[Grovenet] The Smear This Time

[Ed Davie]

The Smear This Time

  a.. By ANITA HILL
Published: October 2, 2007
Waltham, Mass.

ON Oct. 11, 1991, I testified about my experience 
as an employee of Clarence Thomas's at the Equal 
Employment Opportunity Commission.
I stand by my testimony.

Justice Thomas has every right to present himself 
as he wishes in his new memoir, "My Grandfather's 
Son." He may even be entitled to feel abused by 
the confirmation process that led to his 
appointment to the Supreme Court.

But I will not stand by silently and allow him, in 
his anger, to reinvent me.

In the portion of his book that addresses my role 
in the Senate hearings into his nomination, 
Justice Thomas offers a litany of unsubstantiated 
representations and outright smears that 
Republican senators made about me when I testified 
before the Judiciary Committee - that I was a 
"combative left-winger" who was "touchy" and prone 
to overreacting to "slights." A number of 
independent authors have shown those attacks to be 
baseless. What's more, their reports draw on the 
experiences of others who were familiar with Mr. 
Thomas's behavior, and who came forward after the 
hearings. It's no longer my word against his.

Justice Thomas's characterization of me is also 
hobbled by blatant inconsistencies. He claims, for 
instance, that I was a mediocre employee who had a 
job in the federal government only because he had 
"given it" to me. He ignores the reality: I was 
fully qualified to work in the government, having 
graduated from Yale Law School (his alma mater, 
which he calls one of the finest in the country), 
and passed the District of Columbia Bar exam, one 
of the toughest in the nation.

In 1981, when Mr. Thomas approached me about 
working for him, I was an associate in good 
standing at a Washington law firm. In 1991, the 
partner in charge of associate development 
informed Mr. Thomas's mentor, Senator John 
Danforth of Missouri, that any assertions to the 
contrary were untrue. Yet, Mr. Thomas insists that 
I was "asked to leave" the firm.

It's worth noting, too, that Mr. Thomas hired me 
not once, but twice while he was in the Reagan 
administration - first at the Department of 
Education and then at the Equal Employment 
Opportunity Commission. After two years of working 
directly for him, I left Washington and returned 
home to Oklahoma to begin my teaching career.

In a particularly nasty blow, Justice Thomas 
attacked my religious conviction, telling "60 
Minutes" this weekend, "She was not the demure, 
religious, conservative person that they 
portrayed." Perhaps he conveniently forgot that he 
wrote a letter of recommendation for me to work at 
the law school at Oral Roberts University, in 
Tulsa. I remained at that evangelical Christian 
university for three years, until the law school 
was sold to Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Va., 
another Christian college. Along with other 
faculty members, I was asked to consider a 
position there, but I decided to remain near my 
family in Oklahoma.

Regrettably, since 1991, I have repeatedly seen 
this kind of character attack on women and men who 
complain of harassment and discrimination in the 
workplace. In efforts to assail their accusers' 
credibility, detractors routinely diminish people's 
professional contributions. Often the accused is a 
supervisor, in a position to describe the 
complaining employee's work as "mediocre" or the 
employee as incompetent. Those accused of 
inappropriate behavior also often portray the 
individuals who complain as bizarre caricatures of 
themselves - oversensitive, even fanatical, and 
often immoral - even though they enjoy good and 
productive working relationships with their 
colleagues.

Finally, when attacks on the accusers' credibility 
fail, those accused of workplace improprieties 
downgrade the level of harm that may have 
occurred. When sensing that others will believe 
their accusers' versions of events, individuals 
confronted with their own bad behavior try to 
reduce legitimate concerns to the level of mere 
words or "slights" that should be dismissed 
without discussion.

Fortunately, we have made progress since 1991. 
Today, when employees complain of abuse in the 
workplace, investigators and judges are more 
likely to examine all the evidence and less likely 
to simply accept as true the word of those in 
power. But that could change. Our legal system 
will suffer if a sitting justice's vitriolic 
pursuit of personal vindication discourages others 
from standing up for their rights.

The question of whether Clarence Thomas belongs on 
the Supreme Court is no longer on the table - it 
was settled by the Senate back in 1991. But 
questions remain about how we will resolve the 
kinds of issues my testimony exposed. My belief is 
that in the past 16 years we have come closer to 
making the resolution of these issues an honest 
search for the truth, which, after all, is at the 
core of all legal inquiry. My hope is that Justice 
Thomas's latest fusillade will not divert us from 
that path.

Anita Hill, a professor of social policy, law and 
women's studies at Brandeis University, is a 
visiting scholar at the Newhouse Center for the 
Humanities at Wellesley College.
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