Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [107]
The many complexities escaped the reporters and editorial writers covering the hearings. When I did read the editorials in The Washington Post, I was greatly disturbed. They seemed to convey an unwarranted animus toward me and the fact that the committee was hearing the claims that I raised. I later learned that Juan Williams, a journalist responsible for profiles of Thomas in the Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Post, wrote one of the editorials despite a clear conflict of interest. The editorial was entitled, “Open Season on Clarence Thomas” and described the charges as “a speck of mud [flung] at Clarence Thomas in an alleged sexual conversation between two adults.” The opinion piece asserted that my claim arose as a result of Senate staff members’ search for dirt on Thomas. Williams dismissed my charges as much for what he saw as their insignificance as for my lack of credibility.
Interestingly, at the time, Williams was under investigation himself for allegedly sexually harassing one of his colleagues on the paper. And other women had lodged informal complaints about Williams’ behavior as well, alleging a pattern of unwelcomed comments and behavior which they found too intimate but which Williams defended as merely “socially awkward.” After some at the newspaper protested this lack of objectivity, the Post management disclosed the apparent conflict of interest and relieved him of his editorial duties on the matter, though it also ordered a reporter who wanted to do a story on the matter not to write it. By this time, however, Senator Hatch had already cited the article during the proceedings to support his conspiracy theory and Rush Limbaugh had read the column on his syndicated radio program.
Around the country, as the hearings were airing, editorials voicing opinions appeared even in small-town papers. And the Post was not alone in its irresponsible editorial decisions. An absurdly extreme example of messy journalism appeared in a student paper at the University of Utah. In articles purporting to present both sides, one columnist described me as “dirty, depraved, schizophrenic, and grossly sexual, a sheer idiot or a sore liar.” He described my charges as “sexual hallucination” and the testimony “the mere rendition of a mind obsessed with bestial bondage and influenced by definitions from the Sodom and Gomorrah Anatomical Review.” The “other side” posed the question of whether the behavior actually constituted sexual harassment and explained the definition of the behavior according to state and federal law. The piece also questioned my motives and my judgment in not coming forward previously. Clearly, a lack of balance existed. One columnist attempted to inform the public about the problem and give them a method for analyzing the issue. The other columnist followed the lead of the senators, invoking lewd and preposterous name-calling. The same paper suggested that the media, provoked by “female leaders, especially in Congress, and various women’s groups,” were engaging in tabloid journalism by simply reporting on my claim. This newspaper’s best defense is that it is a student paper, a defense the Post could not argue.
Though it is difficult to say whether the attitude displayed behind the scenes by the Post and in public by other papers may not have influenced the reporting of the story, it does speak to the lack of sensitivity in and ignorance about handling claims of sexual harassment in one of the country’s most sophisticated and influential newspapers.
Television commentators voiced open hostility to my claim on “news” shows as well. Fred Barnes declared that I “was spinning a monstrous lie” and Morton Kondracke compared me to Tawana Brawley, while John McLaughlin, himself accused of sexual