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Speaker 1: up on the Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or at Pushkin dot Fm. A subject so many Americans
Speaker 1: have to confront, sexual harassment. Women were calling and clogging
Speaker 1: the switchboards, the question being asked, just where is that
Speaker 1: line between friendly relations and sexual harassment? It was hard
Speaker 1: to believe it was happening. A Supreme Court nominee on
Speaker 1: the verge of confirmation being called back to answer charges
Speaker 1: that he had once made unwelcome sexual comments to a female.
Speaker 1: Perhaps not ever has so much turned on a single hearing.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of things you need to know
Speaker 1: about how I came to be sitting in front of
Speaker 1: a nationally televised hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on
Speaker 1: October eleventh, nineteen ninety one. First, I crafted a statement
Speaker 1: for the FBI about working with Clarence Thomas at the
Speaker 1: EOC where he sexually harassed me. Then that statement was
Speaker 1: leaked to the press. National Public Radio has learned that
Speaker 1: the woman brought her accusation to the Senate Judiciary Committee
Speaker 1: last month, and finally, after a public outcry, Senator Joe
Speaker 1: Biden subpoenaed me to testify. I had three days notice. Remarkably,
Speaker 1: my legal team somehow came together for one thing. When
Speaker 1: we first talked, it was not even clear they're going
Speaker 1: to do anything. We really didn't know whether they were
Speaker 1: even going to consider it. That's law professor Susan Dela Ross.
Speaker 1: She's an author and she is the director of a
Speaker 1: women's human rights clinic at Georgetown University. Ross is one
Speaker 1: of the women who pioneered the field of sexual harassment law.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until nineteen eighty six that the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: ruled sexual harassment a civil rights violation. Five years later,
Speaker 1: when I testified that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed me,
Speaker 1: it sparked a national conversation, one I never anticipated. Luckily,
Speaker 1: I had Susan Dela Ross as part of my legal team.
Speaker 1: She was the only one of us who had experienced
Speaker 1: with sexual harassment litigation. Somebody on the Senate Judiciary Committee
Speaker 1: called me up and gave me a hypothetical and said,
Speaker 1: would that constitute sexual harassment? And I said, well, yes,
Speaker 1: I thought it would, and he said, can you send
Speaker 1: me a memo that would describe what sexual harassment law
Speaker 1: consists of? And so I said yes, I'd be happy
Speaker 1: to do that, and I sent a memo. And then
Speaker 1: a few days later I got another call, this time
Speaker 1: saying there was an actual person behind this hypothetical. The
Speaker 1: person speaking to me said, would you be willing to
Speaker 1: speak to this person? I said yes, I'd be delighted to.
Speaker 1: Of course, the person behind this hypothetical was me. I'm
Speaker 1: Anita Hill. This is getting even my podcast about equality
Speaker 1: and what it takes to get there. On this show,
Speaker 1: I'll be speaking with people who are improving are imperfect world,
Speaker 1: people who took risks and broke the rules. In the
Speaker 1: last episode, you heard from Sakari Hardnett, one of the
Speaker 1: witnesses who wasn't called to testify at the nine Thomas
Speaker 1: Confirmation hearing. We talked about how being excluded from this
Speaker 1: historic conversation impacted her life and the country in the
Speaker 1: past three decades. In this episode, Susan Dela Ross and
Speaker 1: I try to piece together what else was happening behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, much of which the public has never heard.
Speaker 1: You and I talked on the telephone before my testimony,
Speaker 1: and we were trying to figure out what we were
Speaker 1: going to be stepping into and how we could be heard.
Speaker 1: We had no notice of what was going on. Senator
Speaker 1: Biden called the committee back in session to hear the testimony,
Speaker 1: and he called me, and I haven't written down. On
Speaker 1: October eighth, in nineteen ninety one, I was told that
Speaker 1: I'd be called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yes,
Speaker 1: they announced that there's going to be hearing that they're
Speaker 1: going to ask you to testify, which you didn't know
Speaker 1: before that day. Then you fly to Washington, DC, and
Speaker 1: then the very next morning you start testifying there. I
Speaker 1: was in Washington, DC, and I think we were all
Speaker 1: just shocked by how fast it came about. I was
Speaker 1: sitting in a conference room and that was the first
Speaker 1: time we met face to face, and we were there
Speaker 1: to try to prepare or what was going to be
Speaker 1: happening the following day, which was when they told me
Speaker 1: that I would be called. It's worn in to testify.
Speaker 1: That day, we really didn't know much of anything. We
Speaker 1: didn't know who was going to be talking aside from Thomas.
Speaker 1: We didn't know whether the committee was trying even to investigate.
Speaker 1: Was there ever any real exchange of information about the
Speaker 1: process and how it would work. Not, as far as
Speaker 1: I'm aware. All we were told was that you were
Speaker 1: going to be testified first, and that I got to
Speaker 1: call the night before from someone on Biden staff saying, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we're going to switch it. We're going to start with
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas, which is peculiar to start with Clarence Thomas
Speaker 1: rather than starting with you, who had the account of
Speaker 1: what had happened. And the switching of the order allowed
Speaker 1: for Clarence Thomas to testify on prime time morning TV
Speaker 1: as well, when you know, people are still making their
Speaker 1: way to work and still at home watching, so he
Speaker 1: had a much morolder viewing audience. So it was just
Speaker 1: t J. Yeah. Absolutely, And we knew nothing about information
Speaker 1: they had in their hands, but I gather they had
Speaker 1: refused to tell you well, and the hearing was about
Speaker 1: his character and fitness for the position. There were women
Speaker 1: who said that they had experienced or witnessed harassing behavior,
Speaker 1: and others knew from their own experience that Thomas was
Speaker 1: making sexual advances or using the office to assassin women
Speaker 1: who worked at the EOC for their sexual availability to him,
Speaker 1: and so there was much that could have been admitted
Speaker 1: in terms of witnesses, and I'm particularly struck about the
Speaker 1: lack of willingness to hear from those those women who
Speaker 1: had experienced something similar or even other experiences that went
Speaker 1: to Thomas's character and his fitness for the position. Did
Speaker 1: you know about those women? No, I didn't know a thing.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of us did. We didn't learn
Speaker 1: it until after the fact that there are other women
Speaker 1: who worked at the EOC who reported a similar experience.
Speaker 1: I only found it out when I read the transcript
Speaker 1: of everything after the hearing. That was my first time,
Speaker 1: and I was so astounded to see how closely their
Speaker 1: accounts mirrored exactly what you had said. But that was
Speaker 1: kept from the country. The country never knew that, and
Speaker 1: it was the chairman who basically said, we're not going
Speaker 1: to hear from the witnesses without explaining what they would
Speaker 1: have testified to. So the committee kept them from testifying.
Speaker 1: They didn't allow Sukari Hartnett to testify. They did put
Speaker 1: it in the record, but nobody knew what it said,
Speaker 1: and that was because the committee didn't write a report.
Speaker 1: Committees always write a report after they do their work
Speaker 1: before forwarding it to the full Senate for a vote.
Speaker 1: But there was no committee report assessing the reliability the
Speaker 1: credibility of you of him. People were left to try
Speaker 1: to piece together what they had seen, which was a
Speaker 1: totally incomplete set of facts. So there was very clear evidence.
Speaker 1: The media never reported it on afterwards. They shut it
Speaker 1: down once he was confirmed. So many of the senators
Speaker 1: they just were trying to get rid of it. They
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk about it, they didn't want to
Speaker 1: explore it, they didn't think it was relevant, they didn't care.
Speaker 1: So the general public has never come to learn exactly
Speaker 1: what the evidence was that corroborated everything you said. After
Speaker 1: the break, Susan Deller Roth and I posed the question,
Speaker 1: what if what if the hearings hadn't been so poor
Speaker 1: handled in nineteen ninety one, What if we had all
Speaker 1: the information available, What if the public had been offered
Speaker 1: a better understanding of sexual harassment during the hearing? Where
Speaker 1: would we be today? You're listening to getting even my
Speaker 1: podcast about equality and what it takes to get there.
Speaker 1: I'm Anita Hill, and I'm talking with Susan Deller Ross
Speaker 1: the only member of my nineteen ninety one legal team
Speaker 1: with experience and sexual harassment law. Do you think that
Speaker 1: people had any real awareness even after the nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: six decision by the Supreme Court that sexual harassment was
Speaker 1: in fact a violation of a law. No. I think
Speaker 1: people were very confused by it. Initially, the courts didn't
Speaker 1: treat it as an employment discrimination issue at all. They
Speaker 1: saw it as sexual activity, and it was sort of
Speaker 1: a boys will be boys. What can you expect? And
Speaker 1: because the facts are often really atrocious, there's a tendency
Speaker 1: in media not to cover what really goes on in
Speaker 1: these cases. I remember hearing people saying, Oh, I want
Speaker 1: to be sexually harassed. You don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: When you say something like that, well you don't, And
Speaker 1: I think you're right. It's a focus on sex and
Speaker 1: not even sexual but on sex itself and that being
Speaker 1: something normal and overlooking the term harassment. And even the
Speaker 1: day when people think about sexual harassment, many people still
Speaker 1: think that we're just talking about words, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about verbal exchanges and not the psychological and off and
Speaker 1: physical harm that is going on in the workplace. And
Speaker 1: certainly if we have that today. In nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: when we sort of jumped into the scene in the
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas case, there was so much confusion. I think
Speaker 1: the country would have been even further ahead if it
Speaker 1: had gotten some real explanation of what sexual harassment consists
Speaker 1: of at the time. Now, I think there was never
Speaker 1: less progress, but maybe not as much progress as might
Speaker 1: have happened if there had been a real attempt to
Speaker 1: grapple with the issue at hand. One of the things
Speaker 1: I think really happened was a there were a lot
Speaker 1: of women who were very, very upset about how you
Speaker 1: were treated, and that convinced a lot of women to
Speaker 1: run for office. President Bush, Senor had been vieting a
Speaker 1: proposed bill that would expand Title seven to allow victims
Speaker 1: of sexual harassment to get damages. After the hearings, he
Speaker 1: finally signed because of the pressure of the Republican Party
Speaker 1: was under for having supported sexual harasser from the women
Speaker 1: who'd been horrified by watching what had happened. There was
Speaker 1: publicity around the world about sexual harassment, So I think
Speaker 1: if we'd been able to have a full presentation of
Speaker 1: what actually happened, with all the sources of evidence that
Speaker 1: were relevant, to the issue, people would have had a
Speaker 1: better understanding it and gone forward. But nevertheless, it did
Speaker 1: make progress, you know. But the fact that there was
Speaker 1: an impact shows to me one how people were interested
Speaker 1: and they needed to know the information. But it also
Speaker 1: indicates to me that there was a lost opportunity, that
Speaker 1: there was a powerful platform out there that could have
Speaker 1: become a model for how to do this right. We
Speaker 1: might have avoided some things in the future, and by
Speaker 1: the future, I mean between now in nineteen ninety one
Speaker 1: thirty years or so, you know, we might have learned
Speaker 1: some lessons that could have been put in place. And
Speaker 1: I think about all these what ifs. If there had
Speaker 1: been a different kind of investigation by a different body
Speaker 1: than the FBI or expert witnesses had been allowed, if
Speaker 1: there had been less disinformation or information shared so that
Speaker 1: people could respond, we could respond to without this certainly
Speaker 1: overwhelming number of witnesses that they had. I had wonderful
Speaker 1: witnesses stop up for me to confirm what I had
Speaker 1: said to them during the time was exactly what I
Speaker 1: was testifying to. And certainly, of course the fact that
Speaker 1: the other women weren't called might have made a difference.
Speaker 1: But there are still things that are nagging me personally.
Speaker 1: You know, I wonder had nine been handled differently, whether
Speaker 1: Christine Blasi Fords testimony would have resonated stronger, or whether
Speaker 1: the Kavanaugh hearing might have been structured differently. Right, I
Speaker 1: had the same feeling of dejan view, here we go again.
Speaker 1: You know, they're keeping out relevant evidence, doing everything they
Speaker 1: can to shut down what's actually happened. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask you, what is that one lesson that we
Speaker 1: should have learned from nineteen ninety one. Well, I think
Speaker 1: it is the importance of really trying to find out
Speaker 1: what happened and being willing to get the unpleasant details
Speaker 1: out in the open so that people understand what's happening.
Speaker 1: Because the basic problem over and over and the hearings
Speaker 1: was a failure to put on all the relevant evidence.
Speaker 1: There was an instead of an attempt to keep out
Speaker 1: relevant evidence to shut it down. And unless you can
Speaker 1: hear everything that bears on the credibility of what the
Speaker 1: key parties are saying, there's no chance of finding out
Speaker 1: the truth. Finding out the truth isn't about finger pointing
Speaker 1: or vindication. It's about giving us a starting point for
Speaker 1: trying to make things right. As we wrapped up our conversation,
Speaker 1: Ross reminded me of another memory from a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Just a few weeks after the hearing, we went to
Speaker 1: a conference of women elected in offices across the country.
Speaker 1: It was a delegation of state legislators, state women legislators
Speaker 1: from around the country. We walked in with Anita leading
Speaker 1: the way, and suddenly all the women rows, and they
Speaker 1: had pink napkins, and they waved the napkins in the air,
Speaker 1: and there was just this round of applause for Anita.
Speaker 1: Such a contrast with what we had faced on the
Speaker 1: Senate committee, with all those white men one side overtly hostile,
Speaker 1: the other side sitting quietly and doing nothing. It had
Speaker 1: gotten me through the winter. You know, I admire you
Speaker 1: so much for the courage you displayed and standing up
Speaker 1: and doing what was right, and in your dedication to
Speaker 1: these issues over the years ever since. Prior to the
Speaker 1: Thomas Confirmation hearing, many people didn't know that sexual harassment
Speaker 1: was illegal. Now they do, in part because of the
Speaker 1: hearing in nineteen ninety one. But knowing that the law
Speaker 1: exists isn't enough to get equality. Victims and their allies
Speaker 1: to know how to use the law. One thing that
Speaker 1: struck me after speaking with Susan Deller Ross and Sakari Hardnett,
Speaker 1: one of the witnesses who wasn't called to testify at
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety one Thomas confirmation hearing, is that even
Speaker 1: though the process was imperfect, they both said that they
Speaker 1: would do it again. I feel the same way. I
Speaker 1: never set out to get mired in a Supreme Court
Speaker 1: confirmation hearing, but what I did set out to do,
Speaker 1: way back before I ever met Clarence Thomas, was to
Speaker 1: tell the truth and to make our country a more
Speaker 1: just place. In the rest of the series, I'll be
Speaker 1: talking to other people who, like Hardnett and Ross, have
Speaker 1: taken risks to make equality more possible, more tangible, people
Speaker 1: who I believe we should all be listening to. Next,
Speaker 1: I speak with Kimberly Crenshaw, who coined the terms intersectionality
Speaker 1: and critical race theory. Race reform has in this country
Speaker 1: always been met with a backlash, and sometimes the backlash
Speaker 1: was more powerful and lasted longer than the reform. Jet
Speaker 1: Getting Even is a production of Pushkin Industries and is
Speaker 1: written and hosted by me Anita Hill. It is produced
Speaker 1: by Molaboard and Brittany Brown. Our editor is Sarah Kramer,
Speaker 1: our engineer is Amanda kay Wang, and our showrunner is
Speaker 1: Sasha Matthias. Louis Garat composed original music for the show.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Mia Lobel and Letal malad. Our
Speaker 1: Director of Development is Justine Lane. At Pushkin thanks to
Speaker 1: Heather Fame, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barden, John Schnars,
Speaker 1: and Jacob Weisberg. You can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Anita Hill and on Facebook at Anita Hill. You can
Speaker 1: find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods, and
Speaker 1: you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot
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