PERSPECTIVES ON SEXUAL HARASSMENT : It Looks Like Principle, Smells of Politics : Questions about Thomas were certainly spirited. Where was that passion on the William Kennedy Smith rape case?

Maybe I’m missing something. Or maybe I’m out of step with the male gender. It’s a family tradition, you see. I have one childhood memory of spouse abuse. A fellow on the far side of the alley slapped his wife around and forever after my father has referred to him as “the jerk,” a term spoken with bottomless contempt. Dad never spoke with him again.

I guess that as a man I am supposed to view the verbal or physical abuse of women as some sort of sport. But I don’t, and I do not know anyone who does. Not that I’ve grown up in a monastery. My friends include cops, FBI agents, soldiers and sailors, even reporters. I know at least one very senior cop who went to see “The Silence of the Lambs” only with reluctance because he finds crimes against women and children particularly disturbing. This is all the more odd because my friend is anything but politically correct.

Is that what the latest development in the Clarence Thomas affair is all about?

The judge has been accused of verbal harassment, of speaking to a fellow worker--a female lawyer turned professor of law--with heavy sexual innuendo. If true, he is ipso facto disqualified from sitting on the Supreme Court. In a very real sense the issue of character is the only issue that matters in public life. I do not believe that one can separate personal conduct from public performance; doing so only gives substance to hypocrisy, and that is indeed a lamentable characteristic of public life.

But an accusation is not proof. There is ample precedent for the enlightened belief that a man or woman is innocent until proved guilty.

Or does political correctness affect this aspect of justice also?

On the face of it, the accusations against Thomas appear curious insofar as after his vile transgressions, Anita Hill reportedly maintained contact with him, even followed him from one federal agency to another and waited 10 years to make her accusations public. Those facts seem incongruous, and they must be explained in full if Hill’s accusations are to carry any weight.

Most remarkable of all, however, is the outrage of the press and the female members of Congress who have spoken out on the issue. Men do not understand what this issue is all about!

Oh, really?

I have three daughters. Were someone to abuse one of them, I would not be especially pleased. I might, in fact, become quite passionate about it. I have female friends, and were I to learn that someone had abused them--well, in fact there was such a case. When she came to me for advice I nearly screamed at her that she had to notify the appropriate law-enforcement agencies, lest the worm hurt someone else. She did, and the transgressor is being dealt with.

But what of similar cases? Where, for example, is the outrage in the press in the case of William Kennedy Smith? As reported in the media, what we have is the case of a young woman who claims to have been raped, and who reported the incident to the police almost immediately. Evidently, the police responded in a timely and professional manner. Upon arriving at the Kennedy compound in Palm Beach, Fla., they asked to see Sen. Edward Kennedy and were told--falsely--by his bodyguard that he had left for Washington. It was later explained that the bodyguard hadn’t meant to mislead the police. Sure. Subsequently, Smith has had the benefit of a high-priced defense team that has waged its own little publicity campaign. There has been speculation in the media about the victim’s sexual history and proclivities, and the honorable senator is standing by his nephew.

Now, when the accusations appeared against Thomas, the questions from female reporters were certainly spirited. I do not recall, however, similarly passionate inquiries in the Smith rape case. Why is that? Rape is a physical assault, a violation of both the body and soul of the victim. It is, therefore, more serious than any form of verbal abuse. But the same degree of passion was not present, and the political polarity of the issue offers itself as an explanation.

Sen. Kennedy, it will be remembered, left a young woman to drown once upon a time. That also is more serious than verbal harassment, but Kennedy is the “conscience of the Senate,” a champion of women’s rights, and even his clever avoidence of the police in the Smith rape case failed to draw a passionate response from the media. One wonders how well he will fare when Smith’s defense team gets the victim on the stand and asks if she really asked for it, went looking for it, encouraged Smith, liked it and then changed her mind, and so forth. Will the media be outraged by that? On the basis of history, I suspect not.

One is left with the conclusion that politics has again taken precedence over principle here. More disheartening indeed is that the very reporters whose passion was so visibly aroused by a 10-year-old complaint of verbal harassment failed to display a fraction of the outrage in a case of an alleged sexual felony committed only a few months ago, not to mention a wrongful-death case of longer standing.

It’s a simple principle, really. The law is supposed to be the same for everyone. Right and wrong are supposed to be the same for everyone. A wrongful act committed against an innocent victim is wrong by its very nature, and the persons involved are irrelevant. We have trials and legal procedures as a means of testing the facts and finding the truth. The insertion of any extraneous consideration into that equation damages us all, and the innocent suffer along with the guilty. Violation of that principle hurts everyone.

If the charges against Thomas are quashed, then the high profile of the incident will for years devalue any such accusation against a public figure--or for that matter, nearly anyone. In other words, unless the charges against Thomas can be substantiated, the Senate is obligated to confirm him, else no person’s character will ever be safe against unfounded accusations, and even members of Congress may have the wit to grasp that. Worse still, if Hill cannot make a case for her charges, then other women with complaints will suffer for it. Rather a large price to pay for political gain, isn’t it? If that’s what this is all about.

Thomas will have his day in court--well, not exactly. He’ll be judged by a jury, some of whose members despise him for his politics, and one of whom leaked this story to the media. The proceedings will be covered by a press that manifestly saves its outrage for the politically correct moment. Will Thomas’ trial be a fair one? Of course it will.