Author: Lauren L. Buisker, Department of Communication Studies, Colorado State University - Author's Personal Website, Academia.edu, Google Scholar ORCID

Abstract: »In 1991, Anita Hill shifted societal understandings of sexual violence when she accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Twenty-seven years later, Hill reemerged in public discourse when Christine Blasey Ford also testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about how Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her. This essay analyzes widely circulated editorial and non-editorial news coverage of the Ford/Kavanaugh hearings to assess public memories of Anita Hill during the 2018 confirmation hearings. I argue that despite the news outlets’ support for Ford, the 2018 coverage conveniently constructs memories of Anita Hill to prop up white supremacy. Specifically, through rhetorics of similarity, women-centric discourse, and progress narratives, news outlets render Hill’s Blackness absent, engaging in a rhetoric that promotes hierarchical understanding of sexual victimization by missing opportunities to challenge archetypal notions of white “worthy victimhood.”Footnote1 This analysis offers insight about the promise of using public memory scholarship to study survivors’ experiences and the necessity of centering race in our discourses about sexual violence.« (Source: Southern Communication Journal)

Wikipedia: History of the Americas: History of the United States | Sex and the law: Sexual assault / Anita Hill, Christine Blasey Ford, Brett Kavanaugh