Clarence Thomas and Supreme Courtship
In 1991, Clarence Thomas was nominated for a position on the Supreme Court. During the confirmation hearings, Professor Anita Hill testified about the sexual harassment she had experienced and endured while working for Thomas.
Despite the seriousness of the allegations, Clarence Thomas was confirmed as a Justice of the most powerful Court in the United States.
Now, in 2018, history has repeated itself. Serious allegations were made that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh assaulted and attempted to rape Dr. Christine Blasey Ford when they were both in high school.
These allegations were and still are extremely serious, and should be treated as such. Even after his confirmation, attempts to discredit Dr. Ford should not be tolerated.Â
Targets of abuse deserve belief and support when they speak, and we stand behind Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford for having done so. We also stand behind any other potential victims who wish not to draw a spotlight to themselves.
So how can we do better in the future? We can start by listening to Anita Hill herself, who recently suggested a course of action to the Senate Judiciary Committee in a NYTimes article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/opinion/anita-hill-brett-kavanaugh-clarence-thomas.html
And we can contact our Senators, asking to challenge Kavanaughâs position on the Supreme Court.Â
It is difficult to trust in the integrity of the Supreme Court when a man accused of violence against women is in a position to tip the scales against their interests, as Clarence Thomas did with his deciding vote in Ledbetter v Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
The fact that the serious allegations of sexual violence did not disqualify Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court is a sign of how much work remains to be done to achieve the very justice that the Court claims to embody.Â
I was born in 1988; too young by far in 1991 to have understood the importance of the Supreme Court or to have made a difference during the Clarence Thomas confirmation. Iâm not too young now.
I started working on Supreme Courtship to shine a spotlight on a branch of government that too often gets overlooked by young voters - the only branch that fills seats for a lifetime.
We planned to address how we would handle Clarence Thomas in the game when we were ready to announce it more formally. We could not have anticipated that the specter of sexual violence on the Court would once again rear its ugly head in the form of Brett Kavanaugh.Â
In fact, we predicted the opposite. We were very wrong.
The #MeToo era has shown us that this is just the tip of the iceberg - that powerful men like Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas are only just beginning to face consequences for their sexual violence.Â
Their nominations benefitted from power structures that deliberately diminish women, particularly those who have been targets of abuse. Our institutions should have higher standards than to admit men who need those structures to shield them from the consequences of their actions.
Which brings us to our game Supreme Courtship #SupremeCourtship, and how we will handle Clarence Thomas. Given the silly, upbeat, and romantic nature of our game, it would be incredibly irresponsible for us to overlook the sexual harassment allegations against him.
But were we to remove him entirely, we would be excising a critical part of the Court itself. No story about the Court would be complete without including one of the 9 Justices, let alone one who for nearly 2 decades was the only non-white member of the Court.
After much discussion weâve arrived at a course of action. Clarence Thomas will NOT be a romance-able character in Supreme Courtship. We will not write a redemption arc for a man who has neither admitted to nor apologized for his actions.
We will, however, keep Clarence Thomas in the game, so that we can talk about his background and judicial beliefs. Lastly, we will discuss his behavior and sexual harassment in the game itself, doing our best to treat the topic with the seriousness it deserves.
In addition to using the game to talk about sexual harassment, we will also put our money where our mouth is: we will donate a percentage of our Kickstarter profits to RAINN, the nationâs largest anti-sexual violence organization.
We are welcoming to feedback regarding this decision. Our perspective here is limited, and though we have made an effort to speak with diverse groups, we will never see everything as clearly as we wish.
We take considerations of sexual violence seriously, and the hypocrisy is not lost on us that an indie dev game studio must hold itself to a higher standard than the Senate and President in pushing forward men like Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas.
Our country deserves a better hand than it has been dealt to it by those in power. #IBelieveChristineBlaseyFord
vaporwave
origamiaround
gummygunk
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
titsay
stormborns