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In November 2016, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) Entered history by becoming the first woman to serve as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a statement on this milestone, she highlighted the influence of Anita Hill, who launched a movement when she testified about Clarence Thomas' sexual harassment in 1991.
"I became a senator in 1992 – the Year of the Woman – and became the first woman to sit on the Judiciary Committee following hearings of Anita Hill. It's a special honor to be the first woman to join this committee, let alone the first Californian, "Feinstein said.
Feinstein was one of four women elected to the Senate in 1992. A record number of women joined the House. Many of them were prompted to change the representation of the predominantly male Congress after Hill's electrifying testimony.
Sexual harassment was still widely reported in women, privately. But Hill has brought it to light. And the images could not be more striking: a young black woman testifying before a committee composed entirely of white men.
The members of the Senate Judiciary Committee could not understand or simply mocked what Hill was talking about. Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) may have better summarized the reaction of Senators to Hill's allegations when he said: "If this sexual harassment, half of the Capitol Hill senators could be charged.
At the time, Joe Biden was the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and could have been Hill's biggest supporter. But, as she has made clear in her memoirs and comments since then, he has let her down. He seemed to do everything possible to be fair to Thomas and never brought women who could have credited Hill's accusations.
The country has made considerable progress on the issue of sexual misconduct. Powerful men like Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer lost their jobs when the women spoke at the #MeToo time.
But in many other ways, very little has changed, even with a woman at the head of the Judiciary Committee.
Twenty-seven years after Thomas, another man on the Supreme Court is facing an allegation of sexual misconduct and seems ready for confirmation. A woman, who remains anonymous, accused Brett Kavanaugh of attempting to sexually assault her while they were both in high school. Kavanaugh denied the allegation.
Feinstein has known about the woman's story since July, and rumors have been circulating on the Capitol for some time. But only on Thursday, after a report in The Intercept on the letter, Feinstein finally acknowledged publicly receiving a letter and forwarding the file to the FBI.
Sources close to Feinstein told the New Yorker that she had been silent about the letter to protect the privacy of the woman, who wants her identity to remain confidential. But other Democrats say Feinstein also seemed reluctant to raise the issue. According to the New Yorker:
A source familiar with the committee's activities said that Feinstein's staff had initially told other Democratic offices that the incident was too remote in the past to warrant public debate, and that Feinstein had "taken it over".
Feinstein also acted in a way that Democrats would do better to focus on legal rather than personal issues in their questions about Kavanaugh. Sources working for other members of the Judiciary Committee said they respected the need to protect the woman's privacy, but did not understand why Feinstein had resisted legitimate questions about the allegation. "We did not understand what the reason was for not informing members about it. It's very strange, "said one of the congressional sources. Another added: "She has received the letter since the end of July. And we all know that.
Feinstein was undoubtedly aware of the risks of mismanagement of a sexual misconduct complaint after what had happened with Biden. But his hesitation reminds us that there is still a large amount, as in 1991.
In a statement released Friday, Hill called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to put in place a fair and neutral process to deal with such complaints. And she also noted how difficult it is for women to come forward.
Gossip, spinning information and media
According to The New Yorker, Kavanaugh's accuser contacted members of Congress – Feinstein and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) – in July about her experience with Kavanaugh. Her appointment rekindled the pain of the incident, which occurred in the 1980s, and she struggled to find out if she should manifest herself.
After talking with Eshoo and Feinstein – and watching Kavanaugh walk toward what seemed like inevitable confirmation – she decided not to go in public.
Call Sarah Silbiger / CQ via Getty Images Brett Kavanaugh faces a confirmation vote on September 20 in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Hill, at first, was reluctant to talk. She had only spoken to a limited number of people about what had happened to her, but as with Kavanaugh's accuser, rumors began to spread in Washington. would vote on Thomas.
Hill was ready to share her story, believing that she had a public duty to give investigators all the information she had. But she did not want a public hearing, she did not want the press to know it, she wanted to make sure there was a sound investigation, and she wanted to know if there were any other accusers.
Hill finally heard Biden's office. But as she wrote in her memoirs, she quickly felt frustrated at not taking her seriously and would not keep her informed of her process, as she had requested. The FBI interviewed her and she wrote a statement that she wanted to accompany any reports written by the agents. Biden staff circulated his statement to committee members without his knowledge. On September 28, about three weeks after Hill heard from a Senate staff member, the committee voted to approve Thomas.
On October 3, Hill received a call from NPR's Nina Totenberg, and the next day she heard Newsday's reporter Tim Phelps, who eventually published publicly identifying articles. After these stories, his life has never been the same.
It was only then that the senators seemed to realize that Hill's story was serious. And even after public outrage, many senators did not seem to know what to do – or thought they could not prevent the nomination from running in the Senate on October 8th.
Hill faced considerable skepticism. Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) Said that a woman who is a victim of sexual harassment "should get angry about it and you should do something and you should complain instead of hanging out long time". In other words, Hill was probably lying because she was not acting as he believed.
Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo) warned that if Hill testified, she would be "injured and destroyed and belittled, harassed and harassed, a real harassment, different from the sexual genre".
Hill faced his harshest treatment during his testimony of Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Who was designated as a Republican Attack Dog in Thomas's defense. But she received very little support from the Democrats.
Without allies on the democratic side
Hill's real advocates were women members of Congress. Barbara Mikulski was the only Democrat woman at the time. But on the day of Thomas's confirmation vote in the Senate, seven female members of the House marched to the Capitol Hill and asked to speak to Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-Maine). They ended up convincing him to delay the vote.
Biden was under pressure from Republicans – primarily, Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.), Thomas's main sponsor. Biden initially wanted a two-week delay, but Danforth convinced him that fairness required that the process move forward faster. Biden scheduled Hill's testimony for October 11 and agreed that the Judiciary Committee would not take another vote before sending Thomas to the Senate on October 15. He also said he would keep questions about Thomas's general sexual behavior. pornography – out of hearings.
"Joe was bent too far to welcome the Republicans, who were going to bring Thomas on the court in hell or at sea," Metzenbaum later told Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, who wrote the report. story of Thomas's fight.
Biden also gave Republicans a big win by agreeing to let Thomas testify both before and after Hill – most importantly, scheduling his response to his claims for 9 pm. on a Friday, when millions of people were listened to for their prime time.
In her 1997 memoir, Hill said she thought Biden had betrayed him. She wrote that three days earlier, Biden had told her by phone that she had "the option to testify whenever I wanted … the first and the last".
[Dianne Feinstein] has dropped the victim, the Senate and the entire country who can now have a 2nd #MeToo justice in the Supreme Court, unless other Democrats take the lead.
Democratic activist
Biden initially planned to have Hill close the hearings. But he succumbed to pressure from Thomas's masters, who threatened that the Supreme Court candidate would hold a press conference saying he had been denied the opportunity to defend himself.
"I have to start with a presumption to give the accused the benefit of the doubt," Biden told the New York Times two days before Hill was about to testify. "I have to seek the truth and I have to ask simple and difficult questions, and in my heart, I know that if this woman tells the truth, it will be almost unfair to her. On the other hand, if I do not ask legitimate questions, I do a great injustice to someone who could be totally innocent. It's a horrible dilemma because you have two lives at stake here.
Biden's most controversial and perhaps most important decision was not to summon the other three women who could have reinforced Hill's claims against Thomas. Although interviews with committee staff were documented, this did not have the same impact as public testimony.
Biden argued that no one was more eager to hear women than him. But one of his principal aides told Mayer and Abramson that it was not true – Biden, like other senators, simply wanted the hearings to be over.
While Biden saw himself as Hill's ally – although he is in a difficult situation – Hill does not see it that way.
"Three women were ready and waiting and were summoned to testify of a similar behavior that they had known or experienced. He failed to call them, "she told HuffPost Live in an interview two years ago. "There were also experts who could have given real information as opposed to misinformation given by the Senate … and helped the public to understand sexual harassment. He failed to call them. "
Feinstein Review
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) Faces criticism for not sharing allegations of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) chairs the Judiciary Committee.
When Kavanaugh was first named, there were a lot of stories about his character. This was a nice carpool dad. An ordinary guy who liked to drink beer and play basketball.
The Democrats largely stayed away from the so-called character problems during his confirmation hearings last week. They looked at his views on abortion, health care, executive power and why Republicans did not allow them to see all the documents from his visit to President George W.'s White House. Bush.
But since these hearings, the attention has changed. In follow-up questions, Senators asked if he had a gambling problem or what he was talking about during an e-mail exchange with friends after a group outing.
Opponents of Kavanaugh say they understand Feinstein's reluctance to speak publicly when the woman accusing him wants to remain confidential. But they are puzzled that she considers that an incident of attempted sexual assault occurred too long ago to be relevant or to be off topic at hearings.
"Dianne Feinstein, What did you think of hell?", Title in a Daily Beast column by liberal writer Michael Tomasky. He blamed the senator for sitting on the allegation for months, noting that she could have shared the demands with her colleagues without revealing the woman's identity.
"There was obviously no eleven-hour strategy to escape the existence of the letter because there was no strategy," said a Democratic activist who requested anonymity to speak frankly. "She has dropped the victim, the Senate and the whole country, who can now have a #MeToo second justice in the Supreme Court, unless other democrats mobilize."
Kevin DeLeon, a Democrat who defied Feinstein in November, said the senator's actions were "a failure of leadership."
"The American people deserve to know why the member of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate waited nearly three months to deliver this exclusion document to the federal authorities and why Senator Feinstein politely protested at the hearing last week without a only content question of Kavanaugh's character, "said DeLeon.
"Senator Feinstein has received information about Judge Kavanaugh through the intermediary of a third party," said a spokesman for Feinstein. "The senator took these allegations seriously and felt that they should be public. However, the woman in question made it clear that she did not want this information to be public. In matters of sexual misconduct, it is essential to protect the identity of the victim when she wishes to remain anonymous, and the senator has done so in this case. "
Although the woman is still anonymous, she faces a similar skepticism from Hill. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) retweeted a tweet that highlighted the allegation as simply another phone game.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), released Friday morning a letter of 65 women in which he said he always saw Kavanaugh treat women with "decency." Similarly, in 1991 Thomas and his character, saying that they had never seen him harass Hill and that they did not believe her anyway.
We still do not know what effect Kavanaugh's latest revelation will have. Senators Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), the Republican Senators considered the most likely to vote against Kavanaugh, have not yet commented on the allegation of aggression.
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) used the fact that the Democrats had not revealed the letter so far as a reason to be skeptical.
"I do not intend to let Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation be blocked because of an 11-hour charge that the Democrats have not seen fit to stand up for longer." of a month, "he said. "The senator in the best position to determine the credibility of these accusations made a conscious decision not to take action against them, and the authorities to whom the charges were directed decided to do nothing either."
And on Friday, the Republicans announced that they would go ahead with the scheduled committee vote on Sept. 20, as if nothing had changed.
Parts of this piece were published on January 12, 2017. Read the full article here.
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