Anita Hill said on NPR’s “Morning Edition” Thursday that Fox News should take back the reported $40 severance package that Roger Ailes is believed to have received when he resigned from the network amid a sexual harassment scandal.
“One thing I would have the Fox News network do is to take back the $40 million [severance package] that Roger Ailes reportedly has received,” Hill said, when asked how employers could fix the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace.
“It seems to me that that sends a very bad signal, and in fact if the allegations are proven to be true, then certainly not only has he violated the law but I would also say that he has actually injured the company in a way that would keep him from being entitled to a severance pay,” she said.
Ailes, the former CEO and chairman of Fox News, resigned last month after a lawsuit filed by former host Gretchen Carlson resulted in numerous women coming forward with similar claims. Hill famously accused her former boss and then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment back in 1991.
“We’ve come a long way since then,” Hill said. “It is now part of the public conversation.”
Hill is now a professor at Brandeis University.