Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [43]
Teaching was at first a little intimidating, but later became fun. I had to overcome a basic shyness and reserve about speaking in front of groups of people. Once in law school, I’d been chosen to present a gift to one of our first-year teachers, Guido Calabresi. I managed to get up in front of the class and make the presentation but I spoke so softly that not even he heard the remarks I made. The courses I was now teaching, employment law and commercial law, were never so much the issue as my reticence about standing in front of the room.
At Oral Roberts O. W. Coburn School of Law, I was the only female as well as the only African American faculty member. I had the support of most of my colleagues on the very small faculty, but it became evident that I did not have the support of all of the students. The ideological and conceptual problem I posed for some of them was acute. I am certain that, as a black woman, I challenged their notion of authority. In response they challenged me. For a handful of them, any statement I made in class, no matter how basic, was open to challenge. One particular student vacillated between refusing to respond in class when asked to do so and responding sullenly. A group of male students protested my assignment to teach commercial law on the basis that I was unqualified to do so. They were supported by one of the other faculty members, Roger Tuttle, who also questioned my qualifications and hiring. The school was relatively small—the largest class had approximately sixty students. Because of its size, rumors and accounts of incidents traveled fast among the student body.
The school attracted some good students, but others would have been deemed marginal by most admission standards. I believe that many resented my background and the fact that I had a degree from Yale Law School, often regarded as the best law school in the country. The conservative racial and gender politics and even prejudices of many in the student body went a long way to convince them that I did not belong in front of the class in the role of their instructor. They supported their personal biases with much of the popular rhetoric of the day that decried affirmative action and hinted that blacks who had made it into schools and professional positions during the 1970s and 1980s did not deserve to be there. Some expressed their resentment overtly. Others were cordial and respectful. A few were downright vicious and spread obscene rumors about me, perhaps unhappy with the grades they received in my course. Yet to say that my time at Oral Roberts University was consumed by hostility would be to exaggerate the impact of a few. I had many friends among the staff, students, and faculty at Oral Roberts. And many there remain friends and supporters today.
I left Oklahoma in 1977 as a student. Returning in 1983, I was an adult. I bought a Tudor-style house on a half-acre lot on a quiet street in the hills of North Tulsa. Its large country kitchen and living room made it the perfect place for the family to gather on my first Christmas home. My brother Albert and sister Elreatha lived only a short distance away, and JoAnn and Alfred just a little farther. By now she was JoAnn Fennell, married to Jerry, with three children. Eric, her oldest, whom I’d adored as a five-year-old when I left Oklahoma, was now an adorable eleven-year-old. Jonna, her daughter, was a six-year-old armful of energy, and Jerry, Jr., the youngest, was a round ball of joy and affection. We did everything together—birthdays for the kids, weekend trips to our parents’ house, shopping for Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas trees. We even belonged to the same church, the Antioch Baptist Church, which