Yes, there are distinct parallels between the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas and those of Brett Kavanaugh. Now comes the parallel that no one anticipated. Just as Clarence Thomas’ hearings were upended by Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual misconduct, so may Brett Kavanaugh’s.
Here is the story in Kavaugh’s case: “ . . . a woman wrote a letter in July to her Congress member, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), alleging that when she and Kavanaugh were in high school in the early 1980s, he attempted to sexually assault her at a party. Kavanaugh attended Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda, Maryland, and graduated in 1983, while the woman went to a neighboring school.
At the party, the woman said Kavanaugh held her down and covered her mouth with his hand, and that he and a classmate turned up the music in the room to drown out her voice. The woman said the experience caused her ongoing pain and that she had sought psychological treatment as a result.
“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation,” Kavanaugh said in a statement to the New Yorker. “I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”
In Thomas’ case, here was the story: “In 1991, after Thomas was nominated, Hill told friends that he had harassed her when she worked for him at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, . . . . Specifically, Hill said that Thomas had repeatedly subjected her to unwanted sexual comments, telling her about porn he watched and his sexual behavior, and making a joke about a pubic hair on a Coke can.”
There are clear differences. Clarence Thomas was Anita Hill’s boss. Her accusations were about unwanted sexual comments. Brett Kavanaugh was only a teenager, but he worked with a friend and engaged in physical sexual violence.
The real question is whether this incident demonstrates an antipathy by Kavanaugh towards women’s rights or a willingness to partake in illegal acts.
The real question is whether this incident demonstrates an antipathy by Kavanaugh towards women’s rights or a willingness to partake in illegal acts.
When Anita Hill testified, Joe Biden, the head of the Senate committee, did not permit the calling of supporting witnesses. But in the Brett Kavanaugh situation, there may be written evidence supporting the accuser’s story. This is because she sought psychological treatment, which means that a psychologist or psychiatrist must have taken notes.
Although the accusation against Kavanaugh cannot be lightly dismissed, the bad actions of a teenage boy should not automatically result in a vote against Kavanaugh, even if the acts constituted a crime. The real question is whether this incident demonstrates an antipathy by Kavanaugh towards women’s rights or a willingness to partake in illegal acts.
For example, if Kavanaugh had a life-long record of actively supporting women’s actions – if he had written scholarly articles in support of Roe v. Wade – one could readily believe that his actions as a teenager did not reflect his attitude towards the law. Those actions could be dismissed as ones of a young man at a party.
However, in the present case Kavanaugh in his testimony has been careful not to take a position favoring women’s rights. Moreover, there has been no evidence to support a claim that women’s rights are important to him. Therefore, his sexual abuse as a teenager can be fairly read as reflecting his attitude in this important area of the law.
Given the above, one can only hope that the accuser sees fit to come forward publicly and make her written accusation part of the record. Personally, I hope that there really are written records showing that she had psychological treatment as a result of what Kavanaugh did. This would make her accusations impossible to dismiss.
I also hope that we have learned from the Clarence Thomas affair that evidence of bad acts can be important. Clarence Thomas was appointed as a Supreme Court justice despite Anita Hill’s accusations. And over thirty years he has proven himself, again and again, to be one of the worst appointees in the history of the Supreme Court. Let us not make the same mistake again.
Michael T. Hertz
Bill Eisen says
September 18, 2018 at 12:04 amAnyone watching the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings must have come away scratching their head. Kavanaugh seems to have an uncanny memory of case law which enabled him to answer almost every question with a quote from a case. But when asked a simple question like did you have any contact with any of Trump’s attorneys about the Mueller investigation he seemed totally perplexed by the question.
So let’s see how he does on Monday. I’d like to see him answer questions like since his accuser submitted to a lie detector test then why aren’t you willing to submit to one as well. It’s unfortunate that more of Kavanaugh’s record working for Ken Starr and the Bush White House wasn’t produced so that we could get a better idea of what this nominee is about.
Tom Hall says
September 17, 2018 at 4:33 pmThanks for an important commentary. We read so much about grand concepts, justifying actions that would destroy the concepts.
Sex is an important reality in human life, even if some people want us to exclude it from the workplace or other parts of life. It’s bleakly humorous that so many people want to ban sex from the workplace, while seemingly all Fundagelicals want to ban it from private bedrooms. But we can’t ban sexual differences, or sexual feelings from either place.
What we can to is figure out and implement rules for making workplaces, play places, family places and private places more accommodating to all people, including women who have long been the subjects of discrimination, harassment and abuse in all of those places. And let’s not leave out children, who should be able to feel safe everywhere, even in Catholic Cathedrals.
We have some rules. One important rule has been that every person is innocent until / unless proven guilty. But according to many people today, sex is so much more important that the rule of law, that an accusation of sexual misconduct should be treated the same as a conviction. No need for trial or presentation of evidence. According to them, we should abandon the notion of due process.
What Kavanaugh stands accused of is very bad behavior. His eager supporters want him to be acquitted without the bother of any exploration of the evidence for or against the accusation. Some of his detractors want him to be convicted without the bother of any exploration of the evidence. Such agreed positions, that the presumption of innocence should be discarded over a “higher principle,” serves only those who eagerly seek an end to the principle – and maybe to the rule of law.
As we all clamor to watch the salacious arguments about what Kavanaugh may have done as a drunken teen, let us not loose sight of the fact that in his writings, he has been CLEAR, he thinks that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be reversed. He wants to be appointed to a court from which he could vote to reverse Roe v. Wade.
AND, during his confirmation hearing, he stated clearly that he does not / will not distinguish between abortion and contraception. In his mind, and thus in his Supreme Court voting, both sex-related activities are equally bad, evil and both should be outlawed.
Kavanaugh is a profoundly regressive Republican politician. He wants to do away with things that our laws have evolved to allow, over recent decades: Pollution controls; Non-white Voting rights; Personal rights to control one’s body. A kavanaugh “justice” would be a clear and constant danger even to such “settled” rulings as Brown v. Board of Education.
We should not support the current Republican push for an end to the rule of law by demanding Kavanaugh’s head on a platter without any right to due process. Due process is ALWAYS an enemy to the forces of right wing corporatism. Let us demand that there be a full evidential exploration of his past conduct, and of it’s relevance to his current nomination for the Supreme Court. Let that evidential record stand, for all to see, whether or not his nomination is confirmed.