Harvard Scholars Consider Clarence Thomas Hearings

In offices, classrooms and faculty lounges throughout academia, scholars are struggling with the legacy of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.

Some professors say the hearings have been a positive force in publicizing the issue of sexual harassment. They say that despite the handling of the case and regardless of the final outcome, people's consciousnesses have been raised.

"It has gotten people talking about sexual harassment," says Susan R. Suleiman, professor of Romance languages and comparative literature. "It was worth doing even given the way politics works and the manipulations and the general hostility towards these stories."

"I find something positive even in the defeat of the woman," she says.

During the hearings, Georgetown University Professor Nancy Sherman circulated a petition in support of Hill among women academics across the country. About 700 scholars signed the petition, which said that sexual harassment was a problem at American universities that needs to be addressed.

"There was enormous identification with Anita Hill's testimony," says Sherman. "The issue of sexual harassment is one which many of us have dealt with on a personal level. We have been sexually harassed or know of others who have been."

Sherman, who received her Ph.D. from Harvard's Philosophy Department in 1982, has formed an ad-hoc group of scholars that will continue to press lawmakers for action on issues of sexual harassment. She says much still needs to be done to get more complaints filed and for them to be taken seriously.

"Because of personal reprisal...it is common for victims not to report the incident," she says. "Very few women can have their cases successfully litigated. The odds are against you, and the costs are high."

Barbara E. Johnson, chair of the Women's Studies Department, says that Hill's explicit testimony and description of events helped people identify with the experience.

"The quality of her testimony made it vivid what it [sexual harassment] is, how it feels, how familiar and common it is," Johnson says.

Johnson says she believes that the hearings may serve to decrease the extent that women are subject to sexual harassment.

"Today, people feel the victim has power," says Johnson. "That may be enough to stop some people."

In addition, others say, those who have been harassed in the past may have learned how to address their complaints under current processes.

"If it teaches people how to file complaints and what to file, then in fact many more complaints would come forward and more women would be defending their rights to work in a decent environment," says Terry L. Karl, associate professor of political science at Stanford University and a former Harvard scholar who was sexually harassed here in the early 1980s.

But the Thomas hearings may have convinced some women that coming forward is a dangerous prospect, says Abby E. Zanger, assistant professor of Romance languages and comparative literature. "One big message is you shouldn't come forward," Zanger says. "It was sort of like a rape case. The victim is always on the stand."

Scholars interviewed are united in their condemnation of the Senate's procedure and say that the case was turned into a circus.

"Recent events were saddening," says Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles. "I wish the process could have been followed in a way less wrenching for everybody."