The wellspring of anger tapped by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on Anita Hill’s charges against Clarence Thomas may spur more women to challenge sexual harassment encountered in the classroom or the office. Just as many women, however, may refrain from voicing their discomfort for fear of being the victim of a smear campaign or labeled a false accuser.
That is what many legal experts and others who study sexual harassment are calling the conflicting message of the Thomas confirmation hearings, a message that left women on college and university campuses in turn encouraged and dismayed: encouraged by the public dialogue that had opened on a sensitive and relatively unexplored subject, and dismayed, they said, by the tactics used to discredit Ms. Hill.
“Part of the deep tragedy in this is that it is doing both positive and negative things,” said Donna M. Jones, director of the office of affirmative action and compliance at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “There’s such a sense of relief in that it’s out in the open, and people can learn from it. But unfortunately, because of the repugnant manner in which this was handled, the message is mixed.
“If you’re a person with Anita Hill’s credentials and reputation, there will still be a tendency to blame the victim and to think that she caused it, just like Eve in the Garden of Eden.”
More than any event in the past, the televised examination of Ms. Hill’s charges that Mr. Thomas had described pornographic movies to her and repeatedly asked her out on dates while they worked together at the Education Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission threw a spotlight on sexual harassment and how the behavior affects women, who are its primary victims. Mr. Thomas was confirmed by the Senate last week as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
Yet as several Senators on the Judiciary Committee pursued a pointed attack of Ms. Hill’s character, a sense of gloom settled over many women who had tried to raise awareness about sexual harassment on campuses. The treatment that Ms. Hill received, they say, only reinforced what many women fear: Coming forward with a complaint will carry an enormous personal and professional price.
At colleges and universities, where many unequal power relationships exist among students, employees, and faculty members, about 20 to 30 per cent of students have experienced some form of sexual harassment, said Bernice Sandler, senior associate at the Center for Women Policy Studies and one of the first to call attention to sexual harassment at colleges.
Many colleges follow guidelines issued by the EEOC, which defines sexual harassment as unwelcome sexual attention, whether physical or verbal, that affects an employee’s job conditions or creates a hostile working environment.
The Thomas confirmation hearings have several ramifications for colleges struggling to respond appropriately and sensitively to the issue, many observers said.
“The first point to remember is that this was a political happening,” said Anne L. Bryant, executive director of the American Association of University Women. “The smear tactics against Anita Hill were used to gain political advantage. I do think we need to separate the behavior our Senators displayed and what we hope will happen on college campuses.
“The next important point depends so much on college presidents,” Ms. Bryant continued. “If presidents come out and say this is a serious issue, and they want the campus climate defined by the best among us, not the basest, then you help possible victims who might be afraid of coming forward.”
By several indications, the attention spawned by the confirmation hearings warmed the campus climate to the degree that people did feel comfortable talking about their experiences. It was the topic of discussion in classrooms and office corridors, aired on college radio stations and debated in the pages of campus newspapers.
At the American Council on Education’s meeting of its Commission on Women last week, some 15 presidents spent two hours discussing how their campuses should respond to the problem. “There was a great deal of passion and an understanding that higher education exists in a context that will be very charged after the hearings,” said Donna Shavlik, director of the council’s Office of Women. The council may release new papers on sexual harassment, Ms. Shavlik said, “because it is time to revisit the issue.”
Elsewhere, some colleges, such as the University of Oklahoma, where Ms. Hill is a law professor, quickly put together special forums to examine the issue, while others are taking a closer look at their policies on sexual harassment.
Mary Gray, a professor of mathematics and statistics and chairwoman of the faculty senate at American University, said her institution would consider a revision of its student-conduct code as a result of the hearings.
In particular, Ms. Gray said, the university will examine procedural protections for students accused of misconduct as well as the question of whether the university should act as a prosecutor when a student is responsible for inappropriate sexual behavior. “Both of those things have been sharply outlined in the Thomas hearings,” Ms. Gray said.
Another issue raised by the hearings, Ms. Gray said, is the protection that colleges offer employees or faculty members accused of sexual harassment. Many campuses have elaborate procedures for dismissing faculty members, but sometimes colleges shortcut those policies when the charge is sexual harassment, she said.
“A number of people have complained to the national office of the American Association of University Professors about being disciplined or dismissed without being given due process,” said Ms. Gray, who serves as chairwoman of the association’s committee on women. Her advice: “Make sure you have proper procedures and that you follow them.”
Although several university affirmative-action officers say it is too early to tell whether the hearings will result in more sexual-harassment complaints, they say they have fielded more telephone calls and more visits from people who want to talk about the issue.
The affirmative-action office at the University of Minnesota reported that a female employee had called last week to discuss a continuing case of harassment from another employee. “She told me that she had considered making a complaint, but she always talked herself out of it,” said Anne Truax, who handles sexual-harassment complaints at the university. “But then she said, `If Anita Hill is brave enough to come forward, then I should be, too.’ ”
Michele Paludi, the author of Ivory Power: Sexual Harassment on Campus and a professor of psychology at Hunter College, said her class on the psychology of women was dominated last week by discussion of the hearings.
“A lot of students said they didn’t know that what they were experiencing fit the definition of sexual harassment,” said Ms. Paludi, who also coordinates the college’s panel that deals with sexual harassment. “There hasn’t been this connection before.”
At the University of Wisconsin, several articles in last week’s issue of the university’s newspaper were devoted to sexual harassment.
“This puts more attention on what we can do -- follow up on complaints, investigate them, and demand accountability,” said Donna E. Shalala, the university’s chancellor. “Just because Washington doesn’t know how to handle this, doesn’t mean we don’t.”
