Speaking Truth to Power (16 page)

On the afternoon of September 5, 1991, the first call came. Gail Laster, counsel to the Judiciary Committee’s Labor Subcommittee, which was chaired by Senator Howard Metzenbaum, reached me in my office at the law school. I did not ask her how she had gotten my name and telephone number. I assumed that she had employed the same resources David Margolick had. My conversation with Laster began casually, almost pleasantly. I was not teaching on the day of the call and thus was a little more relaxed about spending time on the telephone. We recalled that we had been at Yale at the same time and had friends in common. Kim Taylor, whom I had known since law school, had supervised Laster at the D.C. public defender’s office. After some catching up on what each of us had done since our time in New Haven, Laster turned the conversation to the purpose of her call.

“Do you know anything about allegations of harassment at the EEOC?” she asked.

I responded with a question: “Do you mean allegations that Thomas harassed women at the EEOC?”

“We have heard rumors to that effect,” she said.

My immediate thought was that other women had complained and their stories had gotten back to the committee. Because Laster did not ask if I had been harassed, I assumed that she was referring to claims by other women. I knew nothing of such claims, but I did know that Thomas was capable of harassing behavior, so I told her that she should follow up on the rumors. But though I could not imagine how she might have known about my experience, in fact Gail Laster was referring to me.

While I had been wrestling with what to do and preparing for the
new semester, my name was traversing the political circuit of Washington, D.C. Peter Fleming, the special investigator who was later assigned to determine who leaked my statement to the press, pieced together the story from his research. Not until May 1992, when I read his reports, would I find out what had led Gail Laster to telephone me. According to Fleming, “In July, Nan Aron, director of the Alliance for Justice, a public interest group in Washington, heard a rumor that a woman claimed that she had been sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas.” I did not know Aron, nor was I familiar with the Alliance. Yet through bits of information they had, individuals at the Alliance identified me as the source of the story and obtained my office telephone number. Nan Aron passed this information, including the general nature of the allegations, to William Corr, chief counsel to the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Monopolies and Business Rights, also chaired by Senator Metzenbaum, Laster’s employer. Aron told Corr that there were other people who might be aware of Thomas’ harassing conduct.

Corr delegated Gail Laster to investigate Aron’s information. Whether Gail was chosen because we knew each other, because she is a woman, or because she is black is uncertain. Laster sought further details from Aron about my identity and location but first contacted two other women who had worked with Thomas. Allyson Duncan, his office manager at the EEOC, indicated her support for the nomination and said she knew nothing about rumors of harassment. Neither she nor Judy Winston, who had worked at Education, mentioned any knowledge about inappropriate conduct by Thomas.

Sometime during the week of August 19, at a staff meeting, Laster reported to fellow Metzenbaum staffers the results of her work on the Thomas nomination, which also included follow-up on matters besides the information brought to the senator’s office by Aron. Laster described her conversations with Winston and Duncan and said that she had not yet spoken with me. After discussion, the staff determined that she should contact me.

By September 5, when Gail Laster called me, I had given up the idea that FBI agents in charge of investigating Thomas’ character and fitness
for the Supreme Court would contact me. I was once again busy trying to juggle my own schedule. The immediate needs of more than one hundred students in my two classes, as well as various projects in the provost’s office, captured my attention. Yet in the back of my mind, I wondered what more I should have done—what more I
could
have done—to let the Senate Judiciary Committee know about my experience. The committee was set to open the confirmation hearing on Thomas on September 10. Until September 5 I said nothing. Even then I responded with caution.

After I advised Laster to investigate any rumors she knew of, she explained her tentativeness in approaching me about the question of harassment, still without indicating that she had information about me personally. She said that she didn’t want to be part of any attempt to discredit Thomas based on racist sexual stereotypes about the behavior of black males. For the moment both she and I were caught in the complicated politics of the nomination. Each of us wanted to fulfill our responsibilities to the process, but neither wanted to be instruments of racism. We put concerns about gender bias aside because race was the issue at the front of everyone’s mind. I agreed with Laster that she ran the risk of catering to racism, but I still suggested that she investigate what she had heard. I sensed that Laster was not the one who should be investigating the claims. She was very conflicted about them and seemed too vulnerable to accusations that she was engaging in racism. My sympathy for her position would soon turn to empathy, when I was subjected to the same criticisms. But at the time, my feeling that she did not really want the answer to the question she had asked contributed to my not being more forthcoming with her as well.

Despite her mixed feelings, Laster contacted Kim Taylor shortly after speaking with me. They discussed my conversation with Laster and its background. Taylor did not know about the experience I had with Thomas, but she knew me. On the basis of that knowledge, she advised Laster to be more direct if she wanted clearer answers. However, I did not hear from Laster again. After speaking with Taylor, Laster consulted with her boss, James Brudney, chief counsel to Senator Metzenbaum’s
Labor Subcommittee. Brudney had graduated from Yale Law School the year before I did. I knew who he was but we did not socialize together. Brudney had already been advised of her contact with me and had authorized the call to Taylor. He recognized both names from our time at Yale together. After talking to Laster, Brudney instructed her to “discontinue” her investigation. I can only speculate that he thought she had too little information to move forward with an investigation.

On September 6, without knowing about the conversation between Laster and Taylor, I was pondering whether to call Gail Laster back. But before I had a chance, Ricki Seidman of Senator Ted Kennedy’s staff telephoned me. Seidman was the chief investigator for the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, which was chaired by Kennedy. In late August, Bonnie Goldstein, Senator Metzenbaum’s investigator, who also got my name from Nan Aron’s organization, had passed the information to Seidman to follow up. Seidman contacted the Alliance for Justice office and spoke to Goldstein’s contact, George Kassouf, who informed her that he had not spoken to me directly but was relying on other sources.

When she telephoned me, Seidman at first spoke in general terms about the Thomas nomination. When she turned the conversation to sexual harassment, I told her about my conversation with Gail Laster of the Metzenbaum staff. Seidman continued the conversation and then asked directly, “Do you have any comment on rumors that Thomas sexually harassed you while you were at the EEOC?” It occurred to me that the whole inquiry was based on rumors. In a city like Washington, that could mean anything. Seidman had not told me the source of the rumors or given me any indication what the committee might do in response. “I will neither confirm nor deny the information at this time,” I told her. We then talked more generally about victims of sexual harassment, and the conversation ended with Seidman’s promise to contact me again on Sunday, September 8.

This was the second call I had received in two days about Clarence Thomas and sexual harassment, and I could no longer deny that the committee knew something about Thomas’ behavior and knew that I
was its target. I had been thinking about coming forward all summer, but had decided to wait until the investigators came to me. When that had not happened by the end of August, I had assumed it would never happen. So when the first call came, I was not prepared. And when the second call came, I was taken aback that two separate inquiries were being made. At that point, I needed to talk things over with someone I trusted. I went to Shirley Wiegand and another woman on the law school faculty, whom I had not confided in before, Leisha Self.

Our conversation was intense and gloomy. I was agitated and my two colleagues equally apprehensive. I did not detail the behavior, but they immediately understood its nature. Together we began to formulate a plan for moving forward. Their advice was to make the disclosure but only after receiving assurances about the procedure the committee would follow in investigating the charges. Of the three of us, only Wiegand had experience litigating Title VII claims. Self had some experience in labor law generally. None of us were experts on sexual harassment. We decided that any statement and investigation must be kept confidential. Despite our legal experience and sense of obligation to the legal process, our skepticism about the politics involved counseled caution. And that is how I attempted to proceed, with caution.

Ricki Seidman contacted me again on Monday, September 9. By then I was ready to go forward, but I insisted that the information not be made available to the press. Seidman assured me that the committee could accommodate my desire for confidentiality. During that conversation I told Seidman about Thomas’ pressuring me for dates and about his discussions of pornography. I indicated that the conduct was not isolated, but avoided any further specifics. I said I recalled one person who could corroborate the general nature of what had occurred, but I was hesitant because I did not want to bring Sue Hoerchner into the matter without consulting her first.

On the morning of Tuesday, September 10, I sat in the small bedroom I had converted to a den, and watched Joseph Biden, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, open the Thomas confirmation hearing. I felt numb. The sight of Jamal, Thomas’ son, reminded me how much
time had passed since I left Washington. I’d still lived in Washington and worked for Thomas when I first met Jamal, then a child; now as the hearing unfolded he sat behind his father a fully grown young man.

I had kept my secret for all those years—enough for a child to become an adult. I had not counted the years, and had been fully prepared to go on keeping the secret. Now I would do so no longer. I was not happy about what I felt I had to do ten years before—keep quiet—nor was I happy about what I must do now—speak out. There was no joy, no sense of righteousness or vindication. At best, I felt some small relief, as if a certain pressure had been released—like the unbuttoning of a shirt collar. I had carried the burden of the secret for so long that I trained myself to ignore its existence. The shame I felt should never have been mine, but I had taken it on by my own silence. Now, having finally made the choice to relinquish the burden, to tell the secret, to admit the embarrassment, it was almost as if nothing had happened. In a moment of calm, after I turned off the television set, I realized the significance of what I was about to do, and I prayed that I could see it through.

That same Tuesday, September 10, James Brudney of Senator Metzenbaum’s staff contacted me. Ricki Seidman had informed him of her conversations with me and had suggested that as a former acquaintance he might be an appropriate contact for pursuing the matter. From the beginning of our conversation, I expressed three reservations about going forward. First, I did not want to testify in a public hearing. The nature of behavior to which I had been subjected was embarrassing and personal. It was something I chose not to discuss publicly. Second, I wanted to know what kind of process the committee would use in investigating the charges. I was sure that if the committee, without an independent investigation, simply went to Thomas and asked him about the truth of the allegations, he would either deny them or reduce them to a “misunderstanding.” He could bluff and bluster his way around the charge if he thought it was simply my word against his but would be less able to simply deny them if he knew that the committee had conducted an investigation. He had told me that my disclosure would “ruin” him. I knew that he would not take it without some resistance, and if there was
no further investigation, the committee would feel safe to dismiss my charges. Finally, I was hesitant to go forward without some indication whether other women had reported similar behavior. I suspected there were others but had no way to prove it. What I did not know was that the women the committee had contacted thus far had denied that anything in the nature of harassment had occurred.

Jim Brudney asked for details of the behavior. The details, he said, would help me to be more clear and certain about my recollections as well as to demonstrate the seriousness of the matter. I gave him the details of the topics Thomas discussed, the language he used, even some of the graphic scenes he had described. It was enough to convince Brudney of the seriousness of the conduct. I was still hesitant to go forward after we talked. None of my uncertainties had been addressed. Brudney simply did not know what process the committee would follow, although he suggested that a closed executive session of the committee, away from the media, might be possible.

Brudney reported our conversation to Senator Metzenbaum, who told him to refer me to Senator Biden as chair of the committee. According to the report of the special investigator, Brudney never mentioned my name to Senator Metzenbaum. The next day, September 11, Brudney spoke with Harriet Grant of Biden’s office. He identified me by name but informed Grant that I did not wish to testify publicly. That same day Brudney called me again to say that I would have to contact Grant if I chose to go forward. On the morning of September 12 I called Grant; she was out, but I left a message with my name and daytime telephone number. That afternoon I talked to Harriet Grant for the first time. This was my first official contact with the committee. It occurred a week after Gail Laster’s call and several weeks after Senate staffers had first heard about the charges.