[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Is it wrong for the wife of a sexual harasser to contact his victim and ask her to apologize for reporting the harassment?
The conservative activist wife of Clarence Thomas doesn’t think so.
[quote]Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, recently contacted Brandeis University professor Anita Hill, who had accused Thomas of sexual harassment 19 years ago . . .
Hill had received a message on her voicemail at work that said, “Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”
Hill told ABC News, “I have no intention of apologizing, and I stand by my testimony in 1991.”[/quote]
usatoday.com/news/washington … 0_ST_N.htm
Maybe Ginni should apologize first, for being such a c#nt. :loco:[/quote]
You don’t necessarily need to be a “c#nt” or “conservative activist” to believe that Judge Thomas was falsely accused. From the sworn testimony by Judge Thomas’s female colleagues at the DOE:
[quote]TESTIMONY OF LORI SAXON
Ms. SAXON. I worked at the Department of Education in the Office for Civil Rights from September 1981 until September 1982. I was 24 years old at the time. I was the confidential assistant to Clarence Thomas. In that capacity, I handled congressional relations and public affairs. My office was just down the hall fromAnita Hill’s during her tenure at the Department of Education. I never saw any harassment go on in the office. The office was run very professionally. Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill were
always very cordial and friendly in their relations. There was never any evidence of any harassment toward any of the female employees. I dealt with Anita Hill on a daily basis in performing my duties. She was happy in her position and she liked working for Clarence Thomas. Anita Hill never indicated to me that he was harassing her. Clarence Thomas generally left the door of his office open, so if he had any meeting with Hill or any other employees, they were in view. He operated with an open-door policy with every member of the staff, regardless of gender. I never saw him meet in private with a female employee, without someone else present. Unless it was a group meeting and there were many staffers present, the door would be open and his secretary would be right outside the door. Anita Hill was the only special assistant who accompanied Clarence Thomas to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, upon his appointment in August of 1982. Anita told me that she
was very excited about the opportunity to work for the Chairman of the EEOC. She related to me that she was pleased that Clarence was taking her with him. I believe Anita Hill’s statements that she felt pressures to accompany Clarence Thomas to EEOC, because of fears of losing her job, are simply untrue. I and the rest of the senior staff of the Office for Civil Rights found other positions within a few months. That is how the process of being a political appointee worked. I was Clarence Thomas’ confidential assistant for a year. My job required that I meet with him at least once a day. He never made an inappropriate advance, uttered an off-color remarks, or used coarse language in my presence. I was younger and more politically active than Anita Hill. I introduced him to my friends in Washington,
the political community and very social settings. I was the first person to bring and introduce him to a luncheon with Thomas Sowell and others at the Capitol Hill Club. During this entire period, he never made any inappropriate actions toward me or any other female with whom I saw him.
I understand what women in this country go through in the area of sexual harassment. There is no place for sexual harassment in the workplace. I experienced perhaps a different kind of harassment, by being a victim of a violent crime. I know what it is to have one’s face violated. I know what it feels like to feel helpless and humiliated. Let me assure you in no uncertain terms that no harassment took place in the workplace at the Office for Civil Rights.
TESTIMONY OF PATRICIA C. ALTMAN
My name is Nancy Altman. I consider myself a feminist. I am prochoice. I care deeply about women’s issues. In addition to working with Clarence Thomas at the Department of Education, I shared an office with him for 2 years in this building. Our desks were a few feet apart. Because we worked in such close quarters,
I could hear virtually every conversation for 2 years that Clarence Thomas had. Not once in those 2 years did I ever hear Clarence Thomas make a sexist or offensive comment, not once. I have myself been the victim of an improper, unwanted sexual advance by a supervisor. Gentlemen, when sexual harassment occurs, other women in the workplace know about it. The members of the committee seem to believe that when offensive behavior occurs in a private room, there can be no witnesses. This is wrong. Sexual harassment occurs in an office in the middle of the workday. The victim is in a public place. The first person she sees immediately after the incident is usually the harasser’s secretary. Coworkers, especially women, will notice an upset expression, a jittery manner, a teary or a distracted air, especially if the abusive behavior is occurring over and over and over again. Further, the women I know who have been victimized always shared the experience with a female coworker they could trust. They do this to validate their own experience, to obtain advice about options that they may pursue, to find out if others have been similarly abused, and to receive comfort. Friends outside the workplace make good comforters, but cannot meet the other needs. It is not credible that Clarence Thomas could have engage in the kinds of behavior that Anita Hill alleges, without any of the women who he worked closest with—dozens of us, we could spend days having women come up, his secretaries, his chief of staff, his other assistants, his colleagues—without any of us having sensed, seen or heard something.[/quote]