Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [78]
Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, also forcefully reminded her Senate colleagues of the message they would send to the American public if they decided to proceed with the vote. In clear terms, she warned them about wielding the Senate’s power to attack a woman and pointed out the irony of wielding that power in the context of a claim about sexual harassment—behavior that is itself about the abuse of power.
What disturbs me as much as the allegations themselves is that the United States Senate appears not to take the charge of sexual harassment seriously. We have indicated that it was not serious enough to be raised as a question in the Judiciary Committee. We did not think it serious enough to apprise the Senators themselves that this was an allegation.… And then over here we have Professor Anita Hill.… She has come forth with pain because reliving this situation has indeed been extremely painful for her. If we do not give full airing to this, she will always be the woman who made these allegations. And now, we face the fact that even yesterday, Professor Hill was attacked on the Senate floor with unprecedented venom. A woman was attacked on the Senate floor with unprecedented venom when she was herself talking about being a victim. We owe it to Professor Hill not to attack her on the Senate floor, but to submit her to a line of question about the events that she alleges to see if in fact, they are true.…
To anybody out there who wants to be a whistle-blower, the message is: Don’t blow that whistle because you’ll be left out there by yourself. To any victim of sexual harassment or sexual abuse or sexual violence either in the street or even in her own home, the message is nobody’s going to take you seriously, not even the United States Senate.
While the senators displayed a lack of empathy with the experience of sexual harassment from the point of view of the target, they showed that they were well versed in the diversionary tactics used to attack individuals who raise claims of sexual harassment and to avoid any scrutiny of the alleged harassers. In the days before the hearing, senators denigrated my claim maliciously and with total disregard for its validity. Senator Strom Thurmond called the claim the “rantings of a disgruntled employee who had been reduced to lying.” Senator Danforth called it “garbage” and “sleazy,” expressing his concern for the sanctity of the U.S. Senate: “we can’t have this body known as the trash dump of American politics.” Senator Hatch described the charges as “trumped up.” President Bush and his staff got involved as well. Marlin Fitzwater, veteran journalist and White House spokesperson at Kennebunkport, called the charges an attempted “smear,” and the president summed up the attitude of the entire lot when he declared that he was “not in the least concerned” about the charges.
Surprisingly, the Senate voted unanimously to delay the vote on Thomas and hold a hearing on my claim. But during the debate Senator Danforth had given the speech that most likely compelled his colleagues to do so. He revealed that Judge Thomas himself wanted the hearing held to “clear his name.” In hindsight I think the Senate’s consent to the hearing was quite cynical. I believe that the Republicans who voted to hold the hearing did so because they felt that the idea of a public hearing would be so threatening that I would withdraw my complaint, or that even if I did appear they would be able to destroy me.
The tone was set for the hearing by many irresponsible and insupportable