Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [38]
There was a good deal of internal and external dissension surrounding the agency. In particular, Mike Connolly, the EEOC general counsel, had appointed himself the administrative spokesperson for the agency. His outspokenness continued after Thomas’ arrival and Thomas objected to this usurpation of his and the other commissioners’ authority. There were also struggles over which was the lead agency on civil rights matters for the administration. President Jimmy Carter had granted the EEOC that role just a few years earlier. But now Brad Reynolds, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice, was seeking to establish his office as the final arbiter of administrative civil rights policy. Since Reynolds’ department decided which cases of discrimination the government appealed, he was in a prime position to designate himself as the authority.
The Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program (OFCCP) got into the political power play as well. That program was meant to ensure that employers entering into contracts in which the government was a party attempt to include minorities and women in their workforce. The executive orders that served as the basis for such guidelines were hotly contested by some in the administration.
Shortly after I arrived at the EEOC, the OFCCP delivered to the office of the chair a packet of regulations that in essence undermined the executive orders the OFCCP was supposed to implement. Some of these regulations conflicted with existing EEOC policy. One particularly volatile provision limited the amount of back wages a victim of discrimination should receive in damages. Thomas designated me as the point person for our office and gave me control in how and when matters came to him. There was virtually no time to respond before the proposed regulations were scheduled to be sent out for public comment. My expertise was limited, but I got excellent guidance from EEOC staff people, including an attorney, Stuart Frisch. They advised me on problems with the proposals and educated me about the intra-agency and the interagency politics as well. Frisch presented the EEOC position to Thomas and he gave his approval. Frisch and I and other members of the staff met with OFCCP officials and, point by point, went over the objections to the regulations which were a thinly veiled effort to gut the government’s program to diversify the businesses holding federal contacts.
Eventually, the old program was salvaged and the proposed regulations withdrawn. When they resurfaced and were approved by the commission in July 1983, the summer I left the agency, many of the objectionable proposals had been eliminated. I think I am prouder of this work than of any other I did during my time at the EEOC.
The final factor in Thomas’ early struggles at the agency had to do with internal operations. Just before I arrived, the Office of Management and Budget handed the agency a highly critical evaluation. Some of the criticisms in that report could not be ignored; they demanded that the chair respond if the budget process for the following year was to proceed. Thus, when I got to the EEOC, I fell into the thick of things administratively and politically. I spent much of my first few months dealing with crises or near crises. But though my misgivings about the administration were growing, I still felt that I could do good work. Moreover, despite any offensive interaction with Thomas, I still felt some loyalty to him, much of it born out of the portrait he drew of himself as unfairly maligned from both inside and outside the administration. We disagreed on issues, but past EEOC policies and practices were often consistent with my thinking and I had those to fall back on when we disagreed.
The mood in the office left no time for reflection. Until more assistants could be hired and someone put in charge of the staff, I was overwhelmed. I could count on little guidance from Thomas himself, since he was