Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [2]
Teaching a full load at the law school and working as a faculty representative in the office of the provost on the main campus left me little time to read, let alone respond to, the incoming mail. The telephone calls, as well, went mostly unreturned. A group of women in the university community organized to help me with the mail after work hours. Fifteen or so cheerful, enthusiastic volunteers gathered in the law school lounge, eager to be helpful in any way that they could. After a few hours of opening and sorting, we had finished only a fraction of the letters. The mood shifted when it dawned upon us that the time and cost of responding to them all was prohibitive. We could not even afford to acknowledge receipt of most of the correspondence.
People of all ages, races, and backgrounds wrote. Just about every category of person imaginable who had seen, heard, or read about the hearing took time to put their reactions into words. Some letters were from old friends who wanted to reconnect after years of no communication, but most were from strangers expressing their concern about what they had witnessed. “This is the first time I have ever written a public figure,” many began. The letters spelled out a huge range of emotion, from sympathy to anger to joy. Many writers were outraged at what they considered insensitivity on the part of certain senators, or frustrated by the unsatisfactory resolution of the issue. Many had experienced sexual harassment firsthand. Many more related to sexual harassment as a violation of basic human dignity. Some decried the way that politics had pervaded the judicial appointment process. Others were deeply concerned about the quality of political representation evidenced by the behavior of the senators on the Judiciary Committee. Each letter in its own way established a link between the writer and me. We had a common experience so potent as to create a bond between total strangers. “I feel like I know you,” many wrote.
In the quiet of my office, after classes were over and most of the staff had left, I tried to read at least forty letters a day. Many, especially those from harassment victims, were heart-wrenching. Because of their intensity and my fatigue, reading my assigned number of the letters at the end of a workday often proved impossible. I would become despondent and unable to continue, or angered by my own helplessness to change things. I changed my routine, setting aside time to read the mail first thing in the morning. But this was a mistake because after reading of all the embarrassment, anger, grief, I could not focus on my work. This letter speaking of abuse or that letter describing disillusionment stayed with me all day.
Not all of the letters caused me dismay. I laughed at humorous characterizations of my senatorial detractors. A letter from proud parents of an infant brought a smile to my face, and still does. “If this photo brings you half the joy she brings us, we will be pleased,” they wrote.
Though there were the threatening, vulgar, and just plain cruel messages, they were few, and I thank God for that. So as not to delude myself into believing that everyone saw my testimony in a positive light, I read those as well. The outrage I felt over the abusive experiences described in some of the letters numbed me to any cruelty my detractors could dish out. In the face of so much pain, their hostility seemed trivial.
The people who took time to write, even those who expressed anger at me, seemed to want to make sense out of the