'To this day, I regret it': Biden reflects on his role in 1991 Anita Hill hearing

In an emotional speech, Biden said he recognized the part he played in the aggressive questioning that Hill faced during the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Justice Clarence Thomas, when she testified that Thomas had sexually harassed her.

“She faced a committee that didn’t fully understand what the hell this was all about. To this day, I regret I couldn’t give her the kind of hearing she deserved,” he said, at an event in New York City honoring students who helped fight sexual violence on college campuses. “I wish I could have done something.”

His lament rang hollow to some on social media Tuesday night, who noted that Biden, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had considerable influence over how the hearing was conducted.

Though Biden would enter the 2020 race as a presumptive front-runner, the legacy of Hill’s testimony has complicated his path through a modern Democratic Party that has cast itself as a champion of women’s rights.

He has positioned himself as a fierce opponent of sexual violence in the three decades since the hearing, saying he voted against confirming Thomas and vowed “never again” after witnessing the racist and misogynistic backlash faced by Hill, who is African-American, as a result of her testimony.

Hill, he said Tuesday, was a “brave lawyer” who was forced to testify before “a bunch of white guys” and paid a “terrible price” for it.

Biden touted his work on the Violence Against Women Act, campaigns for female candidates who later joined the Judiciary Committee and work to curtail campus sexual assault as vice president.

The sexual assault allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which dominated his confirmation hearings last fall, and the attention paid to the #MeToo movement, transformed sexual harassment and assault into a campaign issue for Democrats during the midterm election. Both as candidates and voters, women powered much of the party’s gains, fueling a desire in some quarters for a female candidate at the top of the ticket.

Biden decried the Kavanaugh hearings, arguing that the “white man’s culture” of the country’s most powerful institutions must be changed to give women’s voices greater power.

“In almost 30 years, the institutional culture has not changed,” he said. “That diminishes the likelihood that women will come forward.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.