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By Root 855 0

of the special investigator, Brudney never mentioned my name to Senator Metzenbaum. The next day, September 11, Brudney spoke with Harriet Grant of Biden’s office. He identified me by name but informed Grant that I did not wish to testify publicly. That same day Brudney called me again to say that I would have to contact Grant if I chose to go forward. On the morning of September 12 I called Grant; she was out, but I left a message with my name and daytime telephone number. That afternoon I talked to Harriet Grant for the first time. This was my first official contact with the committee. It occurred a week after Gail Laster’s call and several weeks after Senate staffers had first heard about the charges.

For me, the hour or so before a lecture is a time of reflection. I spend it organizing my thoughts and focusing on the main objectives of the day’s lesson. On the afternoon of September 12 Harriet Grant returned my call forty minutes before my class was to begin. I had been concentrating on how to communicate to first-year students the difference between an offer to contract and an offer to negotiate a contract, but when I picked up the phone, I lost all focus.

Grant and I talked for about thirty minutes, as I recounted Thomas’ behavior and expressed the same concerns I had expressed to Brudney. I also tried to encourage Grant to investigate whether there were other women who had had similar experiences with Thomas, convinced that the committee would dismiss allegations by one person. In this and in a second conversation with Grant on the same day, I stressed that at all times I wanted to follow the proper and most effective procedure for getting the information before the committee. Her emphasis throughout the conversation was that I would not be advised of the committee’s procedure and that the handling of my complaint was the committee’s prerogative. However, she did explain that according to procedure, the next step would be to inform the nominee about the charges.

I knew that approaching Thomas without some preliminary investigation would be fatal to my claim. And I suggested to Grant that going to Thomas at this point in the process would not be helpful in determining the truth. I thought of the resources the White House had employed in pursuing the nomination thus far, and I knew they would not stop simply because I had raised a claim of impropriety. A feeling of betrayal started to set in as I sensed that this was simply a move to make me go away. The Senate staff had brought me into the process, but the committee was not going to take any responsibility to follow up on the investigation. As in my conversation with Ricki Seidman, I told Grant that a friend could corroborate my account, but again did not offer Susan Hoerchner’s name because I still hadn’t contacted her.

On Friday, September 13, and again on Sunday, September 15, Jim Brudney telephoned me at home. In a tone that seemed more embarrassed than disappointed, he informed me that the committee had decided not to investigate my charges, apparently because of my request for confidentiality. Somehow Grant had interpreted my desire to avoid a public hearing as a request for total anonymity. At no time had I made such a request. I assumed that everyone who knew about the charges knew my name. After all, Senate staffers had initiated the contact with me. Brudney interpreted the inaction as a misunderstanding of my request for confidentiality. I interpreted the inaction as either disbelief in the charges or unwillingness to investigate them. I was convinced that the decision not to pursue the investigation reflected the committee’s indifference to the behavior I had described.

Nevertheless, on Monday, September 16, I contacted Susan Hoerchner about using her as a corroborating witness. Having been brought into the process, I was not willing to be dismissed so easily. Hoerchner reached Grant on Tuesday and expressed a desire for confidentiality as well. She was particularly vulnerable to publicity as an appointed judge in the California administrative law system.