Speaking Truth to Power (26 page)

“Let me yield to my friend from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter,” Biden said, concluding his “turn,” as Senator Specter prepared for his thirty-minute “conversation” with me.

Specter began by assuring me that he was simply trying “to find out what happened.” But I was well aware of Specter’s public statement that he had already concluded that he believed Thomas’ denials. I thanked him when he asserted that he did not view the hearing “as an adversarial proceeding,” still hoping that he would move beyond his initial reaction to the claim and see that his “duties [ran] … to the constitutional government and the Constitution.” As an attorney he might have placed the significance of a Supreme Court appointment over the partisanship that had prevailed in the debate over whether or not to hold the hearing. Nevertheless, in short order, any hope that Senator Specter would transcend the political was dashed. He began his questioning with an unmistakably prosecutorial tone. He used a familiar cross-examination tactic—a tactic common in sexual harassment cases. He ridiculed my reaction to Thomas’ behavior, suggesting that I was being oversensitive, even to the point of misrepresenting my testimony.

“Professor Hill, I can understand that it is uncomfortable, and I don’t want to add to that.” But his emulation of concern immediately turned to condescension. “You testified this morning, in response to Senator Biden, that the most embarrassing question involved—this is not too bad—women’s large breasts. That is a word we use all the time. That was the most embarrassing aspect of what Judge Thomas had said to you.”

“No. The most embarrassing aspect was his description of the acts of these individuals, these women, the acts that those particular people would engage in. It wasn’t just the breasts; it was the continuation of his story about what happened in those films with the people with this characteristic, physical characteristic,” I responded, trying to control my outrage. Senator Specter had taken this mortifying episode of my life in which my supervisor had described to me acts of bestiality and had deliberately reduced its offending elements to the use of the term
“breasts,” which, witheringly, he had dismissed as “not too bad.” Despite the graphic details I had already described, Senator Specter ignored the numerous sexual references far more contemptible than anything merely anatomical and chose to focus on the innocuous-sounding word “breast,” suggesting that I was overreacting. Of course, any woman who has ever been made to feel uncomfortable about the size of her breasts would know that even
this
term could be used to embarrass or demean.

By ignoring the far more contemptible and numerous explicit sexual references, the senator focused attention away from Thomas and his behavior and attempted to render a caricature of me and my standard of the offensiveness. A typical reaction to complaints of harassment, Senator Specter’s scoffing portrayed me as the silly prude who can’t handle normal adult conversation. But even if the senator had correctly reported my testimony, his portrayal of my experience as “not too bad” would nevertheless be inaccurate. Reference to breasts alone could certainly be demeaning. And a supervisor’s constant references to women’s breasts or breast size could be more damaging yet. Senator Specter’s suggestion that a reference to a woman’s breast was not a “bad” thing ignored the fact that the workplace is rarely a place where women go to discuss their own anatomy or the anatomy of other women, particularly when the discussion is of a sexual nature.

Though Senator Specter’s announced purpose was “to find out what happened,” his questions differed in tone and in substance from those of his Democratic colleagues. Almost immediately, Senator Specter seemed to be searching for inconsistencies between my statement and my testimony. I had found Senator Biden’s questions difficult and embarrassing enough. And later in the day both Senators Howell Heflin and Patrick Leahy would ask similarly invasive questions about the substance of the claim and my motivation in my coming forward. But Specter’s questions often required me to reconcile the details of my statement with comments made by others—comments about which I had no firsthand knowledge. Soon after his turn to question me arrived, Senator Specter began asking my reaction to various off-the-record statements made by Stanley Grayson, Carlton Stewart, Charles Kothe, John Doggett, and
Phyllis Berry, all of whom would later appear as witnesses for Judge Thomas and none of whom I’d spoken to in years. This line of questioning gave the Republicans two advantages: it put unsworn, speculative statements that portrayed me negatively into the record; and it required me to defend, without any notice, comments for which I had no framework or background.

“There is a question about Phyllis Berry who was quoted in the
New York Times
on October 7. ‘In an interview Ms. Berry suggested that the allegations,’ referring to your allegations, ‘were the result of Ms. Hill’s disappointment and frustration that Mr. Thomas did not show any sexual interest in her.’ ” The senator read Ms. Berry’s remarks into the record as though her authority to comment had been established.

“You were asked about Ms. Berry at the interview on October 9 and reported to have said, ‘Well, I don’t know Phyllis Berry and she doesn’t know me.’ And there are quite a few people who have come forward to say that they saw you and Ms. Berry together and that you knew each other very well.” Senator Specter once again took the comments I made out of the context in which I made them.

“I would disagree with that. Ms. Berry worked at the EEOC. She did attend some staff meetings at the EEOC. We were not close friends. We did not socialize together and she has no basis for making a comment about my social interests with regard to Clarence Thomas or anyone else.” I attempted to explain, as I had in the press conference, that not only was Ms. Berry’s statement wrong, incredibly wrong, she had had no basis for making such a statement. In fact, Ms. Berry undermined her authority to make such a statement about my personal interests in her own testimony. On Sunday, when called by the panel, she would testify that she had found me aloof and detached.

When asked about Ms. Berry’s statement at the press conference on Monday, October 7, I had found myself wondering who she was, recalling her only vaguely and mostly just by name. Because I could not believe that her comment was being taken seriously, my response was rather casual. No one who knew me would have asserted that I had a sexual interest in Clarence Thomas, much less that I had been frustrated
by a lack of attention on his part. Phyllis Berry and I were, at best, passing acquaintances. In fact, when pressed on the issue at the hearing, even Berry cited nothing that would lead her to reach such a conclusion. At the hearing Specter wanted me to respond to Ms. Berry’s foolish comment, as well as to the suggestion by “quite a few people” that we “knew each other very well,” and he gave no focus to Berry’s admission that she had no basis for her statement about me to begin with. Senator Specter continued to rely on off-the-record comments as the source of his questions—an inherently flawed method for “find(ing) out what happened” in a formal proceeding where sworn testimony was available to the panel. It became apparent that I, like other harassment victims, would suffer from indictment by speculation and conjecture.

Later, Senator Specter asked my response to a comment appearing in
USA Today
. “Professor Hill, the
USA Today
reported on October 9th, ‘Anita Hill was told by Senate staffers her signed affidavit alleging sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas would be the instrument that “quietly and behind the scenes” would force him to withdraw his name.’ Was
USA Today
correct on that, attributing it to a man named Mr. Keith Henderson, a 10-year friend of Hill and former Senate Judiciary Committee staffer?”

“I do not recall. I guess—did I say that? I don’t understand who said what in that quotation,” I responded, genuinely confused by the question and the statement.

Specter’s phrasing was confusing. I could not determine whether the senator was asking me to verify whether Henderson had made the statement to
USA Today
, whether I had made the statement to Henderson, or whether a Senate staffer had made such a statement to Henderson or to me. I had known Keith Henderson since my days in Washington, D.C., and despite our regular arguments about policies and politics, we were the best of friends. Keith, who is white and approximately my own age, had grown up in the South and was genuinely concerned about race relations and discrimination. But no matter how well intentioned he was, his solutions often seemed to rely on my willingness to adopt his thinking and approach to solving problems which I, not he, had experienced
firsthand. I sometimes rejected his point of view on principle; other times out of my own sheer stubbornness.

After sending my statement to the Senate, I had spoken with Keith Henderson to determine whether he could discover whether the committee had received my statement. I knew that he had experience working on Capitol Hill, and I felt that I could trust him. My inquiry was not a request for substantive advice about sexual harassment or about the nomination itself. It was a request for information about the procedures for communicating with the committee. Never did I say to Henderson anything close to what the press account alleged. And a court of law would have regarded the newspaper statement as triple hearsay. It was what the newspaper
claimed
that Keith Henderson had
claimed
that a Senate staffer had said to me. Even if I had tried to make a comment testifying to what a staffer had told me, my own testimony would have been considered hearsay, since I would have been one party removed from the speaker, attempting to testify to what someone had said to me. And if a newspaper quotes me in an article or report, that quotation is, of course, hearsay, as are all newspaper quotes; they represent what the newspaper says someone else said.

Generally, the law assumes that hearsay is suspect. With certain exceptions, in a court of law hearsay is inadmissible. Rather than have one person testify about what someone else told them, the law prefers to have the party who supposedly made the statement testify. That party is then subject to cross-examination on that testimony. The problem with unreliability combined with the fact that no cross-examination is possible demonstrates why only excepted hearsay is admissible. By the time a comment attributed to one party gets repeated and interpreted again, it is likely to vary greatly from the original comment and may bear no resemblance at all to the original. The problem with the question about the
USA Today
quote, of which I was not offered a copy, was not only that it relied on triple hearsay but that it was confusing as well. The newspaper’s subsequent retraction of the attribution of these comments to Keith Henderson underscores the need for such rules that limit the kind of evidence that can be admitted. In this situation, absent any rules of
evidence, Senator Specter was allowed to introduce gross misinformation into a public forum without any accountability for the accuracy or truth of the information.

Nevertheless, rather than explain the question or the point that he was making, Specter pressed forward, reading the newspaper account once again and making certain that the information was in the record, despite the facts that it was hearsay, that I knew nothing about it, and that there was no basis on which to cross-examine the source of the information.

“Well, let me go on,” he said. “Keith Henderson, a 10-year friend of Hill and former Senate Judiciary Committee staffer, says Hill was advised by Senate staffers that her charge would be kept secret and her name kept from public scrutiny.” Senator Specter was once again able to introduce off-the-cuff comments into the record as though they had validity and relevance.

“They would,” he continued, apparently referring again to Mr. Henderson’s statement, “they would approach Judge Thomas with the information, and he would withdraw and not turn this into a big story, Henderson says.”

Finally having completed his goal of creating a record with unsworn testimony, Senator Specter asked his question: “Did anybody ever tell you that, by providing the statement, that there would be a move to request Judge Thomas to withdraw his nomination?”

“I don’t recall any story about pressing, using this to press anyone.”

“Well, do you recall anything at all about anything related to that?” Senator Specter continued pressing for the answer he wanted.

“I think that I was told that my statement would be shown to Judge Thomas, and I agreed to that,” I answered.

“But was there any suggestion, however slight, that the statement with these serious charges would result in a withdrawal so that it wouldn’t have to be necessary for your identity to be known or for you to come forward under circumstances like these?”

By this time I was beginning to be worn down by Specter’s methodology.
Not only did his questions rely on unsubstantiated comments, but they kept changing in substance.

“There was—no, not that I recall. I don’t recall anything being said about him being pressed to resign,” I said, still attempting to respond to the first question.

“Well this would only have happened in the course of the past month or so, because all this started in just early September.” At this point Specter moved from questioning to arguing by suggesting not only that the conversation with the staffer had occurred but that I should recall it.

“I understand,” I responded. Had I been clearer of Specter’s purpose, I would have advised him of the reason that I could not recall such a conversation. This was my weakness—I assumed a level of honesty in the questioning that did not exist.

“So that when you say you don’t recall, I would ask you to search your memory on this point, and perhaps we might begin—and this is an important subject—about the initiation of this entire matter with respect to Senate staffers who talked to you. But that is going to be too long for the few minutes that I have left so I would ask you once again …”

“Well I can’t really tell you any more than what I have said. I discussed what the alternatives were, what might happen with this affidavit that I submitted. We talked about the possibility of the Senate Committee coming back for more information. We talked about the possibility of the FBI, asking, going to the FBI and getting more information; some questions from individual Senators. I just, the statement that you are referring to, I really can’t verify.”