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Woman says Justice Thomas groped her in 1999

It’s not just Anita Hill.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Michael Dwyer
CREDIT: AP Photo/Michael Dwyer

An Alaska attorney who, seventeen years ago, was a recipient of the Truman Scholarship, says that Justice Clarence Thomas groped her during a dinner for Truman Scholars in 1999. She was 23 years old at the time.

The woman, Moira Smith, shared the account on Facebook earlier this month and was first reported by the National Law Journal’s Marcia Coyle.

In Smith’s Facebook post, she says that Thomas groped her while she was helping prepare for the event.

In her report on the allegations, Coyle adds several details which lend credibility to Smith’s claim. Three of Smith’s former roommates say that she told them of Thomas’ alleged actions shortly after the dinner. One roommate, who is now the president of a San Diego political consulting firm, told Coyle that she remembers Smith “telling us almost immediately.”

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“We sat there stunned,” the former roommate says. “We were children of the ’90s, and came of age the time of Anita Hill. We were appalled. What I remember her saying is he groped her, grabbed her rear. She had planned that dinner for the Trumans so this was a big deal; she put a lot of work on it. She had to be a professional, so she was worried about saving face and getting through the evening.”

According to Smith, she was setting a table for the dinner when Thomas “reached out, sort of cupped his hand around my butt and pulled me pretty close to him.” The justice allegedly told Smith “I think you should sit next to me.”

Anita Hill in 1991. CREDIT: AP Photo
Anita Hill in 1991. CREDIT: AP Photo

This is hardly the first such allegation against Justice Thomas. Professor Anita Hill, testified at Thomas’ confirmation hearing that he sexually harassed her when she worked for him during his tenure as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In an op-ed published earlier this month, Hill laid out many of the reasons why women may be afraid to step forward in the wake of such treatment. “As being a target of harassment wasn’t bad enough,” Hill wrote, “I was then victimized a second time by a smear campaign meant to protect the nomination. Stunningly, people wondered aloud why his behavior mattered in a hearing about his character and fitness.”

Smith, however, may believe that she is able to come forward today because of a wave of credible allegations against powerful men who engaged in harassment, assault, or even rape. The new allegations against Justice Thomas follow claims by several women that they faced horrid — and in some cases, very serious criminal — misconduct from powerful men such as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, former Fox News head Roger Ailes, and entertainer Bill Cosby.

In any event, the likeliest suspects are already lining up to defend Thomas. Shortly after Coyle’s piece was published, Carrie Severino, a former Thomas clerk who now makes a living advocating for a more conservative judiciary, published a brief, three-paragraph piece at the National Review entitled “Justice Thomas is a Good Man.” The main thrust of Severino’s argument is that Thomas couldn’t have engaged in sexual misconduct because he once allowed Severino to “defer my clerkship for a year to allow me to spend more time with my daughter while she was still a baby.”