• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 872 0

Nan Aron, director of the Alliance for Justice, a public interest group in Washington, heard a rumor that a woman claimed that she had been sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas.” I did not know Aron, nor was I familiar with the Alliance. Yet through bits of information they had, individuals at the Alliance identified me as the source of the story and obtained my office telephone number. Nan Aron passed this information, including the general nature of the allegations, to William Corr, chief counsel to the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Monopolies and Business Rights, also chaired by Senator Metzenbaum, Laster’s employer. Aron told Corr that there were other people who might be aware of Thomas’ harassing conduct.

Corr delegated Gail Laster to investigate Aron’s information. Whether Gail was chosen because we knew each other, because she is a woman, or because she is black is uncertain. Laster sought further details from Aron about my identity and location but first contacted two other women who had worked with Thomas. Allyson Duncan, his office manager at the EEOC, indicated her support for the nomination and said she knew nothing about rumors of harassment. Neither she nor Judy Winston, who had worked at Education, mentioned any knowledge about inappropriate conduct by Thomas.

Sometime during the week of August 19, at a staff meeting, Laster reported to fellow Metzenbaum staffers the results of her work on the Thomas nomination, which also included follow-up on matters besides the information brought to the senator’s office by Aron. Laster described her conversations with Winston and Duncan and said that she had not yet spoken with me. After discussion, the staff determined that she should contact me.

By September 5, when Gail Laster called me, I had given up the idea that FBI agents in charge of investigating Thomas’ character and fitness for the Supreme Court would contact me. I was once again busy trying to juggle my own schedule. The immediate needs of more than one hundred students in my two classes, as well as various projects in the provost’s office, captured my attention. Yet in the back of my mind, I wondered what more I should have done—what more I could have done—to let the Senate Judiciary Committee know about my experience. The committee was set to open the confirmation hearing on Thomas on September 10. Until September 5 I said nothing. Even then I responded with caution.

After I advised Laster to investigate any rumors she knew of, she explained her tentativeness in approaching me about the question of harassment, still without indicating that she had information about me personally. She said that she didn’t want to be part of any attempt to discredit Thomas based on racist sexual stereotypes about the behavior of black males. For the moment both she and I were caught in the complicated politics of the nomination. Each of us wanted to fulfill our responsibilities to the process, but neither wanted to be instruments of racism. We put concerns about gender bias aside because race was the issue at the front of everyone’s mind. I agreed with Laster that she ran the risk of catering to racism, but I still suggested that she investigate what she had heard. I sensed that Laster was not the one who should be investigating the claims. She was very conflicted about them and seemed too vulnerable to accusations that she was engaging in racism. My sympathy for her position would soon turn to empathy, when I was subjected to the same criticisms. But at the time, my feeling that she did not really want the answer to the question she had asked contributed to my not being more forthcoming with her as well.

Despite her mixed feelings, Laster contacted Kim Taylor shortly after speaking with me. They discussed my conversation with Laster and its background. Taylor did not know about the experience I had with Thomas, but she knew me. On the basis of that knowledge, she advised Laster to be more direct if she wanted clearer answers. However, I did not hear from Laster again. After speaking with Taylor, Laster