by Anita Hill
When I returned to my family and friends in our headquarters, the mood was decidedly hopeful, if less than upbeat. People had gathered over the course of the day to volunteer their assistance. Many had worked hard all day—gathering information and trying to get a sense of what would happen next. They, too, were relieved that the day was over. The combination of the emotional pitch and the work left everyone gathered there exhausted. Absent were the highly paid public relations handlers Senator Simpson suggested were supporting me. Absent also were the “special interest” groups many felt had encouraged me to come forward. Senator Simpson’s suggestion that ours was a well-polished machine aimed at nailing Clarence Thomas advanced a gross inaccuracy. A simple snapshot of those present would have completely dispelled the notion. And perhaps it was owing to our amateurism that I do not recall a single photograph being taken of the gathering.
One insider’s description of the Republican headquarters contrasts with what I witnessed in my own station. He described the atmosphere in the Republican camp as chaotic and resonant—very much like a “political rally.” The observer, a veteran of highly contested legal claims, was uncomfortable with what he saw, finding it “not conducive to getting at the truth.”
We ended the day with prayer. Though many who joined probably do not consider themselves religious, what happened had meaning for each of us. We all joined in a circle holding hands—family, friends, and strangers thankful for what we’d been able to do that day and praying for the strength to continue.
John Frank, an expert on the Supreme Court confirmation process, may have been the only member of the team to acknowledge the significance of what had occurred that day. When I arrived in our headquarters, he embraced me and wept. I wanted to weep as well, for I knew that I had lost something that nothing could ever replace. Just what it was I could not be sure, but inside I knew that I would never be the same. The challenge I had issued to myself at the beginning of my testimony—to tell what I knew as clearly as possible—was ringing in my ears. Despite the words of Senator Simon that I “had performed a great public service” by testifying, and Senator Herbert Kohl that “the pain [I had experienced would] vastly improve the way men and women respond to the problem throughout the country,” I was not certain that I had accomplished my goal. I was certain only that I had survived the ordeal for now and was prepared to try again.
I said good-bye to my family at the Senate building, and Ray McFarland, my lone security adviser, drove me back to my hotel room. They were all unaware of my location, and because of the danger of being followed by the press, we continued to keep it that way. Between sessions they occupied themselves with a dinner at Gary Lee’s house and some sight-seeing. On one trip to Georgetown my sisters bought me a gift of cookies and candy to help lift my spirits. They were well aware of my sweet tooth and knew just what might help to lift me out of the despair that we were all fighting. Except for two outings, one to dinner and one to church on Sunday morning, my father refused to leave his hotel room. Though I did not know it at the time, we shared the same sequestered experiences, each of us isolated in a rented room while events over which no one seemed to have control plunged ahead.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Back in my hotel room that evening, I took a much welcomed shower. Alone with my thoughts momentarily, I struggled to sort out what had happened and what to do next. My head spun. I changed into the most comfortable thing I could find in my hurriedly packed suitcase—a sweater and jeans—and prepared to watch the hearing as the committee readjourned.
While I was waiting, I took out a handwritten letter that had somehow made its way from a woman in Washington to Michelle Roberts, an attorney on the team. This letter gave me a sense of the importance of the proceeding in which I had participated:
October 8, 1991
Dear Ms. Hill,
I am a black female attorney serving as an attorney adviser in a small federal agency. I know very well the inner workings of the legal profession and government.
I am writing because when I heard your story it made me weep. It brought back to me so vividly my past experiences with both racial and sexual harassment. It also reminded me of the experiences that my black female law school classmates as well as my white co-workers have related to me over the years.
(I just wanted you to know that you have my support and prayers.) I know the fear and the pain you had to bear when you experienced the harassment. I know you felt a profound disappointment when it was a black man in a high government position who victimized you. During the time we entered the legal profession, black women (Ivy League degree or no Ivy League degree) without “contacts” had little or no options. “Blackballing” is a very real threat in this profession.
I want you to know that you are brave. I want you to know that during this troublesome period, when in need, call upon the strength of all those black women that never had “opportunity.” You will never be alone.
The writer and I shared more than just race and profession. We shared a common experience and understanding. As I took solace in finding a comrade, I was reminded of the differences between myself and my experiences and the panel I had appeared before that day. It was a gap that no amount of education or salary would ever erase. It was a gap that had little to do with party politics and everything to do with gender and racial politics. The real-world dynamics of harassment and racial community escaped those officials. Senator Hatch had suggested that as an attorney one should be able to tolerate harassment, and that a woman with an Ivy League degree would be well insulated from retaliation for complaining about harassment. But both the letter writer and I knew differently from our own experiences. None of the senators seemed to have a clue about how Clarence Thomas’ race amplified my sense of victimization, making both the experience itself and the prospect of complaining about it more difficult. But in just a brief passage this woman had articulated what would have taken me volumes to explain. And when I read that letter, I knew that someone understood.
When my testimony ended, the Republican senators’ campaign against me escalated, and the fact that the hearing was more about media control than Thomas’ qualifications to serve on the Court came through clearly as the day came to an end. Judge Thomas’ handlers had insisted not only that he be the first to testify on Friday morning but that he also be the last to testify on Friday evening as well. When Biden originally announced his plan to end the day with my testimony, Kenneth Duberstein threatened that Thomas would hold a press conference in front of the hearing room doors and claim that he had been denied the opportunity to defend himself. Biden therefore capitulated, never offering me the opportunity to respond in like manner. And so at 9:00 prime-time Friday night, Thomas took the stand as millions watched.
Initially questioned by Senator Heflin, Judge Thomas first informed the committee that he had not listened to my testimony. It was a clever move, for Senator Heflin admitted he didn’t want to repeat the details to which I had testified, and without repeating the testimony, Heflin was hampered in questioning Thomas. And Thomas’ claim that he had not seen it also insulated him from having to deny any of the particulars, positioning him perfectly to take the offensive. Which is exactly what he did. He delivered his most angry and intimidating remarks about the process, calling the hearing a “high-tech lynching,” and accusing the Democratic senators on the committee, in a thinly cloaked fashion, of a peculiar form of racism aimed only at conservative blacks—a fusion of racial and ideological bias of which Thomas was now the target. The senators recoiled at the near accusation and were no doubt caught off guard by it. Unfortunately, none of the senators appeared sure enough in his own perspective on race to address such a charge. Everyone could agree that lynching was deplorable. And no one wanted to be accused of being involved in one, neither the senators nor the members of the public. All too ingeniously, Thomas made it clear that anyone who supported the charge of harassment would be figuratively engaging in the deplorable act of lynching.
The truth of the claim of racism or the appropriateness of the lynching metaphor in the context of an accusation by a black woman against a well-placed black man didn’t matter. Thomas, through his “high-tech lynching” speech, drew a line in a sense, and listeners were given the choice of either siding with racism or siding with Judge Thomas.
Thomas further charged that my statement and testimony were the product of a conspiracy by “someone or some groups.” Though he failed to assert who or how the conspiracy evolved, this statement, like so many of the Republican senators’ statements, went unchallenged. Since the day the public became aware of the charge, the Republicans had been looking for some connection between me and a group opposed to Thomas. Of course, no such connection existed. Nevertheless, the committee members allowed Thomas to assert a conspiracy without requesting any evidence of one. Their knowledge of the roles that interest groups generally play in politics may have hampered them from challenging Thomas’ assertion that interest groups were involved in this particular instance.
As I watched Thomas’ testimony from my hotel room, I could not help but see the irony in his claim of racism. In the years that I had known him, he had always chosen, both publicly and privately, to belittle those who saw racism as an obstacle. In the case of his sister, he asserted that the real barriers to economic and political achievement were a lack of industry and initiative and a reliance on remedial programs. Yet, now having met an obstacle to his own dream, he blamed racism. I wondered if he might then change his mind about the impact racism had on other lives. To me Judge Thomas, as the nominee of a then very popular president, was unlike individuals who found themselves outside power trying to assert their rights against the powerful. He had aligned himself with power—the very power that had exploited racism for political purposes in the infamous Willie Horton ad. Thomas was no Thurgood Marshall, whose nomination to the Supreme Court had been challenged by segregationists exploiting racist ideas and claiming that, as a black man, Marshall was not smart enough to serve on the Court. Thomas was not being challenged by separatists because of the color of his skin. In fact, Thomas’ challengers seemed to be painfully sympathetic to the racial implications of claims that he might be incompetent.
Thomas’ current claim of victimhood was so stunningly out of character that it at first struck me as disingenuous. That his confirmation had suffered a brief suspension was the result of circumstances initially set in motion by Thomas himself. Later, however, I concluded that his remarks were less disingenuous than merely calculated, just as his earlier remarks belittling racism had been. The remarks he made in the hearing were calculated to defuse the Democrats before they’d had an opportunity to approach him about the harassment charges themselves. And they were calculated to win sympathy from a public that, through the passage of antilynching and civil rights laws, had decried the use of violence to curtail the social and political activities of blacks. What better weapon to use against liberals like Kennedy and Metzenbaum or a senator from Alabama like Heflin than the fear of being labeled a racist. A claim of racism coupled with a claim of ideological persecution captured the sympathies of not only those on the right but those in the middle as well.
Bewildered and angered by Thomas’ remarks, I watched as the stunned Democratic members of the panel lost any moral authority they might have asserted in keeping the proceeding balanced. Two days later on Sunday afternoon, Senator Kennedy would attempt to respond to the allegations of racism. And as a proponent of civil rights legislation, he was in a prime position to take on the claim of racial bias. But however articulate and reasoned his speech, none of his Democratic colleagues seconded it. Thomas’ claim of a high-tech lynching had given the Republicans something akin to a spiritual boost—a platform of righteousness. They had already indicated that they could indeed win a battle to control public information about the hearing. Judge Thomas’ high-tech lynching claim gave them a moral justification for moving forward in their attacks against me. The Republicans could now claim that their aggressive pursuit of the Thomas nomination was motivated by their resistance to racism. Though Thomas supporters may once have claimed that racism no longer existed and used Thomas to support their assertion, they now could claim to deplore racism and use Thomas’ treatment as an example of why it still had to be fought.
And though I know the power that the label of racism had over the Democratic senators, I would not understand until days later the extent to which I, too, had been labeled a racist or an accomplice of racism.
Had the questioning of Judge Thomas been similarly argumentative, the proceeding would have had the appearance of fairness. But Judge Thomas’ questioning that evening by Senator Hatch and other senators was deferential, even conciliatory. “Judge Thomas, I have sat here and I have listened all day long, and Anita Hill was very impressive,” Senator Hatch said. “She is an impressive law professor. She is a Yale Law graduate. And, when she met with the FBI, she said that you told her about your sexual experiences and preferences. And I hate to go into this but I want to go into it because I have to, and I know that is something that you wish you had never heard at any time or place. But I think it is important that we go into it, and let me just do it this way.”
Hatch prepared Thomas for his questioning by apologetically explaining the necessity for his action. “She said to the FBI that you told her about your sexual experiences and preferences, that you asked her what she liked or if she had ever done the same thing, that you discussed oral sex between men and women, that you discussed viewing films of people having sex with each other and with animals, and that you told her that she should see such films, and that you would like to discuss specific sex acts and the frequency of sex. What about that?”
“Senator, I would not want to, except being required to here, to dignify those allegations with a response. As I have said before, I categorically deny them. To me, I have been pilloried with scurrilous allegations of this nature. I have denied them earlier and I deny them tonight.” This Clarence Thomas was almost deferential. Yet only minutes later he would go on the attack—an attack that would clear the way for his confirmation.
Not only did the questioning of Thomas beg an answer which allowed him to exonerate himself but the language used to describe the nature of the conduct which I testified to was much less sexually graphic than when I was questioned.
“Did you ever have lunch with Professor Hill at which you talked about sex or pressured her to go out with you?”
“Absolutely not.” Oddly, the senator did not ask if Thomas had asked me out—only if he had “pressured” me to go out. Thomas might have answered in a way that was truthful to him, not seeing the numerous requests as pressure.
“Did you ever tell Professor Hill that she should see pornographic films?” The senator meticulously went down his list of questions, mentioning the gist of the charges but relieving Thomas of the responsibility of responding to any of the details.
“Absolutely not.” The questions begged the answer and Thomas knew that he must take the hard-line approach. Any deviation might result in the public concluding that while he had not sexually harassed me he had acted improperly toward me. He could not risk that reaction.
Senator Hatch prompted Judge Thomas, “Did you ever talk about pornography with Professor Hill?” Judge Thomas responded accordingly, “I did not discuss any pornographic material or pornographic preferences or pornographic films with Professor Hill.”
Though there is no clear evidence that Hatch and Thomas practiced the questions, their interaction worked so well as to appear choreographed. Each knew his role—step by step. Senator Hatch knew the right question; Thomas knew the proper response—aimed at clearing the nomination. The “conversation” between the fastidious Orrin Hatch and the president’s “most qualified” nominee, Thomas, played smoothly. They were so unlike the awkward “conversations” that I had with the members of the committee earlier in the day. Even the questions from the Democrats on the committee sometime
s suggested untruthfulness or skepticism. Then it occurred to me that as the president’s nominee Thomas had prepared for weeks for their “conversations.” Moreover, he had practiced with them in the days before the leak of my statement. He spoke their language. In this sense, Biden was right: “the presumption was with” him. He came to the committee as an invited guest. I, on the other hand, was an intruder whom the public had forced upon the committee.
Perhaps the Democrats were deferential to Thomas because of his position on the bench. Nevertheless, in a hearing where both parties are assumed to be on equal footing, no discrepancies based on title should exist. Yet the tenor and approach to Judge Thomas were different. The willingness to ask him difficult or embarrassing questions was missing.
“Well, if [Hill’s allegations] did not occur, I think you are in a position, with certainly your ability to testify, in effect, to try to eliminate it from people’s minds.”
“Senator, I didn’t create it in people’s minds. This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a confidential way. It was then leaked last weekend to the media. I did not do that. And how many members of this Committee would like to have the same scurrilous, uncorroborated allegations made about him and then leaked to national newspapers and then be drawn and dragged before a national forum of this nature to discuss those allegations that should have been resolved in a confidential way?”
“Well, I certainly appreciate your attitude towards leaks. I happen to serve on the Senate Ethics Committee and it has been a sieve,” Senator Heflin said, establishing their common concern.
“But it didn’t leak on me. This leaked on me … You have robbed me of something that can never be restored.” Thomas portrayed himself as a victim. He would have nothing of the camaraderie offered by Heflin.