PEN America will honor professor, lawyer, and equal rights advocate Anita Hill with the PEN Courage Award at the 2019 PEN America Literary Gala on May 21, 2019 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Throughout her career, she has been dedicated to eliminating sexual harassment and advancing equity in the workplace. At Brandeis, she teaches courses on gender, race, social policy, and legal history. She also advises administrators on strategic plans and workplace discrimination cases. Professor Hill is the author of Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home (Beacon Press, 2011).

In addition, Hill is engaging prominent academics and business professionals all over the country to spearhead “The Gender/Race Imperative,” a project to revive awareness of the broad capacity of Title IX, the crucial law mandating equal education opportunities for women. “The Gender/Race Imperative” will kick start inquiry as well as legal and policy reforms that empower girls and women of all races and economic backgrounds for success in schools and workplaces.

During the academic year, 2017-18, Hill served as an MIT MLK Visiting Professor in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) hosted information theorist and electrical engineer Muriel Medard. There, Hill and Medard hosted a series on gender and race equity in education with a focus on science and engineering. Hill is a contributor to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s June 2018 Consensus Study Report, SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

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