Professor Anita Hill

Anita Hill is the author of Reimaging Equality and Speaking Truth to Power, and a Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University. Anita raised awareness nationwide on the issue of sexual harassment. Due to her efforts, Congress passed a law that allowed sexual harassment victims to seek damage awards as well as back pay and reinstatement.

The youngest of 13 children from a farm in rural Oklahoma, Anita received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1980. She began her career in private practice in Washington, D.C. Before becoming a law professor, she worked at the U. S. Education Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1989, Anita became the first African American to be tenured at the University of Oklahoma’s College of Law, where she taught contracts and commercial law. She has made presentations to hundreds of business, professional, academic, and civic organizations in the United States and abroad.

As counsel to Cohen Milstein, Anita advises on class action workplace discrimination cases. Anita’s latest book is Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race and Finding Home. She has also written an autobiography, Speaking Truth to Power. With Professor Emma Coleman Jordan, she co-edited, Race, Gender and Power in America: The Legacy of the Hill-Thomas Hearings.

Anita’s commentary has been published in TIME, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Ms. Magazine. She has appeared on national television programs including Good Morning America, Meet the Press, The Today Show, The Tavis Smiley Show, and Larry King Live.

Anita has received numerous honorary degrees and civic awards. She has chaired the Human Rights Law Committee of the International Bar Association. In addition, she is on the Board of Governors of the Tufts Medical Center, the Board of Directors of the National Women’s Law Center, and the Boston Area Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.