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By Root 849 0

misrepresented the sequence of events that led to my statement to the Senate. No one contests that my first contact with the Senate came at the initiation of Senate staffers; it was a point I sought to stress at the press conference and one that was not debatable. Therefore, not only did I not make a call to the Senate and say that I wanted to complain, but there was never any anonymity. The Senate staffers called me and thus always had my name and my location. By the time of the hearings they had ample information about my background. Even Senator Simpson, in a rare display of probity on the matter, allowed that at least some Democrats on the committee had my name as early as September 23.

What is more important, DeConcini’s remarks reveal that he based his dismissal of my charges more on how he thought a woman should respond to harassment than on whether he believed that Thomas had actually harassed me. At one point in the days preceding the hearing, DeConcini said, “I don’t say it didn’t happen. I say there is another side.” Very often the responsibility for ending discriminatory behavior, in whatever form, is placed on the target of the discrimination, rather than the person who carries it out or those in a position of authority to stop it.

In his comments DeConcini described how a victim of discrimination should feel and act. First that person should “get mad,” and then she should “complain.” If she does not, according to DeConcini, nobody should care, even when a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court is at stake. In other words, those who do not react in the way prescribed by DeConcini deserve no attention from those who should be concerned about the problem. In focusing on the target’s reaction instead of the behavior of the harasser, DeConcini failed to understand that most harassment victims experience a variety of emotions in the face of harassment; anger is just one of them. And different people deal with harassment in different ways. Some women internalize the anger; others deny it.

Filing a complaint in response to harassment is only one way of “getting mad.” As I said, it is one that many harassment victims feel would be fruitless. Only 3 percent of reported harassment incidents end in a formal complaint. DeConcini proposed this reaction as the only valid course in response to harassment, though it is one that few harassment targets ever take.

In addition to revealing real ignorance about the harassment issues, DeConcini’s comments reveal a good deal of arrogance. Given the negative reactions to charges of sexual harassment, telling women that they should angrily complain, without any consideration of the effectiveness of the complaint mechanism, is tantamount to telling them that they should subject themselves to further abuse.

DeConcini was not a trial judge responding to a plaintiff attempting to bring a claim in federal court ten years after events occurred. He was a member of a committee reviewing the entire record of a nominee for a lifetime appointment. The committee had spent the last few months reviewing Thomas’ life as far back as his childhood in Georgia. No one on the committee prevented Thomas or his supporters from bringing in character evidence dating back nearly forty years. Moreover, the committee had spent hours discussing Thomas’ role as assistant secretary of education and chair of the EEOC. Thomas’ performance in those capacities and his role as a member of the Reagan administration were chief topics of the first round of the confirmation hearing, during which the committee had also received and discussed evidence of Thomas’ improprieties in handling expense and travel reimbursement. There were claims that he was reimbursed by the government for what was essentially personal business relating to his membership on the board of his alma mater, Holy Cross University. No one objected that the material was outdated. Nevertheless, when the topic of his conduct in official positions turned to sexual harassment, DeConcini and many other senators balked at the idea of hearing it.