NEWS RELEASE, 1/21/97 Anita Hill to be visiting scholar at UC Berkeley during spring 1997 to work on book, give seminars

by Gretchen Kell

Berkeley -- Anita Hill, formerly a law professor with the University of Oklahoma who has been outspoken on issues of gender and racial equality in the workplace, will spend spring semester at the University of California at Berkeley as a visiting scholar. Hill was invited to UC Berkeley by the campus's Institute for the Study of Social Change. She will do research for a new book, a comprehensive study of sexual harassment in the workplace. Doubleday has contracted to publish the manuscript. In addition, Hill will continue her work on a collection of essays and speeches. She also plans to be a resource for graduate students, faculty and colleagues affiliated with the institute. Hill is expected to arrive on campus by the first of February. "What her testimony did five to six years ago was to remarkably increase public consciousness about workplace harassment over gender and race," said Troy Duster, a UC Berkeley professor of sociology who is director of the institute. "What her presence here will do is crystallize discussions of where things are now with these issues." Duster said a number of faculty members and graduate students have expressed interest in exploring these issues in seminars conducted by Hill. The seminars will include one on the First and 14th Amendments that will focus on the tension between freedom of expression and equal protection under the law. A graduate of Yale Law School, Hill has taught and written since 1983 about civil rights and commercial law. She is the recipient of special recognition as a lecturer and teacher. She was awarded the Ray and Marian Vestor Lectureship at Linfield College, the Carlsen Lecture at the University of Minnesota, the William O. Douglas Lectureship at Gonzaga Law School and the Dean's Lecture at Yale University Law School. At the University of Oklahoma, Hill was recognized as an outstanding teacher and lecturer. She received the Merrick Teaching Award, the Calvert Faculty Award and College of Law and the University's Associates Distinguished Lectureship. Hill recently has published "Race, Gender and Power in America -- The Legacy of the Hill-Thomas Hearings" (Oxford University Press). The anthology was co-edited by Emma Coleman Jordan. Scheduled for publication this fall is a book, also to be published by Doubleday, about Hill's experience with the Clarence Thomas Senate Judiciary Confirmation Hearing. The Institute for the Study of Social Change at UC Berkeley was established in the late 1960s. Among the issues the institute has studied are the impact of new technologies on the family and the influence of the computer in the workplace.