“We were so outgunned and outmaneuvered,” says Aron. Hill was portrayed as someone with unfulfilled sexual fantasies while another woman, Angela Wright, waited to testify about her experience with Thomas while working at the EEOC. Wright watched on television as Republican Senator Alan Simpson said he heard she had “cold feet” and might not be testifying.

She responded in a statement that her feet weren’t cold, and she was ready to testify. But the hours slipped by, and it would have been the middle of the night before the committee would hear her, and her corroborating witness, Rose Jourdain, who’d been in the hospital and was ill, could no longer make it. (Jourdain has since passed away.)

Simpson says the Republicans wanted Wright to testify because she’d been fired by Thomas, and she wouldn’t have been credible. The Democrats just wanted to end the X-rated hearings.