Letters to the Editor
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Long history of deliberate Republican discrimination
In early 1981, a few months after Reagan took office, I visited with a former employee who was then working as a Title VII attorney for EEOC. She told me a rather disturbing story about her boss, an African-American Republican who had received numerous sexual harassment complaints about a career African American Republican supervising attorney in the office. She said her boss, instead of responding appropriately to those complaints, merely transferred the accused harasser to Maryland to save his job and pension. She also told me about the Commission's lack of support for a case she had brought against a major U.S. employer. She eventually settled the case immediately prior to trial for a record amount for Title VII cases, despite her employer's disdain for the case. She left soon afterward.
It wasn't until Clarence Thomas was nominated for the Supreme Court eight years later that I realized whom she was complaining about. I called her and she told me that reporters had contacted her after allegations by Anita Hill were publicized. Based on her impression of Thomas's style displayed soon after his 1981 appointment, she felt that Hill's story might well be credible.
A previous poster of comments seems surprised by the depths to which the Bush Administration has wallowed. It shouldn't surprise anyone that we should have regulators of irresponsible and dangerous industries installed who are coming from those very industries. It shouldn't surprise anyone that we are getting Federal judges whose loyalty is to the Federalist Society, rather than the Constitution. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the Bush Administration and its hacks and lackeys are constitutionally incapable of acting fairly or telling the truth. They are determined to wreck the checks and balances in our system of government.
The situation with the prospective appointment of Bush's chosen EEOC Commissioner is entirely consistent with his agenda to place corporations and reactionary entities and individuals in every possible position of power. That the current nominee is hostile to the very purpose of Title VII is not at all surprising, nor is should it raise eyebrows that a deal has been offered that will keep the controversy out of the press.
It will take decades to undo this Administration's maliciousness, if it is at all possible in any of our lifetimes.