COLUMN: "Looks Like She Made It"

From Elizabeth Hunt's "One Man's Meat," Spring '92 No doubt about it, the talk was less than we had expected. Given all the hoopla surrounding the event, right up to Judge A. Leon Higginbotham's powerful introduction of Hill, we had hoped for something stirring, challenging, infuriating. Maybe something about Congressional politics. Maybe something about whistle-blowing. Maybe something about Clarence Thomas. But Hill's talk merely focused on the legal definition of harrassment, which is a fairly easy concept to grasp, even to an untrained mind. Hill spoke slowly, underscoring her central points by repeating them and providing historical examples. It might not have been a bad talk, say, at a mandatory high school convocation. But to an audience at a prominent university -- self-selected for its interest in the subject of harrassment in general, and Hill's experiences in particular -- the talk was ineffectual. Maybe we were expecting too much. After all, as my friend pointed out, Hill is neither progressive nor prominent as a legal scholar. But it wasn't her politics or her prominence that led me to expect great things from Anita Hill's talk. It was the image I have of her from the Thomas confirmation hearings. She earned the admiration of millions when she faced Congress and the entire country to testify that Clarence Thomas had repeatedly sexually harrassed her years earlier. She had much to lose from coming forward with her story. The hearings became focused on her professional and personal reputation, her political beliefs, her love life and her feelings about Thomas. Nevertheless, there she sat, composed, cogent and confident, describing her humiliating ordeal in front of the nation's oldest, whitest men, and Thomas himself. No wonder so many of us admire her. Sexual harrassment is not easy to discuss. The costs of going public are extraordinarily high, and there are few -- if any -- rewards. Since I have been at the University, I have heard of dozens of incidents of sexual harrassment, mostly against women graduate students. Sometimes these women were harrassed systematically, over a period of time; others were harrassed once, behind closed office doors, or at holiday parties. Some were physically assaulted, in addition to the harrassment they experienced; others were not. Sexual harrassment takes place in University labs, classrooms and offices, as well as informal off-campus settings. It happens at formal awards ceremonies and on field trips. Perpetrators of sexual harrassment are both married and single, popular and unliked, famous and lowly. They are located in departments all across the University, from the sciences to the humanities to the administration. I could give you names, dates, places and proof. But I'm not going to, because the victims of these offenses -- unlike Anita Hill -- have not chosen to tell their stories publicly. In some cases they have reported the harrassment to their supervisors, department chairs, or to the Ombudsman's Office. In many cases, however, these women only discuss the incidents with their friends and peers, and never tell University officials. Does that make these harrassment victims less courageous than Anita Hill? Less principled? Less commendable? No, it does not. Reporting harrassment is a calculated risk, not a community service. It's not something you do for your health. It's not even something you do simply because you feel it's the right thing to do. It's something you do only when you feel the potential benefits outweigh the all-too-real costs. And that happens very, very rarely. It happened for Anita Hill. She risked a great deal to confront Thomas, but not as much as she would have if she were politically and socially liberal. Her reputation emerged unscathed -- even enhanced -- from the hearings. But that was not because she is a better person than someone else who, say, opposed Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court, or who lived with her lover. Hill came through the Thomas confirmation hearings admirably because nothing has changed when it comes to public discussions of sexual harrassment allegations. Such discussions are still about the victim -- her character, her background, her merit -- not the perpetrator. And Anita Hill was the best possible victim given the circumstances. She never raised her voice or expressed anger, things a harrassment victim should be entitled to do, especially when her motives and credibility are being called into question by men pursuing political advantage and prurient interest. Hill was cooperative, informative and helpful at all times -- and it didn't hurt that she's been a good Republican all her adult life. In terms of social behavior and political belief, Anita Hill was in as good a position as any woman could be to risk bringing harrassment charges against a conservative toady like Clarence Thomas. And it paid off, relatively speaking -- most women would have been dismissed out of hand by Congress, or roasted alive in front of the entire country. So it's not that University victims of harrassment are less courageous than Anita Hill. It's that they face a different cost/benefit ratio than she did. The risks are especially high for graduate students, who are at the beginning of their careers and have to rely on the good will of faculty to promote their professional interests. Furthermore, the odds are stacked against anyone who's considered too intellectually creative, professionally successful, personally assertive, politically ambitious, sexually active, nontraditional, outspoken or feminist. That means that there are very few people left who can launch harrassment charges at prominent men with relative impunity. One of them happens to be a conservative professor at a state law school -- and that doesn't necessarily make her the best spokeswoman for the issue. Elizabeth Hunt is a doctoral candidate in History and Sociology of Science from Bloomington, Indiana. "One Man's Meat" has appeared every two weeks for the last five semesters.