Her word against his - analysis of Anita Hill's testimony at the hearings for United States Supreme Court-designate Clarence Thomas; excerpt from David Brock's book 'The Real Anita Hill: The Untold Story' - Cover Story

National Review, May 10, 1993 by David Brock

Is is really just a case of which one you believe? Others testified as well, and the two antagonists' testimonies can be examined for internal consistency. Herewith, a sampling of David Brock's analysis.

Observers of the Clarence Thomas--Anita Hill hearings came away concluding that one of the two--if not both--had lied about whether or not Mr. Thomas had sexually harassed Miss Hill. But no one could be confident that they would ever know who. The absence of documentary evidence turned the hearings into a fascinating but ultimately unsatisfying exercise in speculation on what someone like Miss Hill or Mr. Thomas would or would not have done. Thus the event would be characterized, forevermore, as a case of her word against his.

Yet the truth about whose word was more believable could have been found: it lay in comparing what they said they did with the accounts of other witnesses and various third parties. Clarence Thomas's testimony was fully corroborated by other parties. At this writing, no aspect of his statement has been challenged, in any way by anyone, before, during, or after the hearings--except in Anita Hill's own testimony. When her testimony is scrutinized in a similar fashion, at numerous points where her word can be checked against someone else's or with a written record, her sworn testimony and public statements either conflict with the facts or omit certain incidents entirely.

Why Did She Follow Him?

The question to which the committee devoted more time and attention than any other was why Anita Hill decided to follow Clarence Thomas to the EEOC in May 1982 after he had allegedly sexually harassed her while she worked for him at the Department of Education. For Clarence Thomas's supporters, her decision to follow her victimizer was said to be so incomprehensible that it undermined the entire case that she had been harassed. For Miss Hill's supporters, on the other hand, her move to the EEOC was a symbol of her essential powerlessness. Many victims of harassment, they contended, cannot sacrifice their jobs simply to escape their harassers.

Such speculation about how a typical sexual-harassment victim would have--or should have--behaved obscured the only relevant question: whether Anita Hill had told the truth about her own decision to go to the EEOC. In the opening round of Miss Hill's testimony, Chairman Biden broached the topic:

BIDEN: Can you describe to us how it was that you came to move over to the EEOC with Judge Thomas?

HILL: Well, my understanding of--I did not have much notice that Judge Thomas was moving over to the EEOC. My understanding from him at that time was that I could go with him to the EEOC, that I did not have--since I was his special assistant, that I did not have a position at the Office for Education, but that I was welcome to go with him to the EEOC.

In the Federal Government a career--or Schedule A--employee cannot be fired without cause, unlike a political--or Schedule C--employee. Anita Hill had Schedule A status throughout her government career. Yet when challenged by Senator Arlen Specter, she denied knowing that she had had a career position.

SPECTER: Professor Hill, did you know that, as a Class A attorney, you could have stayed on at the Department of Education?

HILL: No, I did not know at that time.

SPECTER: Did you make an inquiry of his successor, Mr. Singleton, as to what your status would be?

HILL: No, I did not. I'm not even sure that I knew who his successor would be at that time.

At a subsequent point, Senator Leahy pursed the same line of questioning in an effort to help Miss Hill by placing responsibility for her ignorance about her job status on officials of the Education Department.

LEAHY: Now, did anybody tell you that you could stay and have a job at the Department of Education?

HILL: Nobody told me that.

Was it possible that a Yale-educated lawyer would not know whether she was a career employee with job security, or a political appointee whose job would end if Mr. Thomas left the department? According to Phyllis Berry-Myers, who worked at Education and at the EEOC during the same period, it was not.

A new employee would know whether their employment is classified as permanent or temporary, protected or nonprotected, and those kinds of things. Each new employee must sign a form that contains such information, before employment can begin. The document prepared on Anita Hill's first day of employment specified "career tenure."

The strongest evidence refuting Miss Hill's version of the circumstances surrounding her job change came from two people who, because of time pressures, were never called to testify before the Judiciary Committee.

Andrew Fishel was the head of the personnel office in the civil-rights division of the Department of Education during Miss Hill's tenure there. In a interview, he said that when she arrived at the department in late August 1981, he personally briefed her on her status as a Schedule A attorney. A year later, in 1982, Mr. Fishel continued, "we also had a discussion just prior to her leaving and going over the EEOC. . . .She told me she was going over as a Schedule A. She said she liked being a Schedule A because she was not subject to dismissal. . . .She said she was personally and professionally flattered to be going with Thomas, that it was a great career move. She showed no hesitancy."