Clarence Thomas' Wife Asks Anita Hill for Apology

When Brandeis University professor Anita Hill got a phone message earlier this week from a woman purporting to be the wife of Clarence Thomas, she assumed it was a prank and reported it to campus police.

But ABC News said Tuesday the message was legitimate. It was indeed Virginia Thomas, calling to ask Hill to issue an apology for testifying against her husband during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings 19 years ago.

"I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something," Virginia Thomas said on Hill's school voice mail. "I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day."

Virginia Thomas wrote in an e-mail to ABC News that she called Hill to extend "an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get passed (sic) what happened so long ago."

"That offer still stands, I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same," Thomas continued. "Certainly no offense was ever intended."

But Hill apparently did take offense, telling ABC News it "was in no way conciliatory for her to begin with the presumption that I did something wrong in 1991."

Hill said she has no intention of apologizing, saying she stands by her testimony, in which she accused Clarence Thomas of making lewd and harassing statements when they were colleagues in the 1980s.

"I simply testified to the truth of my experience," Hill said. "For her to say otherwise is not extending an olive branch, it's accusatory."