I'm not sure I can say there is a clean line between me as an

Hear, O seeker of justice and truth, the voice of Anita Hill, who once declared: “I’m not sure I can say there is a clean line between me as an individual and me as a lawyer.” In this utterance is the testimony of one who has walked through fire, who has borne the weight of both her personal truth and her professional calling. These words are not idle; they rise from the depths of lived struggle, where the self cannot be easily divided into separate compartments, for life, identity, and vocation are often woven into a single fabric.

The meaning of her words lies in the recognition that the role of a lawyer is not one that can be easily laid aside. To be a lawyer is not merely to hold a profession, but to embody a discipline: to think in terms of evidence, argument, and justice; to live under the weight of responsibility toward clients, courts, and society. Thus, for Hill, the individual and the lawyer are not two distinct beings but overlapping selves, each shaping the other. She confesses that her personal identity cannot be wholly separated from her legal mind, for both flow together like two rivers joining into one.

The origin of these words is tied to Hill’s own journey, particularly her courageous testimony during the Clarence Thomas hearings of 1991. There, she stood not only as a private citizen recounting her experiences but also as a lawyer mindful of precision, integrity, and truth. In that moment, the personal and the professional were inseparable—her identity as a woman with lived experience and her role as a lawyer sworn to truth blended into one voice. To ask her to separate them would have been to deny the very reality of her existence.

The ancients understood this unity of role and self. The Roman philosopher Cicero, himself both lawyer and statesman, taught that to serve the law was also to serve the soul, for justice is not merely an external duty but an inward disposition. Likewise, the Stoics spoke of integrity as wholeness—that one must not be divided between what one believes and what one practices. Hill’s words echo this timeless teaching: to live authentically is to acknowledge that who we are and what we do cannot always be neatly divided.

We see similar examples throughout history. Consider Mahatma Gandhi, who trained as a lawyer but carried his profession into his life of activism. His skills in argument, his devotion to truth, and his discipline of reasoning never ceased to shape his identity, even as he stood against empires. For Gandhi, as for Hill, there was no clean line; the professional and the personal blended into a seamless whole. Their lives remind us that our vocations are not merely tools we wield but forces that shape our very selves.

The lesson for us is clear: beware of trying to sever your individual self from your calling. For each of us carries within a unity of life—our work, our values, our passions, and our struggles are threads of a single garment. To pretend otherwise is to live divided, torn between masks. True strength comes in embracing the overlap, in living authentically so that our work reflects our soul, and our soul informs our work.

Therefore, O listener, take Hill’s words to heart. Whatever your craft, whether law, teaching, healing, or creating, do not think of it as something wholly outside yourself. Let it shape you, let it challenge you, but also let your humanity guide it. Do not be ashamed when your personal truth informs your professional life, for that union may be the very source of your power.

And so, let her declaration endure as both testimony and teaching: that the individual and the lawyer—indeed, the self and the vocation—cannot always be divided. Strive, then, not for division but for wholeness, and in that wholeness, find the strength to stand, to speak, and to live with integrity before the world.