Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [82]
With the help of campus security, Shirley, Ray, Eric, and I avoided the press on our way to the airport, but we boarded a plane filled with reporters making their way to Washington, D.C. On one leg of the trip, we sat in the rear of the plane and noticed that a man in our row was in handcuffs. I felt sorry for the poor fellow as the cameras panned to catch me and undoubtedly caught him too, handcuffs and all. Yet in a way I felt that we were all being taken into custody along with him. During the layover in St. Louis, airline security pulled a maneuver aimed at diverting the press in Washington to Dulles Airport instead of Washington National, where my flight would actually land. Some press people were fooled and so my arrival in Washington was perhaps the least publicized thing I had done in the last few days.
When we got to Washington that evening, airport security met us at the gate. We were tired, but all still fairly upbeat. Sonia Jarvis, my former roommate in Washington and friend since law school, and her friend Ray McFarland devised an ingenious plan to get me to the Capitol Hill Hotel without being followed by the press. It was worthy of a spy movie, requiring three vehicles and two drivers. One car followed closely the vehicle McFarland drove, in which I was a passenger. As we were about to enter the highway connecting the airport to Washington, the second driver faked a breakdown of his car, blocking the entrance ramp. This allowed McFarland and me to get a jump on the reporters and others who had been tailing the second driver. McFarland sped away, leaving his accomplice in a heated argument with the drivers behind him, and we had just enough time to switch to another car that was parked and waiting for us just inside the district. In a short time, we were at the door of the hotel. I checked in unobserved under the name J. C. West, conveniently borrowed from my friend Joy, who had made the hotel arrangements.
I awoke on Thursday morning feeling the hearing would begin in just over twenty-four hours with the public badly misinformed about sexual harassment. The steady campaign to discredit me was in full swing. Its obvious purpose was to persuade the public that my claim was baseless and that Thomas should be confirmed. The second purpose of the campaign was intimidation. The senators still hoped that the battle would not be fought in a hearing. Senator Biden had originally told me the subpoena would be delivered to me prior to my departure from Oklahoma. In fact, it was not served until Thursday, the day before my testimony, giving me ample time to retract my statement or otherwise capitulate—or perhaps to get into a fruitless and damaging war of words with the senators over the truth of the allegations before a public hearing could be held. With their press experience and contacts, the senators would undoubtedly have won such a battle.
I still do not know whether Senator Simpson’s comment about the terrible treatment I could expect was primarily intended to keep me from testifying or merely to intensify anxiety during my testimony. But I do know that intimidating tactics are common in harassment suits. Defense counsel often issues warnings that range from manipulative (“You will ruin him and his family”) to threatening (“You will be ruined”). In any case, when I did not withdraw prior to the hearing, the hostile senators attempted to establish as menacing a forum as possible, making good on Simpson’s warnings of “real harassment.” Behind the scenes, they maneuvered to make the hearing procedure as detrimental