a bit later in the fight against pornography of which these hearings were also a part. what happened in these hearings among other things was the sexual harassment became real to the world at large for the first time. my book of 1979, "framing a legal claim" did not do this. you will see guidelines of 1980 did not do this. nor did our winning michelle vincent's case and the supreme court in 1986 do this. although these helped prepare the way. anita hill did this. her still, fully present, but really lucid testimony, that ugly microphone stuck in her beautiful face, that of

unblinking camera gawking at her from point-blank range - after she spoke, complaints of sexual harassment across the nation tripled and quadrupled and more in numbers where they have roughly stabilized. outrage of how she was treated by the senate, a political scientist documented, elected bill clinton. hmmm. [laughter] women around the world realized that this is not just life. actually, it violates their civil and human rights and mobilized and now there are laws against it everywhere in the world. [applause] all this happened because women identified with anita hill, with

her dignity enter quality of presence. they believed her with a ferocity and more, said so as time and eat paheat passed. they saw her stand in the fire and come through it. they realize that what had been done to them was at least as unequal and violated as what had been done to her. when she was asked, she stood up to it. they wanted to be with her, came to feel that if she did this, they could do this, too. what happened was almost a spiritual transference of finding voice, gaining part and standing ground. this was especially remarkable because the hearings were not in

court and justice thomas was put on the supreme court anyway. what women saw was not that she won but that she counted. she was taken seriously and that seriousness has had her face every sense, an african american face. these are women who have long known that they had rights before any lawyer or any court knew it. sexual harassment became both an average that mattered and a part of politics as usual for the first time. a real if complicated step up for women. no longer can powerful man and man are socially powerful, be sure that the sexual abuse they inflict will be covered up.

few things have been the same sense. [applause] same since. [applause] [applause] >> good morning. thank you. i am jamile wilson and the extent gratitude to the organizers of today's event and everyone here today to honor the legacy of a need to help us a great extent for equality. professor help us resilience inspired a new generation to stand up and live authentically entrust an hour average in the face of a great injustice. i am here to speak about the hearings for the media and share her they ignited my moments of feminist realization on my

development. prior to any debt fell, my definition of women's rights extended mostly to what impacted me personally. i believed i was th smarter than boys. i did not like to stand outside and on -- in the men only record store in saudi arabia while my dad had to get my janet jackson cd. it was difficult having to rely on my dad or taxi to drive as everywhere because women were not and are still not permitted to drive in saudi arabia. that will change. [applause] i have some sisters watching on a live street from there, too. they are in the room with us. [applause] i remember knowing that i was a democrat because my parents told me i was. [laughter] and also because i had accompanied them to campaign events. i recall attending a civil rights march when there was an

african american teacher who was wrongfully fired in our town. i did not have a real connection to feminist mobilizing. i did find something in common with the anita hill stand that a change to i am today. i reflected on my friend jamile smith and the aftermath of the troy davis statement. it said i am not troy davis but i could be and it scares the crap out of me. reflecting on his wisdom, i immediately thought that i am not anita hill, but i could be and that scarce the crap out of may. me. this impacted me and transformed my view of the world in my place in it. it was the year that caused our

family to leave our existence and return to america to watch the battle on tv with the rest of you. 1991 was the year i watched " thelma and louise" that was passed around our compound in riyadh. when i think back to what i experienced during the hearings, i remember a line the road trip with my parents to visit family and friends in georgia and south carolina. we were back in the u.s. after that even full year and wanted to make connections. i recall writing and might pretty ride in a dusty, listen to the start of hearings on the radio and even though i wasn't aware of how historic important testimony would be, i knew it must be pretty critical if my dad opted to hear that over the usual soundtrack of motown, old soul, and gospel. my parents were focused on every word, drawn in by the better, and running during attacks, cheering on the testimony of

progressives. asperger's professes to my parents were the so-called uppity blacks of the clarence thomas was climbing solidarity with and is desperate quest to garner sympathy. i recollect sitting in the back of the car pretending to read " the babysitters club" while listening and wondering what a long dong silver was. after the first day, we spent the next few days watching it on tv in hotel rooms and at the homes of friends. i thought about reply i had recently seen, "the crucible, call and dreading the way senator simpson and had been interrogated hill, resenting her race and gender. she was accused of flat-out perjury and cents and told us to watch a for this woman. and we're living in a modern-day witch hunt.

[applause] mama had said that i was born 35. [laughter] i guess she was right even though i'm only 31 now. i always sought to make sure i said at the adult cable because all the juicy conversation happened there. [laughter] a family friend brought up the hearings and painted justice thomas as a martyr. he felt the need to protect his honor with the same vigor as he would his own. he saw him as a black man paving the way for others to arise and achieve the same sort of upward mobility in spite of his conservative outlook. i cringed when he said he thought aita hill was lying and he was jealous because clarence thomas dated white women. he posed a conspiracy plot. at that moment, i was not

thinking about how to unpack the baggage but i knew it created a knot in my stomach that paying that made me feel as if some day i, too, could be market trader by some house stepped out of line by challenging patriarchate within my community and beyond. i understood then that for some being black was all about normalizing and celebrating black masculinity at all costs even if it erased an undervalued the reality of a black woman. without knowing it, was getting an introductory education about inter-sector relative 101. i said i believe anita hill and i am a feminist for it he looked around the dinner table and get me one of those "is in she cute" pats on my head and said she is a feminist for a girl, you're not a feminist. you could maybe be a woman best if you are anything at all but you don't know what that means.

i had not been acquainted up with this serious feminist writers but it was wrong for him to tell me who i could and could not be. it was decided then. [applause] i was certain that i was a feminist and a womanist too was a fan of what that meant. [laughter] anita hill made it possible for me and others to speak up by revealing the truth without fear despite being portrayed badly by others. the character assassinations experienced enter impact on some of the discouraging words i heard from friends, schoolmates, and family furthered my faith in the truth of her testimony. yesterday, i was moved when i saw the occupy wall street video about community building

and creating a new world together. even though occupy wall street is not perfect and it definitely has work to do, i imagined what .ill's hearings would have been clarence thomas definitely would never have been confirmed and that justice would be appointed and confirmed to the highest court in the land that would look more like you, more like me, or more like professor hill herself. [applause] while it is often demoralizing that we have a long way to go, i remain hopeful. i will continue to work diligently to amplify women's voices and cold media accountable. i'm not i need ted hill, but i could be, thank you. -- i am a anita hill, but i could be.

thank you. [applause] [unintelligible] [inaudible] >> first of all, thanks to the panelists. [applause] i thought those presentations were really remarkable. as i spent the last few days sort of going through clips, clippings, and all the editorials of hours, one of the things that impressed me about

what anita hill was up against was that wonderful reaction of senator howard metzenbaum, a liberal senator from ohio, who, when informed of the anita hill charges said if that is harassment, half the senators on capitol hill could be accused. [applause] i'm not sure if i needed help had known that, she would have had that bravery. our editorials as i look back -- and a former colleague of mine was very instrumental in writing them -- stand up pretty well i think in that we gave do acknowledgment to the credibility of anita hill but where we fell short was a little

timidity in being willing to said that the blanket refusal of judge thomas to engage the allegations suggested something, perhaps, about who was telling the truth and that one of them clearly was not telling the truth. given whether it was because whether not wanting to appear racist or insult the dignity of the office that he was aspiring to, there was, i think at that time, the editorial page and elsewhere in the media, the reluctance to perhaps as fully evaluate comparatively the seeming veracity of what folks were saying. i wonder if you guys -- if

anyone would want to comment on that. i think folks got to weigh line but people were debating and how much of that had to do with people were genuinely being educated for the first time about the fact that women who had been treated the way anita hill was might still go with her employer, the abuser, to the next job and stay in contact for career reasons especially since the abuse came and went after research period. would anyone want to comment on that? or --- there is, every day, i think, or nearly every day, during the

supreme court term, good reasons to really mourn the fact that this fellow, mr. thomas, ended up being confirmed because his presence on the court and his increasing influence, in a way, on a court that is no very far right, we feel that more and more and we will feel that during his term in case after case. is there, looking back, something gnaws at you that maybe we should have done something else or pursued a different strategy? is there something else we should have done to try and postponed a final vote? does that crossed anybody's mind? no historic regrets? >> arbys working?

-- are these working? many people felt that they want to be fair which included the media and the people putting on the proceedings but there is a built-in sense of constraint about talking about sexuality in dignified public settings that was breaking down and had broken down to some extent. this was so much a product -- a part of the process that that constrain the a lot of people. to put a little more directly -- there was testimony, there was evidence that could have been brought forward and decisions were made by people not to bring it forward. it would have strongly supported what professor hill had been claiming. the idea that all there was was

her word against his was not the case. there was a lot of evidence that backed her up at the time that was not brought forward. we can't think a lot and continue to ask and inquire with the people who were the actors at that time when they did produce that but it was not because they did not think of it. some of their staff called me before the hearing and asked questions about what they should ask and they did not ask the ones that i insisted they should. and, with the evidence they had at hand which i also had separately, would have supported her credibility strongly. what i think is worth observing about your last point is that, about the supreme court today, is that everyone who goes on the supreme court is there for life or as they choose.

most people grow. [laughter] [applause] and men do not take well to sexual humiliation in public. women are used. it does not mean we take well to it but we have ways of dealing with. men don't, especially powerful man. men. when you live which is my belief is what took place -- a lie, which is my belief is what took place by justice thomas, you have to maintain that lie in a context of sexual humiliation in public as a man for the rest of your life. what happens is arrested development of [laughter] you don't become the person you could become. he could have been, as some of

his opinions have shown an as some of us who knew him before the new, somebody for home a feel for reality became an integral part of his judicial opinions. i had hoped for that of him before this came out. the way he handled this and the choices he made in it made that impossible. we are all losers for that. [applause] >> i think you have underscored senator metzenbaum's comments which comes back to the opening comments which is that many men had taken upon themselves the privilege of women's bodies in various way. part of that conversation to understand is a view that if

that had happened, it was not all that bad and this was sort of went with the territory of what men got to do. when i was interviewing for jobs in both law teaching and loitering, it was ordinary to afence with the person who you were interviewing with. aside from being insulted, i have colleagues who would look at the student book in front of me, male colleagues, and decide who they were going to go after. this was a fabric of authority and workplaces. that we are lucky is no longer the authority workplaces. one needs to appreciate that there was a shared experience and a sense that it may well

happen so what. the price of that behavior is you don't sit on the supreme court. i want to link it with the price of the preanita hill knowledge of the substantive views on equality, the legal positions taken on equality, affirmative- action, abortion, and the like that or in the clarence thomas' record. in that record was a substantial amount to which people could and some people did object. on that set of information. tw kind ofo-paly and it is important to capture. the vote was 58 and got down to 52 and if there had been more time to explore, evaluate, and have communication, intersection

of communications across the communities that have been mobilized in the boats had not been forced over a holiday weekend, the 52 might have come out the other way. >> time is running short. we should have some folks might want to ask questions from the audienc of our panelists. one of the things that is said about the hearings is that while it was, in a way, betty friedan's recognition of the house what may be was not so great and maybe being a housewife, there was this recognition and things coming out in the open that women knew and instinctual they gravitated toward about what she was saying. there were people saying that weekend the negative side was the opening up of a certain

coarseness in our culture. that made a been a negative side of discussing this but is part and parcel with the reality. i have always felt that that is thrown back in the face of women. that is something that is caused by calling out folks to be a been a certain sort of way. >> for any new function as a lawyer or media people comeanita hill is and was the perfect witness who was the most composed and dignified and all of her responses were astonishing. if any of you listen to her testimony of anybody else, most other people, other people would be flustered. in terms of the merit and the investigation of who she was and what she did, you had to do fantasy elsewhere because of her remarkable career as a law

professor and a professional and as a worker in the government was more upright than anybody could have scripted. it was particularly poignant that in the face of a perfect inarticulate and soul-searching person brave enough to come forth that the posture you saw came fourth was the response. in a way, the posturing underscores how good she was because they look so silly now. many of us thought they looked silly now but i think if you replace it takes now in full, hearing the kennedy-nixon debate, if you go back, you really have a sense of how grasping for straws they were

and how remarkably powerful she is. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. i am in the faculty at lehman college. say a youtubenita youtu hill for her bravery. i want to hear your connections betweenanita hill and dianllo. >> the case that recently got a mess by the man and district attorney? >> yes. anyone want to comment on that stack [laughter]

-- anyone want to comment on a? that [laughter] >> i think there are a lot of parallel. s. they include a not yet adequate understanding on people's parts of how women particularly, women of color, who are so routinely does believe the when they bring forth di --sbelieved when they bring forth their accounts of what happened to them, respond knowing that in advance of his. situation the point at which women of color says this happens to me, it can be the case m as withs. diallo and professor hill that people will sometimes believe with meticulous, at least many

of the particulars of the -- at the immediate situation. they are constantly look back and saying why didn't you say something van. then. it turns out there are real answers. professor hill made clear the reasons why she did not bring out that this had happened before and that was used as a reason to think she was lying today. ms. diallo also found ways to attempt to bring out why she had some seven -- what she had seven things before including some statements which were not true which she admitted or not true and nonetheless, people don't seem to be able to get a grip on what really being in a perilous position looks like especially in a legal system, especially if you are a woman of color, particularly -- with no economic resources.

--re's also a whole story there are a lot of stories -- i would also point out the parallels with the actors in the legal system not fully grasping or pursuing are using the forms at their disposal, the legal tools and power they had in their hands in ways that could have and would have supported the women in all the. involve the. d. if you look at the beginning of the case, the outlook looked more encouraging. >> the complaint comes forward from a very powerless -- to get

this powerful got it allpl of theane. >> that's right and it becomes a big media story because of his power. we are still without parallel. the fact that you win the case is not the only reason for bringing it. [applause] i do understand all the conventional -- i am involved in international prosecutions these days on a daily basis for sex crimes and i understand all the prosecutorial common wisdom that you cannot win a case like this with all following problems in the back of it. with ms. diallo, i still think they should have brought the case. [applause] ani sea withta hill, there are

very large, substantial consequences to what is done even if you've. loose sometimes is important to stand up and do the right thing. [applause] >> next, over there. >> the whole panel is fantastic. after watching the film and listening to you, i was thinking when i sit in washington and go to congressional hearings, yes, our opponents are terrible but we still see among our friends and unwillingness to make issues relating to women's rights a priority. i am just wondering what insights you might have. you alluded to the failure to call witnesses and people who we call our allies might have taken and did not. i don't think that situation has changed that much i guess i

would appreciate any ideas for ways to stand up and fight that and concentrate on our friends, not our enemies. >> i think that is an important question. what we tend to do and we are guilty of it even today is that we individuate to the problem and we think about the issue as if it is simply a question of whether clarence thomas ani orta hill are telling the truth. to me, the message of those hearings and the description that was given up the challenges facing prosecutors are a signal of deeper structural problems in the way in which we conduct politics, the way in which we think about prosecutions generally, the role of the court's, the role of the legal system in so many ways that have

led to levels of mass incarceration of black and m -- latino man in disgraceful proportions. these are structural problems. the individual stores are very powerful and important in order to bring our attention to the larger structural issues. i think that is the challenge that we keep looking for almost a cinderella story. we look for the story that will somehow restore our confidence in the system without realizing that our confidence in the system can only be restored by changing the system, not just changing the individual outcome. [applause] >> i wanted to add that one

should remember h thatill-thomas event was counting the votes. the senators who were looking at it and the democratic senators, some or in the south facing reelection, po listening tolls to figure out what voter blocs they would keep or lose by which position they were taping. at the time, pollers were telling them is that some of the southern senators were at risk of losing some of their black voters if they voted against and the women voting. this goes back to enter such a relative. er-sexuality. when there is a splinter, the person gets on the bench. in this instance, this is where the structural change is about counting of votes. my response is, it is our job,

as on ending as it may seem, to put these issues on the agenda. i want to underscore the strong positive part which is to keep remembering that we now live in an environment that is different from the one that was there. we have a a not fixed ton, to put it mildly, but there is also a change and we don't simultaneously live with the duality of that reality, we're not appreciating our own efforts, and understanding the need to do more. [applause] >> what are two more questions than we have to go to the next panel after that. i think -- >> professor grunier mentions

that clarence thomas was going to go back to georgia and become a civil rights lawyer when they were in law school together. what happens to him that [laughter] is it useful to look at what happened to him and stop that from happening again? [laughter] [applause] toolseally don't have the to answer that question. [laughter] >> one more, over there, final question. >> i'm a professor here at women and gender studies at hunter. what about the further evidence you mentioned that was blocked from coming for that could have corroborated anita hill's

testimony at the time? i remember reading that one of the screening criteria of the senate committee to block people is whether or not they themselves had been victimized by sexual harassment and of the had been victimized, there were not allowed to get corroborating testimony. i found that interesting because it seemed to assume a lot of things but the people who had knowledge or not capable of giving testimony. i wonder if you could speak to that. >> yes, i don't know that they had that as a criteria but there were people who had experience that would have been highly relevant to corroborate professor help the was testimony who were not permitted to testify current they knew about some of them. there were other women that i knew about that they did not who made the decision seeing what was happening not to come

forward at that time. who wrote that good book? with all the evidence afterwards? jane meyer - two excellent women journalists brought out this after the fact. in particular, if you analyze the hearings as the place where they went for her neck was on her allegations about pornography use -- in other words, that is where they decided to make her be. incredible people probably believe he asked her out and maybe he pressured her for dates, the kind of thing. where credibility foundered was made to founder of what she said about his pornography use. there was independent evidence at the time of his pornography use, specifically of the rental fil of thatm about which she

spoke. they could have gotten that evidence and put it on without risking anybody else or. ne thanks it would have supported her credibility at exactly the point people attacked her. >> there is an affidavit and the record -- another woman who put an affidavit in rather than testify and there was a woman expert on sexual harassment who was there that many of us hoped would be available to testify as well. there is a book that was edited called "gender, race, and power" which has a chronology of these events. it gives us the fuller record. they cut off the hearings of the many of us wanted there to be more testimony and more witnesses and more evidence and

more time after all that and the race to judgment and the insistence on judgment without further explication which comes back to it looking to close to home. >> i am told we have time for one more. question. and im in my mid-to 60's want to tell a two-minute story. profs resnick, you said anita hill was the perfect witness. when i was in college and i was sexually harassed and really abused any way i filed unemployment and i filed a lawsuit and all of this before any laws were on the books. to make a long story short, at every hearing i went to pick with unemployment commissioner, all i did was cry. i was a young woman and i was not the perfect witness. it went to the highest court in

new jersey. the bottom line is i one and the company had to pay me back pay, every penny i lost before the laws were in place. they also had to institute a program where they had to tell their employees like a training program on how not to harass women anyway, it can be done so please speak up when and whether you are a great witness or not. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, that is a wonderful correction. it is wonderful to hear about the early successes and it is wonderful to remind from a point of view of someone who was putting on a case, the sense was partially the sense in the face

of impeccable pe andccable - they were packing a matter what -- and it is important to remember that all of us come with various challenges to speaking up and we should not be as taunted as we might be a a because ofnita hill's remarkable eloquence. >> we will wind up. thank you everybody. thank you panelists. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> we will start our next session almost immediately. i know have been sitting for a while so why doesn't everyone just stand and stretch for a moment and take a deep breath after all that deep reflection. don't go too far. we got an outstanding panel to follow.

>> mic check. testing 1, 2, 1, 2,.

>> ladies and gentlemen, we're going to begin our next program in just a moment. our day is tightly scheduled. thank you for gathering yourselves and taking your seats. >> please find your seats again. the conversations you will have started will continue over large -- lunch. ladies and gentlemen, we would like to begin the next session. >> ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. we need to begin the next session. we invite you to consider -- continue the conversation at

lunch.

>> if you are not already in line for the bathroom, try to wait another hour. if you are in line, we will give you a couple more minutes to

come back. we have a full schedule today and would like to stay on time. >> ladies and gentlemen, thank

you for gathering yourselves and taking your seats. we hope to begin in just a moment.

>> ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. i know this is an amazing discussion to have, but we would like to begin the next panel.

friends, thank you for taking your seats. we are eager to begin. >> ladies and gentlemen, please find your seats so that we can start this session.

>> hi, everybody. i am pat mitchell. [applause] thank you. what an amazing morning it has been so far. it has been a privilege to be part of this. after a 30-year career in journalism, i chose to run the paly center for media and here in midtown manhattan. our mission is to look at the many ways in which media, the story as it tells, and does not tell, the images it shows and does not show, impacts the ways we think, it shapes our ideas, our opinions, our relationships. we have examples of media changing cultures and governments. we also have the examples from

the documentary earlier of the media and the way that stories are reported feeling as dramatically. last night, sweet screened a new documentary called "misrepresentation. -- we screened a new documentary called "misrepresentation turco it documents powerfully the way the images of women in advertising, film, television, and the internet are still shaping the lives of women and the attitudes that we're still facing. if you look at the images of women and news reporters and presenters, they seem to have been hired on the size of their busts rather than their brains. they are encouraged to wear a

blow cut blouses and giggle as their grandfather-aged cohort makes sexualized comments. on prime-time television, there is still a gap between the lines that men and women lead and those we see celebrated on prime time and on our movie screens. it is true that we can only be what we can see. what young boys and girls are seeing is not the way in which we want young boys and girls to grow up in relationship to one another and in what they believe is possible in their lives. [applause] the film also documents the alarming and dangerous connection between what media

presents as demeaning and diminished images of women and the increasing levels of violence against women and girls in every part of the world. what we have heard today and will continue to hear individually and collectively are the stories of women and girls still facing the violence of being groped in an elevator, harassed in an office, diminished at a table where opinions should count. again and again, we see the images of what the media allows, the lack of accountability. that is why the story of anita hill is so important for us to consider today. what were the changes that this woman's courageous decision to speak out, speak up, speak truth

to power -- how has it changed the lives of women, girls, and men today? we have a remarkable panel of women joining us to talk about this from many perspectives. after our conversation on stage, we will open up the microphones again so that we might hear from many more of you. please join me in welcoming them. there longer biographies are in your programs as well as on the screen. i will ask them to join me and take their seats. a world-renown performing artist, a fearless activist, and a cultural innovator. melissa is a professor of political science at tulane university, founding director of the cooper project on gender,

south.olitics, in the she is a television commentator and has written a new book. at the ripe age of 24, emily created hollabacks to combat street harassment she and others experienced daily. she is also the executive director of the organization. she has been organizing immigrant workers in new york since 1996. she has now taken this work nationally through the domestic workers alliance. joanne smith, founder and

director of girls for gender equity. she is also the author of a book called "hey, shorty." it arms girls with information about what to tolerate and what not to tolerate. welcome to this amazing panel. [applause] i will start with you, shorty. [laughter] definitely do not call you shorty. the subject we have been given to consider is, what does anita hill mean to us today? i will begin with you. you are dealing with the generation of girls and boys who

probably do not know the name and were not around when the story was on the front pages. what does it mean to them in our schools today? >> at a time of the hearings, i was 16. at that time, for me, it was seeing a woman giving voice to our ancestors. i am first generation haitian, born in the united states. also, it gave language and definition of sexual harassment in the workplace to my mother who like many women saw sexual harassment as part of the job. it now gives context for being able to deconstructs the institutions that impede the quality. for the young people that i

speak for, our work in the new york public city schools with title 9 as well as local and state policy is to protect all students whether the boys, girls, trends gender, lesbian, gay, bisexual from sexual harassment and gender-based violence. it is so critical at this time. it was not until i was an adult that i realized the shoulders we're standing on as an organization and the responsibility to pass that understanding on that we have a living legend who sacrificed the trajectory of her career and life to give voice because it was the right thing to do. we can do the same thing. we do not have to be scholars. we just have to be willing. there is a space for that.

[applause] i call our generation the unintended consequence of the anita hill hearings. where the feminists, the womanists who are angry and do not see sexual harassment and gender-based violence as the norm. this is something we need to eradicate. >> is there a feeling that there will be accountability? you indicate that there are more tools. are there things that empower people to speak up in a different way than before? can you give us an example? >> i will speak about the work we do in the schools. it is the bureaucracy of the new york city schools we're looking to the district. the amendment has been around since 1975 but is not evenly implemented. there's not even a coordinator identified for the 1700 schools

so that if there is a grievance by student they know who to go to. they are silenced as anita was. that is why you do not tell. you also do not go to school. you accept it as what will happen and that no one will do anything about it. our work is to be sure that schools are held accountable. we need to make sure the grievances are followed through on and investigated. it should not result in further policing of people of cover, but be able to provide education, youth development, and advocacy so that young people can understand the social norms that are a microcosm of society should not continue and that they have the power to change that. >> there are so many reasons that women and girls do not come forward. we have heard many of them this morning. the personal shame we take in,

the worry about the exploitation that will result in the press and media. then there are many other examples of bringing forth the case, speaking out, and still not seeing justice rendered. i look at your work in organizing the domestic workers around the country. there are a group of people who have often not have a voice and a way to complain about the many different kinds of negative and violent treatment they have endured. there were the recent headlines of the dominique strauss-kahn case and seeing the domestic worker's charges dismissed. what has been the impact of that on the women and men that you work with? >> i would say that when she

spoke out, she spoke for so many immigrant women workers who are vulnerable in their workplaces for a number of reasons and who face a lot of fear as a result of the immigration status, exclusion from protections. they speak out against all odds. there are so many women in workplaces around the country who through a tremendous amount of courage do speak out. women were very encouraged and the outspoken for when it happened. it was a reminder when the case was dismissed of how much work we have to do and how important women's organizing and activism is, particularly working women organizing and activism. at the end of the day, we have to continue to speak out, fight, and take corrective action so that these cases are not seen as

isolated cases that can be dismissed, but that ultimately we have to work together to change and transform the environment. i think domestic workers are continuing the fight. i do not know how many of you know, but that to 0.5 million women that go to work every day as nannies, housekeepers, and caregivers for the elderly, we say they do the work that makes all other work possible. it is very important and valuable work. [applause] that is right. to this day, they are excluded from almost every major labor protection, including the protection from discrimination and harassment in the workplace. in the entire country, domestic workers are vulnerable to sexual harassment and have no legal protection, except for in the state of new york. [applause]

domestic workers organized for six years and past a domestic worker bill of rights that was signed into law last year. [applause] it provides protection from discrimination and harassment. we have a bill in california that does the same right now. more states are going to follow. it is another reminder of how important women's organizing is, how important is to continue to speak truth to power. i want to give a shout out to 9 organization who did groundbreaking work to get the issue of sexual harassment out into the public and continue to move this work forward. >> congratulations to you. so much of this has been your commitment and dedication to the cause. there was so much concern that

arose when this woman who was courageous enough to come forward was tried in the press. it was very much reminiscent of the treatment that anita hill faced in the media. it is a deterrent to a woman coming forward. how have you counseled the many women who must come to you with similar complaints to help them through understanding the process that things might be tried publicly for them even more than the perpetrator? >> again, it is the power of women coming together that offers the support and context to continue to speak out despite what you risk being blamed or losing your job. in this economic climate, it is even harder on women. women are always the last to be hired and the first to be fired. speaking out has extra

consequences and stakes in this particular moment. this is why we have general meetings every month where women come together and share their stories. they realize they are not alone. even if the media is blaming them, even if no one else believes them, there are going to be other women who will stand with them. >> you have seen that continue. women still come together. >> every month. in brooklyn, third saturday. all over the country, there are now 35 domestic worker organizations in 19 cities and 11 states around the country. we're coming together all the time. [applause] >> with that kind of encouragement, there will be more to come forward and hopefully with better resorts -- results than we witnessed in that case. both of you spend time with girls. immolate --emily, i will go to

you on this subject. you experienced harassment on the streets. that happens to many women in urban areas. what action did you decide to take and what has been the result? >> we have founded hollaback in 2005. i think it was the power of the workplace movement to give us the confidence to think we could do something about it. we were a group of friends at the time. we started telling our stories. we were concerned about not having a response. we felt like it happened in the workplace, we would have some kind of response. what is the difference between harassment on the street and in the work place other than the location? the fact we did not have a response on the street anchored us -- angered us.

it was the privilege of growing up without history of the workplace is what dave is the platform to stand up. on a personal level, i know there are many people in this room who are active in the workplace around harassment and still are today. i want to thank you. i grew up knowing it was not ok and that it did happen to me, it would not be my fault. there was something i could do about it. that is amazing. if i can give that to the next generation and if we can give that to the next generation of activists so that they have the privilege of knowing that street harassment is not ok, that will be a tremendous win. [applause] >> emily, where did you get the

message was not ok and it was not your fault? where was that message in your life? >> the first time i heard the message was when everybody was talking about anita hill and harassment. nobody was talking about it to me. i thought it was because it had the word "sex" in it because i was 10. and remember asking my mother. she told me did inappropriate things and would make comments about her clothing. i was pushing her and thinking she was avoiding it because it was a sex matter. i said, if my stepfather did that to you, you would think it was a compliment. she said yes, but that is the man i am married to. she said that was a non-

consensual relationship. that was the first time it clicked in my mind that there were things that happened that were unconsensual and women had to experience them. it was being taught that we did not have to put up with it. inspired us to hollaback and get people to share their stories online. we now have iphone and android apps. we have built on the workplace experience and anita hill. this is built on the power of people's stories. it is acknowledging that when people come forward bravely to tell their stories, [unintelligible] we have been able to help people anonymously tell their stories

and let people internationally tell their stories. we have a compilation of stories to rise up in solidarity to define what street harassment means to all of us in this generation. >> sharing your stories, that is why it is so important to remember and celebrate the story of anita hill. that is what we're doing today. >> melissa, in your book, you talk about stories. looking at the barriers that women of color still face today, what was the impact on your personally of the anita hill and her courage? what are you seeing today that is a reflection of that first important stand? >> i feel really humbled at this moment to come behind three activists. it may be the constant dualism i feel as a member of the academy and the media. there is the sense that we share

stories, we talk a lot, we give our opinions. maybe because i am married to an actual activist i get the difference between.and this sort of work. the first thing i want to say is that i feel very grateful to all of you for the real, on the ground, policy-changing work up to. it really means a lot. on this more personal question, i am a little freaked out since it is 20 years since anita hill. let me an delaware to 41 second on this. in 1990, i started college. i went off in the fall of 1990. by the time i started college, i had already been sexually assaulted by my neighbor, an

african-american man who lived behind me. i already understood that in a personal way. i did not have an analytic lands to understand it. my mother came up through non- profit organizations and is a second wave feminist and brilliant woman. i understood that that assault was not my fault or something like that. i did not have any particular way of understanding the baby politics around it. my freshman year of college, i went off to a predominantly white colleges and i was so excited. i shared with african-american women some never -- negative experiences in the dorms and feeling that we did not belong. we found a house -- founded a house for african-american women. the only organization i have ever been a part of building. it was not a sorority house. it was for african american

women around the questions of culture and racial purpose. we moved into that house in 1991. in october of 1991, we all sat together in our common area room and watched the hill-thomas hearings and confirmation. i was a student at wake forest university. at the same time we were together as a group of women watching this -- a woman who was my dear mentor and who has meant a great deal to me, maya angelou wrote a story for "the wall street journal saying, open but i dare to hope that clarence thomas will be good for racial politics -- "i dare to hope clarence thomas will be good for racial politics."

for me, what the hill testimony did was to start to help me understand analytically with my own experience with sexual assault had been, particularly intra-racially. i knew interracial sexual assault. it was not until i heard her talk that i understood how clearly punished african- american women would be when we spoke about sex in public, even if it was about our but demise asian, understanding how important that house was -- our victimization, understanding how important that house was. understanding that i would have here african-american women

mentors who would seek gender politics different from me at some point. in 1992, the next year, we watched carol moseley-braun elected to the u.s. senate largely as a result of the political activism that occurred afterwards. anita hill means absolutely everything. absolutely everything i do in terms of media and my work in terms of being a political science and my personal healing has its moments in october of 1991. [applause] >> i hope professor hill is hearing that. i am it sure she is, as you will hear over and over again today, the enormous difference it will make the best it may in her coming forward and speaking out.

you are a performer and you take ideas into language and ways that force people to sit up and take notice. on a personal level, i would love to know what anita hill meant to you and what you observed as you challenged people to go where they have not gone before, to think beyond their own limitations. have you seen a change in the last few years as a result of just the changes that began with professor hill? >> i have two words. it's complex. for me personally, i had just graduated from college and was actually working for a fortune 50 corporation.

i was not only in terms of my age, one of the few young account representatives in this industry, but one of two african american women within my entire field. it was the specialty chemical field. i worked for a major corporation. it is interesting. for me, it was the reverse. i had been well schooled in understanding the politics of the intra-racial dynamics of gender. i was about to get a first line education of the interracial dynamics of gender. it came under the guise of mentorship. you know what i am saying when i say that. as someone who was raised from parents who were born in the

1920's and survived jim crow segregation, i had a strong footing in the context of civil rights and understanding the importance of the legacy and what was happening. i remember watching the hearings. i remember feeling the david and goliath nature of what was going on. i also remember feeling a deep sense of sadness. correct me if i am wrong, but the slot that was opened was because of thurgood marshall's retirement. i thought about what a legacy to that work. truly a deep sense of sadness. watching it. i knew that in the context of my own community, it was going to be a battleground. whether we were in the beauty parlor or the church lobby or the church parking lot.

just the way it turned the community inside out. for me, what has always stayed with me about who anita hill is is courage in the face of complexity. the willingness to stand when nothing is guaranteed. not your home base, nothing. just to willie stand fo -- really stand for truth for truth's . i think that is the legacy as an artist and an activist that i carry with me because, for some reason, i have also been given the legacy to say what is on popular and what is uncomfortable and what is not nice, but what may be, sadly, true.

where i have cut my teeth in the pioneering of that composition has been in the culture of hip- hop. i use popular culture and multimedia entertainment and being an empowered women and boys in -- voice in the commercial presentation of hip- hop and the misogyny of that and watching my sisters struggle. when i say in terms of today, where are we and to what degree have we made progress, it continues to be complex. it continues to be complex because we as women still have to navigate in the realm of economics at it -- economic opportunity. we continue to have to navigate the culture.

even when we feel policy changes that happened, the water is still contaminated. we still drink in it. [applause] some of us have had the strength and the courage to consistently rise up against it. some of us have to grit our teeth and endured by our mothers and grandmothers and those who have come before. some of us, unfortunately, have taken on distorted perceptions of what it means and leveraged it or attempted to leverage its for our own advantage. and there are many of us -- leverage it for our own advantage. what the opportunity is as we are ready imagining the american

economy and as we see women's entrepreneurship on the rise like never before, i think we have the opportunity to redefine work and to redefine what it is to do business with honor and dignity and integrity for all. [applause] and that is where i am bring me my voice to the equation because i see our moment and i feel every single one of us in this room has something to contribute to what i consider to be an economy of transformation. >> a lot of transformation is going on and will go on today. i want to pick up on what you said. it is complex. it is complex because of the reasons we have already heard reflected on this panel. i am sure we will hear from the members of the audience. it is complex because of what we grow up be leaving and

understanding about what it means to be a girl and what it means to be a woman. it is complex around language, what language we except, what language we use. in the music and hip-hop, in particular. it is complex around our own empowerment. begins with girls. it begins with the way they see themselves portrayed. always thin, always beautiful. always the emphasis on the body. the light. the popular. the sexy. do not compliant or bring to attention when someone treats you sexually. --do not complain or bring to attention the times when someone takes you sexually. there is a difference between

being in power then living our own lives and how to fight back when the line is crossed. >> it is lifelong work. we begin by meeting them where they are at. our young people, our young girls, boys. we start with elementary and go to middle and high school. we see them in their use development stage and the complexity of that use development stage. not as a future baby mama. not as a future joann. just when they are right now and what they are dealing with. but understanding that they are the experts of their experience. as well as understanding that andrgenerational supports an learning is missing and mandatory. this gender side that we are fighting against, this war against women and girls, we have

to prepare our young people to be leaders in this fight. but our government was to send soldiers out to war without training or without an understanding, the its right or wrong to go to war -- if they were to do that, we would not allow it. at gge, we prepare our young people through having congress is raising activities, sisterhood building, accepting them where they are in their youth development stage and the complexities they face and the violence and the pornography they are inundated with online in ways that did not start for me until i was in high school. at 16, when i did not have the language for what was happening to me, i thought it was the right passes. they understand and think critically about what is happening and understand they have a role and also that there

is a lot of work to be done and it is lifelong. that is where we start. [applause] >> it is lifelong because whatever 8 we are, we find ourselves coming up against those expectations -- no matter what age we are, find ourselves coming up against those expectations. men and women come into this country and look at the american culture and they are trying to adapt to the attitudes here and the attitudes they come with from their family and their community. how do you deal with that in helping them understand bring it and keeping what matters and what they value and adapting to a culture that often goes against those values? >> i have also been really

humbled today because so many of my heroes are here and speaking. we really take concepts like intersectionality as movement principles. we have that legacy we are building upon. that framework offers a way to think about and organize in situations of a lot of complexity. an example of this is -- many of you are familiar with some of the anti-immigrant state laws that have been passed in the last year or so. starting with arizona, sb-1070. now we have laws in georgia and alabama.

the less commonly told story about the anti-immigrant legislation, because it is creating a climate where local police can enforce immigration policy and racial profiling is being taken for granted, there is this climate of fear of the police and any public office, of shelters, of services. these anti-immigrant laws are rolling back decades of work on the part of the women's movement to break the silence of around violence against women. [applause] it is a violence against women issue and a human rights issue against women everywhere that these anti-immigrant laws are getting past ala but the country. it is urgent and it is a now issue -- laws are getting past

all around the country. it allows us to organize from that place. when the law passed in arizona, we took a delegation of women leaders from around the country, including ellen, who is sitting right over there, to arizona. within one week's time, they agreed to spend mother's day in arizona away from their own children documenting the stories of women in arizona, the human rights violations they were facing as a result of these laws. they came back to d.c., convened when's organizations nationally, organized a congressional briefing -- convened wittman's organizations nationally, organized a congressional briefing -- women's organizations

nationally, organize a congressional briefing. we can organize across constituencies. there is tremendous power and potential there. i want to appreciate the tools the wittman's movement has brought to bear -- women's movement has brought to bear. >> again, your work has been so critical in that area. in putting your book together, what thoughts to you have to share about these cultural complexities. ? >> i am glad you came back to me. i wanted to pick up on the complexity a little bit. i ended on this tour -- this triumphant moment.

what happened in 1993 was the vilification of than the guinier -- lanie guinier as a quota queen. in 2008, we had the election of the first african american president. he brings with him joe biden to the white house. as long as we are having an anita hill moment, maybe we can pause on vice president joe biden and the memory of how that is mostly forgotten. how he does not have to cope with that. i say that because i want to run that the directory to this moment, 2011. we have joe biden to be made to the way he does in 1991. here we have in 2010, this amazing win.

after six years. it was sucks a -- such a crazy win. you have women doing this work and getting this win in new york. the very next moment, the most embrace book and film in america becomes "the help." to hear you tell that story of women going and listening to other women's storage in arizona and not becoming wealthy from those stories and not selling those stories as they are all , not realizing their own position in those stores, but taking those stories and taking policy -- those stories, but taking those stories and taking policy action, is such a

repudiation of the ahistoric lie that is "the help." a bad movie being made is tomorrow. it is our enormous enchantment of the idea of it in the context of these struggles. i feel 20 feet taller just to listen to you talk about the fact that one could actually engage in the questions of the realities of what it means to be a domestic worker in a way that might actually impact when men -- impact women's lives. go my "sister citizen." i am proud of it. it is just this politics moment

that i want to emphasize again. >> you brought us back to the perspective that i want to emphasize again, which is the role of media. however important it is, we might celebrate the fact that notn's stories get told offense. sometimes they are also popular and commercially successful. what is the impact of what girls and women are seeing on the screen? those are the stories that are changing the culture from with then. emily, i think of your work and the young girls and the images they see and be close they are told they have to wear or what to wear. if they want to wear it, great. they wear the short skirts, and it is used as an excuse for their sexual harassment or worse.

how do you cut through all of the messages of hip-hop and movies and television and all of the other things that are coming at them all of the time and remind them that it is their right to dress as they wish? how do you deliver the message? >> it is not just the right to dress the way they wish, it is the right to view the ary are. what our volunteers told me, i am not sure if i get harassed because i am a woman, because i am a person of color, or because i am queer. you spoke about intersectionality. last week, there was a serial

rapist in brooklyn and the nypd started pulling women aside and telling them that their shorts were too short. public outrage in sued about this. they stepped back and agreed that that would no longer be their policy. there was a late night meeting that we had with them. the 6000 people who signed a position -- who signed a petition advocating police sensitivity. people are harassed not just for their identity, but also for being sad. how many people are told to smile in the st.? perform your gender. go, go, go! we are sensitive to the complexity of reasons you might be harassed. there is nothing you can do to

prevent it aside from stepping up, using your voice, sharing your stories, being an activist on this issue, exclaiming at the top of your lungs that is not ok. shipped a culture that makes gender based violence ok -- shift a culture that makes gender based violence ok. when we talk about the street harassment movement, laws are looked at suspiciously by low income people and people of color. they know those laws will be disproportionately used against them. for women, what am i going to do? graph this guy and dragged him to the police station? -- grab this guy and dragged him to the police station? we have used culture changed to

shift the broader culture that makes street harassment and everything else that is wrong in the world ok. that is what we are doing. it starts with using your voice. it starts with a true and genuine understanding that is okay to be you know matter who you are. >> did the girls tell the cops, my short skirts or my short shorts have nothing to do with you? it has to do with what i want to wear? >> we are going to open up the microphones. we have some hand microphones that are going around. i am sure you have questions for this extraordinary group of women on our panel. as you are going to the microphones -- there is already quite a group there. let's go. shall we start here?

whoever is standing first. >> i just have a question for anybody on the panel. on this 20th anniversary of the hill-thomas hearings, i am curious if any of you have taught, hughes, discussed, or raise anita hill in the work that you do? what kind of reactions do you get to about one of the legacies it seems from listening to you is that in some ways, young people take for granted what was established for the first time 20 years ago. i am curious if any of you use it in your work? >> who would like to take that? >> kim crenshaw is on my syllabus. i taught anita hill for about 15

years. sometimes i teach it during my supreme court week. if i am doing a class on black women, we might be looking at it specifically around those questions. i always get a fabulously self selected group of students who are adjusted in studying questions of race and politics and gender. i never get blank stares. over the past 15 years, there have been transitions in these sorts of things students say. there is a recognition that this moment was an important turning point in our politics and policy. >> over here for the next question please. >> my question is related to the slut walk movement. it is particularly around the complexities you talked about earlier when you talked about race in terms of sexual

harassment. i am wondering what any of your thoughts were on that in particular. the sign that was raised that world.his is a man's >> i want to make sure everyone heard you. you ask in reference to the slut walk. >> that sign was really messed up. we are working on a statement to come out and say exactly how messed up it was. sluts walks have brought up a lot of complex conversations. our site leaders have held the walks in buenos aires, honduras, in mexico city, in baltimore, in alberta, canada and the number

of other cities that i have forgotten. there is power in igniting those conversations. there is power in the young activists who have come out against sexual harassment and sexual assault. there is a tremendous amount of power in black women also blueprints and other goods coming forward and say, we can reclaim this word in the same way you can. that conversation is so important. that is something, as a white woman, i would not necessarily have understood in the same way if those people had not come forward in the same way. now we are seeing somewhere in the northeast that they have named their walks stomp and holler. in response to the critique. these issues are always complex. we are having some kind of

conversation and some kind of education is happening. >> thank you for asking that question. slut walk attainder -- angered me. it did not speak about any word that i wish to reclaim. it did not speak to a question of gender based violence. it did not speak to the issues of power and privilege and socio-economic status that are the majority. i could not protect what would happen every two minutes when girls were sexually assaulted in walking home and they are faced with nypd that could break you. that walk was a movement you

could embrace. we are grateful to the movement for violence against -- against violence toward women and girls. it is a responsibility and it cannot be seen -- it is a responsibility for what activists, all activists to have an understanding and an intent to announcing -- and intentionality in the movement. it might have been this week, we met with the organizers of that wall. it spoke to a generation that needs preparation and understanding of what it takes to build a movement. there are living legends that can assist with that process. nothing is new. we are not going to recreate the wheel but build on a movement

that is already here. we have to beat responsible and intentional. >> did you want to add anything? >> in the context of our movement as women and the man who support this movement, we must create spaces to understand each other's histories. we talk about the notion of how we must be educated. i think it is important to understand the history. it is also important to sit around the circle and share our personal stories and to go to some of those places where we know we need to go, but are afraid to go. one of the things i want to encourage us in this 20 year anniversary and this opportunity to lean in on the legacy of

speaking truth is how do we speak truth to each other in this new wave that supports greater integration when we think about the ways in which we want to push back? >> is slut walk a step forward or a step back. >> it is complex. me, personally, is a step back. -- it is a step back. i will tell you why i personally feel is a step back. because of our movement, there has not been enough spaces created where women can safely explore and understand their sexuality.

it becomes immediately political. because it becomes immediately political, and the personnel does not get the attention it needs. young women do not have enough space is to safely cultivate and it falls and strengthen a sexual identity that supports a healthy wholeness in their being. because of that -- we push, we push. i promise you, there is nothing in powering about being called slut. there is nothing in powering about being treated as a slut. i can tell you personal stories of pulling young women out of the streets who were hooking

because of this distorted embodiments, i will slip it on its ear, i like the attention kind of thing. we have to be in rooms with each other to be able to sort this stuff out still that when we do step out into the larger world, there is a deeper sense of connection, integration, and cohesion in the best it we are standing. [applause] >> thank you for that message. melissa, you wanted to add. >> there are 8000 questions. i will go fast. i promise. i agree with this notion of needing a space to explore and be connected with our personnel sexuality in ways that are not immediately politicize. some of the things i despise about tyler perry also at that

station -- tyler perry's adaptation of "for color girls." there was a story that he distorts the monologue about the sexual exploitation about a young girl and put it on to the monologue about abortion. for him, it becomes the punishment for sexual exploitation. i agree with you. i am nervous about the politics of respectability that gets quickly pushed into conversations about growth and sexuality. i want us to be careful not to be policing desire or policing self expression. the notion that when we are in power -- empowered we will all

have heterosexual, missionary, pinellas sex because that is our empowerment zone. -- vanilla sex because that is our empowerment zone. queer theory says we have to move away from the notion that your respectability will make you equal. the abuse of anita hill by the senate judiciary committee can tell you that your respectability will never say you. will not -- it will not. [applause] it is deeply problematic, this question about intersectionality. second wave white feminists have some work to do in terms of passing on that these conversations have been had.

i was getting hate mail and nastiness about a piece i had written. i was listening to gospel music. it was appalling. i could not get my voice back from it. i got my voice back from nicki minaj. she and body is a certain kind of, i do not care what you said about me. the idea of if we could just be so nice and good, we can be empowered. sometimes empowerment is ugly. sometimes it is sexualize. i do not want to deluge that in our desire to be empowered and that all of these other aspects of us -- it is about the complexity of our humanity. [applause] >> as they say, it is complex.

that seems like one critically important enough to take the time to do. please address your questions to one person so we might get through as many as we possibly can. >> i am from my sister's place. we are the west coast's largest domestic violence agency. we speak to about 10,000 middle and high school kids about healthy relationships, being respectful, etc. all of the things all of us know about. two years ago, we had a meeting with our community educators. they said, we are dealing with on chartered territory. -- unchartered territory. they were walking in the room and doing their presentations with their curriculum that had proved to be effective. they said, we are hearing things

we have never heard before. we have to get our brains around how we respond to this. what i would like to address to you rha and emily, how do you see your agencies being able to engage celebrities to inform the process a bit more in responsiveness to an issue like this? i was listening to two check out women saying, what did she do to make him do that to our? i said, what did he do to make him think he was allowed to do that to heart? >> emily wants to take it. one of you go. >> here we go. [laughter] this is the theme of the day. the first thing i want to say about chris brown that i think is imperative to say is that he

is a young man in crisis. he has been a young man in crisis for a long time. he is the child of a mother who was severely abused by her live- in boyfriend. he grew up in an environment with a batterer. in the early parts of his career, it was one of the things that he shared openly. he talked about the way it had shaped them as it related to women and his sensitivity to women and an appreciation of his mother. and so if we understand that history, there is a larger question called, what went wrong.? ?

where did he go from someone who was dominated by the shadow of that abuse to someone who embodied that abuse? here is where it gets challenging. in our dynamic, the automatic reaction is to vilify and victimized. right? somewhere in here, we have to lean into the dynamics of what was occurring with both of them. there is a way that i do feel rihanna was surrounded that supported her ability to look. she talked about the moment when she went back and they were trying to attempt to reconcile. she thought of the young women and she thought of the example she would be setting for young women and she decided to not reconcile that relationship. and the pivotal moment that was

for her and how important it was for her to realize she was powerful. it was not the situation where, because of anything she was, it had been. we did not go to chris. we did not unpack that bag. because we have not unpacked that bag, we have created a dynamic where it has the potential to happen again with him and whoever he may be engaging and other men who are struggling like him. there is a way we have to have be fuller compensation about what goes on here. >> i appreciate the fact that you presented that with a full

prospectus. this is another one of those that we could talk about for a long time. in the interests of hearing from other people, let's move slower. >> my question is for professor perry. i question is about the rise of the popular but trail of workplace harassment. i am the only person i know who does not like the show "mad men ." i find the justification for the men's behavior on that show completely reprehensible. you put these shows in this context with "the help" and they are carefully contextualize and you have horrible behavior going on that is justified by all of these other motivations.

>> thank you for that question. the relationship between the images we are seeing on these contextual shows. almost >> answered it by asking it. i want to say, thank you. in an economic downturn in a country where demographics are shifting rapidly, not only our demographics shifting rapidly in a general sense, the students we talked about earlier, my college students, the only secretaries of state they have ever known are madeleine albright,: paul, condoleezza rice, and hillary clinton. -- colin powell, condoleezza rice, and hillary clinton. they are like, that is the black people, the woman job. they are all making a decision and thinking about the world. interpreting the constitution

and stuff. [laughter] part of what we have to do is have this enormous nostalgia for this time. if mammy just come back. [laughter] if she would just give us her ample bosom to lay our weary, unemployed heads upon, if only these airlines would enforce those weight restrictions on their workers against the we could look at something cute and pretty while we ride back and forth across the country destroying the atmosphere. [laughter] if only we could return to a time when jim crow kept negroes and latino in their place and not asking questions about citizenship and voting. i think you said it.

we do an unconscious nostalgia for a moment of any quality that felt simpler if he were in a dominant class. -- ine quality when we were in a simpler time if you were in a minute class. i would do cartwheels. it is like everybody is black now. they are freaking out and remembering a time when they used to get to be white. >> thank you, melissa. [applause] >> this is an idealist panel. thank you very much. i need some help. i have a nonprofit. we are a starting point for getting young kids in the

colleges around the country to talk about themselves. the subtitle is that my gender'' justice. what we have been finding is, unless we have groups with women alone, they do not speak out as much. they need to be all female to be able to share their stories completely. do you find that? >> i think you need to have a safe space. it is an individual question. for some people, a safe space means that at all women space. for others, it means having strict parameters around what can happen in that space. what we see on our side is that we have strict parameters that create that space.

we have an aggressive anti- racism policy. you can do any could have, would have, should have to any of these stories. all you can say is that they are awesome. express is -- it is left up to the gender of the individuals in that space. >> we talk about ourselves as a movement. we have many cases like that now. what do we need to do to be loud enough and united enough to make something happen? >> duke univ. rugby team --

university rugby team. >> it is in the book. i got my ph.d. from duke. those who were the leaders in he back of the signatorie s, these women along with white allies signed a peace that they took out in the school newspaper saying, this is not just an isolated case of this group of lacrosse players. this is a broader issue of privilege, race, and gender on this campus. for me, the most painful thing once the accuser's individual story fell apart, if that was untruth, all of these claims about our work on true. the accuser is a liar.

all of that work on race and gender is just silly talk. that is just affirmative-action and intellectual bobbled the duke -- intellectual job that has infected these campuses. now we are confusing ourselves intellectually because the accuser is a liar, like most black women going back to slavery. like anita hill. you asked exactly the right question. how do we maintain a critical and analytic gauge that has policy implications even though these cases turned out not to be along be exact political narrative? >> how do we move past these

debates and tell the stories and go for policies to make sure it does not happen again? >> let's make them as short as we can. >> i want to bring age into the discussion. you talked about the ahistoricness of lots and lots of conversations. you work with college students. i was accused of intellectual masturbation in talking about history and the work of those who were alive in the 1960's and 1970's. the current generation only knows about the current laws about domestic workers. how do we bring back into the discussion in terms generation so that they do not

think this is just about the old days and shut up? >> i think she addressed it to you? . >> i feel like i am over- talking. young people will tell us to shut up. i just crossed over enough so that i get it. just the other day, i figured out that i am not so much. [laughter] part of it is ok. we are going to be told that our history does not matter and they are moving on. sometimes they are right. sometimes they see us as possibilities that they do not know. this is a structural and a policy issue. hooks untilad bell i got to college. it was not until i was making

the choices myself. if we look at one of the first sets up causing efforts after the election of policy -- president obama, it was a revision of grade school textbooks that has a reverberating effect across the country. i remain shot in a rent on the history of south asian immigration in this country. i only first encounter that as a faculty member when i had an incredible colleague who said, you need to read this, this, and this. he was handing me syllabi after i finished my phd. we just celebrated columbus day. and occupy wall street is interesting. we are about to raise this important statue to martin luther king, jr.. he is standing there alone.

we literally must change the curriculum. there is no reason you cannot read toni morrison the high school. part of it is changing the curriculum. should not have to be done in community work. part of the government's work is to train citizens. >> i want to sign up for your class. >> i heard a lot of other "me, toos." >> i will do a quick follow-up about the intergenerational differences. young girls are taking too much of this history for granted and not knowing completely and fully what is at stake. is that your experience? >> it is our experience

initially. i think of the young people of gge when they come in. they are coming into an organization called the girls or gender equity. there is a bit of curiosity and fight. at the core of all of this is a fight for equality. as emily was saying, creating a safe space for dialogue. there needs to be single-sex groups for each to understand gender, their role within their gender, to understand the terminology we use. to even give language to the terminology they now use. they do not say sexting. they call it sending naked pictures.

oral sex is the second date. we cannot be so shocked and police freedom our sexuality because we are in a different place. i am a prude. i embarked on the other leaders in my organization to do that work in ways that i would do differently, but equally as important. ly. i say that to say we have to stick to working with and see through these generations, this complacency with gender equality that is happening. this institutionalizing social change that i am a part of by having an organization for the last 10 years that i against

gender equality. they are all necessary tools that have to be looked at critically so that folks can see their role in ending violence against women and girls. >> i just keep thinking you are dealing with such a vast array of different cultural needs to integrate and understand this culture and its history. >> i will say quickly that we need more enter generation know when and's spaces. -- intergenerational spaces. we cannot afford not to draw upon the wisdom of every single regeneration of women in the women and's movement. . .

>> i'm wondering how you think the 2012 election will affect women's rights. >> clearly i am a complete lunatic because i thought that the 2008 elections would have made things better. and in fact i can remember very, very well being -- i was in san diego at one of the most planned parenthood lectures i've ever giveren because it's run by a bunch of republicans. they're very conservative but

they're also very pro-reproductive rights because many of these women came of age at a time when they had such a clarity of understanding about what taking away women's reproductive rights does to women's health. so it was a fascinating moment because i heard people celebrating the idea that not only a drkic president but particularly with a democratic house and a senate. remember we had all that? i know it's hard to remember but it was all democrats in charge of all of that in 2008. that this was going to be sort of finally a time when planned parenthood could breathe a little more easily. not that you ever could breathe easily but surely not the kind of attack that they would experienced under eight years of bush's administration. and at this point we're hearkening back to the bush era because it is so appalling that at this moment in a conversation about deficits and

unemployment and international war and peace that apparently the full crom of all of that is occurring in a woman's uterus. and apparently if we could just control the uterus, then people would have work. it's funny but it's the opposite of funny. apparently this movement around reproductive rights is going to operate independently of election outcomes not completely independently. voting matters elections matter. what happens now as bad as it is might not be as bad as it might be. but there's not going to be any breathing easier or any clarity that one party is going to protect the rights. this supreme court is positioned to do horrible

things to the row v. wade decision. i don't think 2012 will make as much difference as we might hope it would even if we were to return to the white house, retake the house of representatives, build a majority in the senate. this is a fan t.s.a.cal world that i live in. if all these things happen it's not clear that the assault would be different. >> but can we just remind ourselves that 2012 and every other election is the time where we can make a difference by running and getting elected and voting. the numbers of women in every government in this country are going down. remember, 90 in the world. in terms of representation of women. so all the issues begun with that fact. >> i'm a student here and one of my classes recently the majority of the class did not know who anita hill is. and the professors took this opportunity to mark the

conference and to question the motives in speaking up against clarence thomas. so my question to you is as a student and as a woman how do you speak up to someone in this power position? >> quickly. >> these women speak up on everything. but what should she do? >> ok. i'm going to do this to melissa thgs your realm. but i have a little bit of something in the context of voice. respectfully, respectfully disagree. and ask what is it a he i'm assuming? >> yeah. >> i can't always assume but ok. what drives him to that belief

or that conclusion? what is it specifically that he is referencing that takes him to that conclusion? and does he believe in general that women have these experiences of sexual harassment? does he think that sexual harassment exists? it would be interesting to lean into the questions with him -- or the comments with him with questions and just hear what he has to say. but i also would offer hold your ground. be respectful but hold your ground. >> this is the work we do with the younger folks from elementary to middle and then high school and what you're doing now and even asking that question gives voice to so many experiences before college and then in college. and so i offer -- because i could have a very long answer. i do offer to students to

activists, teachers, parents in the audience, we have a guide of format, a framework of being able to advocate for yourself and mobilize without starting an organization but mobilize because this is happening to somebody else. other people in that class heard that and aren't here today to speak about it and hear about it. so i offer our guide, hey shorty, a guide to combating sexual harassment to schools and on the streets. and then i offer our support. because as an organization this is the work that we do, to help mobilize within the school so at least these conversations -- because we start with at least conversation. let's assume the best. right? but ready for the fight. let's assume the best but be ready for the fight and let's be tooled for that so we can support you in that work we're selling our book here today. but beyond that contact us and we'll work with you on this. >> real quickly.

at the risk of sounding like herman cain's dad let me give you permission but you don't always have to be brave. and as much as we are here and celebrating anita hill's bravery i just one of the dangers that we do when we talk about how important it is to be empowered to give voice, i don't want -- i want you to survive your class and so sometimes the bravery comes in the context of organization. so sometimes you endure a trauma while it's occurring and then you can gather and you can get back up and get resources and get the dean. i just want -- i just worry that sometimes particularly for women of color we encourage you to just like strong woman it right on up and to just battle every fight and i just want to tell you that it's also ok, this is -- you don't have -- someone doesn't have to kill you in the context of it for it

to be rape to be rape. you have the right to survive your trauma. uffer a right to survive it and then organize on the other side of it. you do not have to be brave by yourself all the time. you have a right to ask for help. >> my name is raymond and before i ask my question i want to mention the white house project. is everyone aware of the white house project? i'm a casualty of the gender war. when i was in my 40's before my mother died she confessed to me that a man who i thought was her boyfriend who i took his son's name as my confirmation name my right of passage as a catholic, he was her pimp and the ramifications, she was trying to bridge an emotional gap that she cultivated.

i'm homeless i'm broke i'm trying to restructure a career for myself, starting anew. the psychological ramifications are huge. i'm here for hope. i'm here that well statistically, 93% of our prisons are male. all right? and i'm sure that at the top of our hierarchy it's a paralevel. the ethics breaches and they're mostly men. all right? the other statistics is that there's more than half of our colleges are being attend bid women right now. women are on the rise. that's unprecedented. that's my hope. that's why i'm standing here. ok? i had to study my as off to survive this psychologically, emotionally. studied my as off. all right? i'm aware that capitalism and communism are both patriarchies and there's a little school downtown on 30th street called

the henry george school of social sciences which sort of combines the two and comes up with an eekttabble democratic system that they can voice, this school can't voice it because they're afraid to lose their tax status. they don't want to lose their tax status. so my question is -- can we ask a question. >> is there any women seeing the possibility of addressing that large an issue here? i mean, is there anybody, the white house project or otherwise? >> well, that's a very large and important question. all of these women are doing work. you want to take it? >> can i just say you're qualified? you're qualified to do this work. everyone here is. we can't just rely on us here on the panel. you're experts here. i'm sure you could have

answered many of the questions that we had. and this is what it's going to take because there's the martin luther kings that generation who is gone. you can't look at leadership that way any more. and so whether bit for a day, for a moment, for a project, you're qualified to do that work. and i encourage you to ask for support and seek support, following this. >> and the organization you mentioned as well as so many of the others in this room are all about the volunteer work to empower and to teach others how to empower and raise their voices. thank you for sharing your story. is there any -- there's no one at this. so over here there's still one. the lights are a little blinding up here so it's especially hard to see you over here but i believe there is another question there. >> i have a question for joe an.

i have been having a really wonderful empowering time listening to all of you strong women talk about women's solidarity through our stories of surviving sexual harassment, sexual assault. but i think what would be interesting to talk about is also like the fact that this is something that's preventable. and i wonder what you envision. because you do educate young men on gender inequality. and how to reach gender equity. i'm wondering what you envision for the future for young men in terms of this issue. >> thank you for the question. >> thank you for the question. i think really that's where i was going with the man standing here. we would love a voice for gender equity. because when we started girls for gender equity the

understanding that women have to do this work for girls and now we're doing it for boys as well with the understanding that we have to do it for boys too. and we need more men in the mix of this. this can't continue to be a woman's issue. this is an everyone's issue. and there's space for that. so i envision more men coming to the fight and doing this work in this intentional way. >> others want to chime in? we're almost at the end. >> i would almost be willing to talk directly to men. i think sometimes we feel like we can only talk to each other about it. so the opportunity to talk directly to men about these issues and really where are you on these issues? and be really willing to engage. and sometimes lovingly but put them on the spot a little bit about where they're standing as another way to begin to engage them in the conversation. >> and i'll just kick in quickly that sexual violence, there's increase attention towards bye stander intervention which is so

important and such an important way to engage anyone who witnesses sexual violence. we're starting an i've got your back campaign to encourage men and women to share their stories. but we're starting to see so many examples. men can stop rape. there's green dot. new hampshire college has a campaign around intervention. call to men. man up. i mean, there's a lot of initiatives happening in that sphere right now that i think are very, very powerful because i'm sure there were men that witnessed what happened to anita hill and they didn't speak up and they didn't stop it. >> we are going to have to end this extraordinary panel at this point. thank you for your questions and those who didn't get to ask them perhaps there will be another chance. i have a couple of things to share with you before you move. one of them is to say that's where we started this conversation is what happened

with anita hill? why does it matter today? if she adds anything all and she did significantly to the rise of these women and their work then we have plenty of reason to say thank you. and to say thank you to you for the work that all of you do. now, here's a housekeeping note that you need to hear. we're going to reconvene here in this room at 2:30. so it's important if you registered for lunch, to get your bags and head to the room that will beholding the conversation that you registered for. if you didn't, there are some food trucks outside and a few neighborhood restaurants. so have a quick lunch and join us again at 2:30.

>> c-span will return to this conversation after the lunch break with the key note address, a conversation with anita hill and we expect that to start at 2:45 eastern time. later, a panel on lessons learned and what comes next in feminist issues and gender equality. tomorrow on "washington journal" a look at the economic proposals of the republican presidential candidates with economist and american enterprise institute research fellow alex brill. that will be followed by harvard professor roland frier discussing the legacy of martin luther king junior. washington journal takes your calls and e-mails live at every morning starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern here at c-span.

>> i'm here in detroit visiting workers at a gm plant. i brought a guest with me. president lee of south korea. we're here because this week congress passed landmark trade agreements with countries like korea and assistance from american workers that will be a big win for our economy. these trade agreements will support tens of thousands of american jobs and will sell

more fords, chevies and cricelers stamped with three proud words made in america. so it is good to see congress act in a bipartisan way in something that will help create jobs at a time when millions of americans are still out of work and need them now. but that's also why it was so disappointing to see senate republicans obstruct the american jons act. even though majority of senators vote yes, to advance this jobs bill, we can't afford this lack of action. this lack of action. and there's no reason for it. independent economists say that this jobs bill would give the economy a jump start and lead to nearly 2 million new jobs. every idea in the jobs bill is the kind of idea both parties have supported in the past. the majority of the american people support the proposals in this jobs bill. and they want action from their elected leaders to create jobs and restore some security for the middle class right now.

you deserve to see your hard work and responsibility rewarded. you certainly deserve to see it reflected in the folks you send to washington. but rather than listen to you and put folks back to work republicans in the house spent the past couple of days picking fights. they're seeing if they can roll back clean air and water protections. they're stirring up fights over a woman's right to make her own health care choices. they're not focused on the concrete actions that will put people back to work right now. well, we're going to give them another chance. we're going to give them another chance to spend more time worrying about your jobs than keeping theirs. next week i'm urging members of congress to vote on putting hundreds of thousands of teachers back in the classrooms. cops back on the streets. and firefighters back on the jobs. and if they vote no on that and if they vote no on that they'll have to tell you why. they'll have to tell you why teachers in your community don't deceive paycheck again. they'll have to tell your kids why they don't deserve to have

their teacher back. they'll have to tell you why they're against common-sense proposals that would help families and strengthen our communities right now and in the long term. in the coming weeks we'll have them vote on the other parts of the jobs bill putting construction workers back on the jobs building our roads and bridges providing tax cuts for businesses that hire veterans businesses that hire veterans making sure that middle class families don't see a tax hike next yeefer and our unemployment and out-of-work youth have a chance to earn their piece of the american dream that's what's at stake putting people back to work, restoring economic security for the middle class, rebuilding an economy where hard work is valued, and responsibilities is rewarded. an economy that's built to last. and i'm going to travel all over the country over the next few weeks that we can remind congress that that's the most important thing. because there's still time to create jobs and grow our economy right now. there's still time for congress

to do the right thing. we just need to act. thanks. >> hi. i'm kevin mccarthy the house majority whip from the central valley of california. i'm here to talk to you about something you already know. our country continues to face serious challenges. while republicans are working every day to turn our country around, to get people working and restore the american dream, some in washington continue to cling to same government stimulus strategy. that's led to more debt and fewer jobs. but the american people realize that washington is not the solution. washington is the problem. you've told us that you want accountability and serious leadership. that's why we've said enough is enough. we hear you. we get it. let me be clear. we're on the side of the american people. we join with millions of americans to say no to new taxes, new regulations, more

washington spending and taxes. it hasn't worked in the past and it won't work now. americans deserve progress, not partisanship. americans deserve a long-term solution to our nation's spending problems. so that we don't run up trillion dollar annual deficits. we agree with the american people no more budget tricks, no more accounting gimmicks, no more broken promises. the american people deserve the right to know the truth. and that's why we support a bludget amendment to the constitution. this proposal has had strong bipartisan support in the past and i'm hopeful we can again and i'm hopeful we can again work together to pass this amendment when it comes to the house floor in november. until then, we are actively engaged in pursuing concrete ideas to jump start our economy. you can find them in the republican plan for job creators. but finding ways to support small business and promote

entrepreneurship, we can rev up our economy and grow the jobs we need. and this shouldn't be an exercise of partisan gamemanship or credit claiming. that's why when president obama expressed a willingness to look at job creation we looked at our own plan and outlined specific opportunities for both parties to come together. the free trade agreement with colombia, panama, and south korea are one such area of common ground. they open the door to thousands of new jobs and billions more in exports across the nation. they remove job-killing barriers to trade by creating a fair playing field between america and these other nations. and i'm pleased that just days after the president sent those agreements for approval the house passed all three agreements with strong bipartisan votes and they will become law. another area of common ground is is fixing something the

i.r.s. calls the three percent withholding tax. this rule makes no sense at all. it's a mandate on small businesses that lets the federal government automatically withhold 3% of payments to companies to contract with the federal government. this is a lose-lose proposition. it's your money, not washington's. you should hold it. not washington. this rule allows government to capture and waste money that entrepreneurs could and should be using to innovate new products and hire new workers. that's why later this month we'll hold a vote to put that money back in your hands. we've also made it clear you need less government red tape standing in the way of getting people back to work. we've heard you. we're working to get rid of unnecessary regulations obsmall businesses including those that have been handed down as far as back as the great depression well before twitter and facebook, before cell phones and color tv's, even before we

landed on the moon. of course there are reasonable regulations that help keep our kids safe and our environment clean. but there are also unreasonable regulations that stifle innovation and impose unnecessary costs on both small business owners and their customers. here is an example. there's a rule on the books dating back to 1933 that makes it harder to raise the money to start or expand a small business so we're changing it. think back to the decision i made when i was 20 years old to start a small business in my hometown, a deli createively named kevin o's. i like to say it was subway before there was subway. if i wanted to expand that business i wouldn't have been able to ask people i didn't know to invest in my business. i would have had to register with the federal government first. and i certainly didn't have the money it would have cost. i cringe when i hear from the

small business owners across the country who have to jump through these kind of hoops. i certainly wouldn't have started kevin omb o's in today's regulatory environment. today's entrepreneur can be tomorrow's employers but not if they have to cope with yesterday's regulations. that's why i propose common sense regulation that we'll appeal this burdensome 1933 mandate. this way entrepreneurs can go out and get the resources they need to create the jobs we need. this can and should be another area of common ground. the power of your voice is stronger than ever. you want to know that the american dream will exist for future generations. you want solutions to get people back to work. all tolled, the house has passed more than a dozen bills as part of our plan to get americans working again. unfortunately, if democrat-led senate failed to vote on them. that's unacceptable. the president needs to get off

the sidelines and get involved. the president needs to come off the campaign trail and get to work. in the spirit of working together on jobs i urge the president to call on leaders in his party to follow the house. listen to the american people. stop pushing ideas we know won't work and pass these jobs bills. and to everyone listening today, let's seize this moment to build on our common ground and do what's right for the common good with a vision and hard work but also with history as our guide. i believe our country can prosper in ways we've never seen before by supporting individual freedoms and frurenship. we can watch our country grow to new heights and restore the american dream. thanks for listening. >> coming up, c-span returns to the day-long forum on anita hill 20 years later from hunter college in new york city where professor hill will be the keynote speaker at 2:45 eastern

time. and later, a panel on lessons learned from ms. hill's testimony during the senate hearingsing and what's next in feminist issues and gender equality.

>> wednesday, the house small business committee held a hearing on the potential impact on plans to build a $14 billion high speed wireless network. witnesses from the aviation and farming industry testified that they are concerned the network could interfere with gps accuracy which they rely on daily. the vice president of the

company acknowledged those concerns. this is about 90 minutes. raveled a ways and i appreciate you being here. today we but here abouthow lightsquared's proposal will impact the ability of small businesses to access the global positioning system gps. thousands of small businesses who rely on inaccurate gps signal for their day-to-day operations have potential interference could severely handicap or impair those businesses. lightsquared aims at providing wireless forgey coverage to 260 million americans in rural and urban divinities by 2015 and they agree we need t find innovative ways to provide high-speed internet access to underserved areas. access to high-speed internet provide small businesses especially those located in rural communities with the opportunities to compete in electronic and global marketplace however such innovation should not jeopardize the currently established systems including gps and at more words to those who use them. since it was first launched

taxpayers invested over $35 billion in the gps system. this national asset has become an integral part of our economy. vacancy the value-added benefits in a variety of sectors. from a safer more reliable energy grid to precise agriculture mapping nearly every industry has benefited from this technology. more for recent studies have estimated the gps imports over 3 million u.s. jobs and contributes over 3 trillion in economic activity. federal test results from lightsquared proposal showed significant interference on all types of gps receivers. this alarmed many small businesses and could be required to replace a retrofit their current gps system. this'll be an enormous cost to small business. and in the lightsquared is committed to spend 50 million to retrofit federal gps devices it is done nothing for the 1 million small businesses to the bill that will easily cost billions of dollars. i am confident we can find a solution to provide more broadband to rural areas while not jeopardizing small-business

gps users and again i want to thank are witnesses for their participation in nine now yield to the ranking member for opening remarks. >> thank yu mr. chairman and good afternoon and thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. it is about job creation and growth. companies can reach new markets across the globe while reducing costs at home. in fact, the number of jobs dependent on broadband and information technology is suspected to grow by 25% over the next 10 years. this made the expansion of connectivity a critical priority and the main reason the administration set a target of reaching 90% of the population through such technology. today we will examine a proposal that will advance this objective. this plan which centersn constructing a hybrid ground-based satellite network would have brght benefits.

beyond its payoff, wiespread broadband adoption will mean new economic opportunity for communities across the nation particularly rural america. for individuals looking to launch a new enterprise, broadband -- this is especially important now as many dislocated workers are looking to entrepreneurship as a way to replace lost income. for the established small-business high-speed internet can expand using a company web site, social networking or other forms of on line advertising. firms can utilize voice and video communication to connect with customers around the world and reach previously untapped markets. they can store data on line and access office productivity tools. while the proposal we are considering today shows promise to accomplish this goal, we have to consider its interference

potential. one example is gps which serves a critical role in aviation safety and efficiency. in fact, the department of transportation's next -- nextgen program focuses on moderating its platform and is expected to create 160,000 jobs in four years, the same number the aviation industry lost in a decade. with 360,000 gps equipped aircraft and over 3 million jobs, we must ensure interference does not undermine this growing industry. not only must we address the aviation industry's concerns, we also need to investigate the planned small businesses impact. business owners and a 480 trades like position agriculture and construction relied on gps technology for its cost-saving benefits. small farmers e gps to save 50 yen dollars annually on water and fertilizer costs.

and accurate information or expensive equipment upgrades cost -- caused by interference could result in small-business job losses. recognizing this concern it is imperative to test th planned technology. doing so will ensure smart businesses are now left with costly burdens. regardless if this new plan is ultimately adopted, we must continue to push forward with our indy and evaluation. at some point, either through the -- endeavors we will be able to mitigate gps interference successfully and bring the benefits of broadband to nearly all small businesses and their customers. we should not let the competition that has multiple solutions hinder progress towards tionwide connectivity. time and again, advanced technologies have been a springboard for growth. from mobile phones to the

internet new technologies have brought jobs and prosperity. with this in mind that ook forward to hearing how wecan further foster innovation. thank you mr. chairm. >> if committee members have an opening statement prepared i asked that they submitted for the record and just explains you the timing sysm each of you have five minutes d the allies will indicate green for that timeand down to a minute it goes yellow and then read when you run out of time. if you run out of time it is not that big a deal. just don't go too far over. this hearing is obviously or the subject matter has been heard in a lot of committees on the hill so far. small business committee because they have such an impact here, the armed services committee transportation committee, the science and technology committee, the agriculture committee will probably have a hearing on it so it is of huge importance. with that we will go to our witness is now so you can give your statements and i'm owing to turn to representative west from

florida to introduce our first witness. >> thank you much a chairman and ranking member. our first witness will be mr. dennis boykin, the founder and manager of db for consulting. mr. boykin is a small-business owner and veteran, licensed pilot and a proud aircraft on her. he is an army veteran and artillerymen whom i served together with an 1991 in desert shield desert storm in the fifth field artillery and dennis it is great to see what can and hopefully all is well the family. he is implying ferber 30 years. mr. boykin will be testifying on behalf of leesburg executive airport commission. mr. boykin. >> chairman grace ranking member velazguez and members of the committee and old army comrades thank you for the introduction and the opportunity to address this issue today. as congressman was noted critical not ony is a business owner highlands high precision gps in order to keep my aircraft safe and more importantly keep the people underneath my

aircraft safe. but in a leadership position as the leader of the leesburg executive airport concerned about the welfare of our airport because we run a business. favorite concerns regarding this potential interference of high precision gps receivers. my family say because associate with the proposal may impact on our general aviation infrastructure. i've spent nearly $40,0 gps equipment installations over the last eight years and two airplanes. i'm not unique in my community and many of assessment made to increase their margin o safety while running our businesses and flying or airplanes. make no mistake gps as a matter of life and death. this is not hyperbole. i'm a comba veteran i know somethg about life or death situations and i know you hear a lot of hyperbole sometimes about this issue, gps is critical not just a business but to life. first let's talk about my airport in leesburg. we have a saying out there is a served in wn and residents in redding airport in that airports e not about airplanes. there are about commerce.

our airport provides newsday commerce benefit bringing over 200 jobs and $80 million year in economic impact to leesburg in lowden county virginia. we have over 250 aircraft in our field and nearly all of them are gps equipped. at the faa estimates lightsquared employs a system as tested in a few months back there estimating a foreigner and 40 million-dolr year negative economic impact to general aviation. 800 lives lost per year in $22 llion in opportunity cost of nextgen's and deploy. that are ther-- that is their numbers, not mine. i don't want to have to explain to town council by the airport is causing trouble. in my second row managing a business i'm hearin lightsquared posner claims that their system won't interfere with gps and i read mr. russo's testimony on strategic forces and says the opposite. they claim they have a filter. it will magically solve the problems they cause. in my expected to bear the

expense of the certification certification installation downtime and test flight surrounding these filters? mr. carlisle will tell you not. and oh by the way -- speaking of business was talk about environmental impacts. recently took a business trip to florida to an army conference. they made the trip on a direct route tank is to gps. saved an enormous amount of fuel not following the airway routes. this is the next -- the entire precept behind nextgen, direct routing. any impact on gps we lose those environmental improvements in the reduced carbon foot end of each pool -- life. fireman concerned about the safety of every flight. gps need signals enhanced by augmentation services have created a ecise flight environment today that is unraveled in our history. flight is so much safer today than when i learned to fly 30 years ago. i'm no longer comfortable getting up in bad weather. now let me put you in an

entirely likely scenario. imagine yourself flying in my airplane at night returning from a trip. we are in the clouds. i'm on the gps approach to runway 17 at leesburg and the screen goes blan because there is a continuation of the lightsquared cell tower i just flew over. the engineers will tell you that cell phone towers only impact ground receivers. every pilot on these goes will tell you otherwise. and don't ask me why i know this but up to about 5000 feet you can get a good cell phone signal. i just happen to know that. there's absolutely no reason to create this risk to life and property without proper testing and without proper coordination. now, we are going to hear a lot of testimony about how folks have fixed the problem already and there isn't an issue. frankly, i will remind evrybody here that we are in a committee meeting chaired by someone from missouri and they have a great saying in missouri. show me. and i would like somebody to put together a test that puts

multiple base stations multiple ndsets out on that test range at white sands and make sure this thing really does work before we put lives at risk. i have a little bit of experience whei used to work for the motorola corp.. i do get chained -- trained. i'm not an engineer but i know thin can interfere with each other and i hope this committee would have something to say about how that works and i thank you for your time and i thank you more important for your service to our great nation. >> thank you mr. bly can. next witness is mr. rick green. rick is precision agronomy manager for mfa columbia missouri. is rolhelps family farmers utilize agricultural technology to increase crop yields. rick has testified on behalf of retailers association. thanks for being here. >> thank you chairman and ranking member -- and members of me. i appreciate the opportunity to

appear before you today. i'm here to testify on the behalf of agricultural retailers association. a trade organization which represents agri tailors and distributors withequipment and services. ara members are scattered throughout all 50 states and range and size from fairly small family business to a large cooperative with multiple locations.

to minimize fuel consumption tracto drive themselves within one minute inch to minimize overlap. spry years turn off individual sections and reduce over application of inputs. sensors detect how much nitrogen plant will require your and the hour survey and two-thirds of the time it takes traditional

surveyors. a real applicators and the nitrogen on the flight to reduce runoff and increase plant of take. irrigation systems based on those characteristics to reduce the water rate to reduce border wasteland the list goes on. we wouldn't people to perform these without high accuracy gps. with perdue university did a study back in 2000 for using in 1800-acre model farm and found that a farmer that uses hi accuracy gps will decrease his hours of operation by 17%. that 17% is not only operation but it's a decrease in fuel, maintenance and input like seed pesticide and fertilizer. times change and the poducer needs to more efficient to combat local competition. bruce erickson wh perdue university did a study of economic adoption of the farming technologies. from 2002 prices are up 350% in

commodities and they are up 266% and fuel and fertilir is at 270%. efficiency and increased productivity is the key to surviving in the global market. according to the united nations organization, the population could rise to 8.2 billion people in 2030 which will require 50% increase in food production over the next 20 years in order to feed the global demand. the only way we are going to be able to achieve this is by using high accuracy gps, biotechnology and proper mnagemen. precision agriculture industry has over 400,000 - accuracy receiver is valued at $13,000 replacement cycle of ten to 15 years and has appoximately $19.9 billion per year of value to the grower. mfa has over 700,000 acres in the gps to triet management,

$9.5 million, 9.5 million acres covered with high accuracy coverage and has almost $20 million of gps equipment sold to the farmers that will be a directed by the implementation of the industrial terrestrial component. since 2005, nsa has seen a 600% increase in sales and adoption rates of 40% of the customer base. it's like asking e american population to switch their analog gp to a 13,000 over digital tv. white square must be allowed to broadcast their signal in the upper and lower band of the gps and televisa will and economic resolution sound to conclude, if the accuracy of the gps that makes the technology important believe a solution will be found that allows gps in the wireless broadband to coexist but lightsquared and gps providers will have to work together. we believe farmers and ranchers in gps companies shouldn't have to bear the additional financial burden of resolving this issue.

thank you. >> it's my pleasure to introduce to the committee mr. jeffrey carlisle, executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy for lightsquared. prior to joining lightsquared, mr. carlisle served as deputy chief and later chief of the wider line competition bureau, where he managed the development of the commission's broadband policies.

but will bring dozens of competitors to the market. we already have over 17 business partners who are waiting for us to have our network ready to go so they can start selling broadband. but the effect of is this is to enable them to lower prices to end users and small businesses and people who need it most, better connect tivity to rural areas which historically have been on the short end of the

stick when it comes to wireless networks and will be so when it comes to broad band networks. and this is a problem we have to deal with. the lack of effective infrastructure makes america 15th in the world in terms of adoption. in less than two years we will have too little devices and too much spectrum. we are the only one with that in that time frame. and there will always be issues with existing use of of spectrum when you have that being built. with 700 mega hirts it was wireless microphones. with 800 it was public safety. these issues can be solved if we can't solve them we aren't going to be able to provide

services to the people who need them. and the real loser will be small businesses. they're the ones whose bottom line gets hit the worst. not in my backyard does not work in spectrum. there's not one piece of spectrum in the whole range that you can pick that will not have some sort of issue. so how do we solve the issue? i think unfortunately a lot of the commentary that you hear about this conflates our old proposal of starting in the spectrum with the proposals we have on the tables now where we will offer our service on the spectrum fartherest away and this will address the issue for over 999% of gps devices simply by physics. and that covers personal navigation devices it covers aviation devices and to show that effect the government testing itself which was separate of the industry testing on this concluded that initial test results demonstrated that some applications for example aviation were able to operate

with little to no degreegation when we were operating on the spectrum fartherest away. so what are we left with? precision devices. that's so we're going from 400 million devices across the country to something less than 750,000 perhaps as few as 150100,000. these are designed to get to sent meter accuracy and used in agricultural surveying and construction. and i think there's room for skepticism in terms of the claims as to how hard this issue is to solve. for months now we have heard about there's not enough room in the devices. it would take a back pack size filter to fix it. it would cost too much. it's going to take too long. it's going to take years and billions of dollars. well, i have a precision device right here, actually. it's from an unnamed manufacture. we bought it on e bay. right there.

this is where you place the filter for the antenna right here, this little square here. the filter that we have developed in a matter of days at a cost of $6 per unit is right here. now, our solution isn't going to be a solution for every sever. many manufacturers will come have to come up with their own solutions. but what this is is a proof of three concepts. it can be done, it can be done inexpensively and it can be done quickly. i also think the issue of bearing the cost for this proposal is also snaggets misunderstood. just last august in 2010 garmen issued a voluntary recall of 1.2 million gps severs that had battery issues.

their stock price declined about a cent the day they announced that. so this is an issue that comes up in private industry all the time, manufacturers who put devices out there that are subject to this kind of interference when they shouldn't be should bear some of the responsibility and we have already borne a significant amount of the cost of addressing the issue for hundreds of millions of devices and i look forward to receiving your questions. thank you. >> our final witness is mr. tim taylor, the president and c.e.o. his company mfers aviation gps navigation system force commercial and military aircraft. he has over 35 years of experience in this industry and tim is testifying on behalf of the association. welcome and thanks for being here. >> chairman graves, ranking member velazquez and members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the impact

of gps users and industry. my name is tim taylor. >> make sure your mike is on. >> is that better? >> my name is tim taylor and i'm president and chief executive officer. today i have the privilege of also representing the aircraft electronics association represents more than 1300 businesses worldwide including ave i don't knowics manufacturers repair stations distributors and schools. of these more thaling 80% are small business. my company free flight system is the manufacturer for commercial aircraft and was the first company to certify an air borne sever. free flight systems specializes in gps navigation systems sensors radios. our entire industry has been working toward the implementation of gps based navigation and landing system force over a decade. this next jen is predicated upon the availability of ultra

high integrity gps information which has in turn been made possible by some 30 years of bork in gps technology that lives on the very fringes of human engineering capability. all this has been developed with a certain level of protection of the spectrum one that long predates any of that debhate. we have proposed a nationwide network that pours energies waste into the previously spectrum. we like all americans support a low cost wireless broadband network but not one that compromised the safety and efficiency of the transportation system. quick studies are being undertakend and decisions made. this is entire incompatible with safe design. i'm reading a voluntary self-limitation and i see reports to instant solutions through the addition of a filter thrown together in the past few months. this is not how it works for us. the f.a.a. estimates no less

than 10 to 15-year-old would be required to bring an amended product assuming no further changes to spectrum use. so my testimony today is not intended to support or deny the reports regarding sexatibility. the record has more than enough ed to draw a conclusion. my intent is to explain the process and extreme cost to small business that any change to the ayation's systems would cause. gps satellites are low powered and a long way away. the signals we receive are less than the noise generate bid the box we put the sever in. that people's lives depend upon our ability to read that information and not get it wrong any more than once in every 10-10,000 the house millions flight hours. if you have ever been in low visibility conditions you will appreciate those connections. to expect the industry to maintain performance rui