What the Senators Failed to Understand : Harassment: When it’s done by minority men to minority women, there’s the added burden of ethnic loyalty.

We had planned the reunion for some time: three Chicanas, each of us with a Ph.D., all of us sworn to forget the world and spend the weekend eating nachos, drinking beer and watching soap operas.

What we hadn’t planned was that the reunion would occur during the televised Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Prof. Anita F. Hill’s sexual-harassment charges against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

The timing was ironic. Each of us had suffered sexual harassment as graduate students. As Chicanas with doctoral degrees, we were a tiny minority of a minority, all strong-willed, determined women: a university administrator, a forensic psychologist and a professor. We might be called opinionated, “arrogant” women; nobody’s victim--the same words used to smear Hill’s character, trying to make it sound impossible that she would tolerate a harasser.

Yet none of us ever filed charges against our harassers. One never even told her spouse, saying that he would blame her for her own victimization. She eventually developed severe medical problems but, much like Hill, followed her boss from graduate school to employment and continued to endure harassment for another few years. A fighter for women’s rights in the workplace and society, my friend would fall apart in private. We took on the world, but ignored ourselves.

I suppose my harassment wasn’t bad by comparison. I endured crude jokes. He, too, had a hard time taking “no” for an answer. He, too, insisted he was my “type.”

We did try to avoid or neutralize our harassers, but we never filed formal grievances. Like Hill, we simply wanted the behavior to stop. Like Hill, we felt we had no effective recourse. After all, it was 10 years ago and sexual harassment was still foreign terminology. Like Hill, we were in our early 20s.

We stayed glued to the television for the whole weekend, forgetting the trip to the beach and the facials. We drank beer and bottled water, ate nachos and watched the hearings, which were more riveting than any soap opera. We cursed, yelled, cheered as we watched the charade: 14 white male senators “seeking” truth. We understood Hill’s pain and profound dignity. We understood her silence.

During recesses we discussed the means by which women--particularly minority women--are socialized to remain silent, particularly when the one harassing you is “one of your own.” Each of us felt the added burden of ethnic loyalty. After all, much of what characterized the civil-rights movement rested on the belief that the battle against racism was the real struggle. Only race counted in the struggle for equality, our male leaders proclaimed. We were often chastised that talk of sexism divided the movement.

It was a double bind. We were keenly aware that the university--as does society--treats minority men unfairly. Twice a minority, our own burden was doubled. Just as minority women are much less likely to file rape charges against their assailants, so too are minority women less likely to file sexual-harassment claims. We knew that if we blew whistles, we “special admit” affirmative-action candidates would be blamed for ruining promising careers. Wouldn’t it reflect badly on all Chicanos? Wouldn’t they simply replace him with someone worse?

We endured. We earned our doctorates.

When Anita Hill spoke, she spoke for us. Though most of America, according to public opinion polls, failed to believe her, we turned off our sets at midnight Sunday holding full confidence in what this dignified, proud woman dared to say. All of patriarchal, racist America heard her, even if it chose to remain dumb to her words.

Afterward, I felt anger; I felt relief. I knew a heavy weight had been lifted. But I also know, from the tone of the hearings and from Tuesday’s Senate vote confirming Clarence Thomas, that heavier ones remain.