Anita Hill will always be linked to the Senate confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. In 1991, she gave an explosive testimony during the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas that forced a generation of women to stand up against sexual harassment. On the cusp of the Senate hearing for President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, Hill, today a professor of law at Brandeis University, talked to ESSENCE.com about Sotomayor, a former classmate of hers at Yale Law School, and the legacy of her Senate Judiciary testimony all these years later.

ESSENCE.COM: What do you think of Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court nominee?
ANITA HILL: I think it's an excellent choice, just on the face of the selection. Here's a person who has years of experience on the bench, and has distinguished herself in private practice as well, and has been a prosecutor. I think she's got an incredible breadth of experience. Clearly she's an exceptional mind, having done very well at her undergraduate school, Princeton, and law school at Yale. But that's just the beginning. There are other things that I think make her a great choice.

ESSENCE.COM: Things like...being a woman and a person of color?
HILL: Absolutely, that's part of it. But I think she's a great choice not simply because she's a Latina. She has acknowledged that as part of her identity, in a way that I think is very responsible and wise. She has said, "This is the perspective that I come from." But she has also said, "I understand that perspective, but I try not to allow that to lend itself to bias." I like that kind of embracing of one's own identity, but also self-reflection. It means she's going to be aware of who she is and understand how that plays in her decision-making, but she is also going to be quite aware of the rule of law and have great respect for the rule of law, and be able to apply it. We are enriched in the judiciary by having both those concepts in one person, and so what some people have found troubling about her I actually find refreshingly candid and self-aware.

ESSENCE.COM: Do you know Judge Sotomayor?
HILL: She and I were in law school together; she was in the class ahead of me. I know who she is and knew her in law school, but I have not followed her career closely and haven't been involved with her socially. At Yale I had a very favorable impression of her. She was very friendly and genuine, but also very serious and dedicated to her work. The thing I admire about her in terms of her career is that she came into a situation where she took full advantage of all the opportunities she had in front of her. Not only did she excel in law school - where she was an editor of the Law Review - but after leaving law school she was a prosecutor, she practiced in a law firm, she was nominated and served as a judge at the district court level, and moved on to the appellate court level. All of those things are to be admired and used as an example of what can happen when an individual is really given an opportunity and chooses to respond and accept the full breadth of responsibilities.