Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [123]
One of the first salvos in Oklahoma came on the day I returned. The same woman who, in September, had claimed I collided with her car now telephoned a local television station to complain that I had been involved in a hit-and-run accident with her. She left the impression that I had crashed into her vehicle and fled the scene in a speedy getaway. She neglected to tell the reporter that I had given her my insurance information or that she had failed to follow up with my agent by setting an appointment for a damage assessment. According to the police, there was no basis for her claim. Louise Hilsen’s presence on that day was invaluable. She and Shirley Wiegand took the inquiries from the television station, answered what they could, and referred them to my insurance agent. The story did not run. But knowing that this woman had motives other than the truth, I took my car to the insurance claims adjuster, whose inspection indicated that no such collision had occurred. Nevertheless, in the weeks to come, the Washington Times newspaper would carry an editorial chiding me for irresponsibility in the situation. Clearly, every aspect of my life was going to be manipulated to serve political and economic gain.
Physically exhausted and nerves frayed from lack of sleep, I returned to work on Tuesday, October 15, 1991. Reporters filled the halls seemingly occupying every vacant space. In an effort to stem the requests, I agreed to a few interviews that, with a few exceptions, the Los Angeles Times’ Roberto Suro interview being one, seemed particulary off the point. The pressure was bent on discovering a political plot. One reporter from The Washington Post was determined to discover when I had developed my sense of “racial awareness”—when, in Senator Heflin’s words, I developed my “militant attitude about civil rights”—as if that held the key to understanding my role in their imagined scheme. Mostly, the interviewers asked the same question, albeit sometimes phrased differently: Why didn’t you simply remain quiet? In the more trying times, I asked myself the same question.
My students could not wait for the press to leave the school, and they expected me to be in class once the hearing had concluded. The time I spent preparing and teaching my classes allowed me to escape the events that had led to national and international attention. But unfortunately, in the classroom, the press presence and the hearing itself led to friction. My relationship with my first-year contract class was disrupted. And despite my best efforts through the fall and spring semesters, the relationship remained strained. The students in the upper divisions who were taking my commerical law class made the most of a difficult time for us all. More mature than the first-year students, they pulled together despite the disruption. They continued to study and work hard on their assignments and were focused even when I was distracted. As a teacher, one hopes to be an inspiration to students. During the fall of 1991 the group of second- and third-year students in my commercial law course were my inspiration.
Some students even volunteered to be my unofficial security guards. This effort was organized by Butch Carol, a bodybuilder, who enlisted others from his weight-lifting group “to help out.” Friends remarked about how impressive my security looked. And, as photographs of me surrounded by tough-looking, muscular men appeared around the country, some in the press reported that they were professionals. We all chuckled over that; Butch and his recruits were some of the shyest and gentlest people at the school.
Pain from my tumors increased with the stress of the other discomforts in my life. Yet I was in no physical or emotional condition to face the surgery necessary to relieve it. I postponed the operation which had been scheduled for the Thanksgiving holiday period. I could not face the physical