Hearing Echoes of Thomas-Hill Standoff--a Year Later

One year ago today, the subject of this column was the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill standoff. Bank on this: When the ‘90s are over and the historians chronicle the most important stories of the decade, Thomas-Hill still will be in the Top 10.

It wasn’t as though people had never heard of sexual harassment before. In fact, I spent most of the next day on the telephone with Orange County women who described their own experiences with male superiors in the workplace, ranging from the military to churches to schools to private business. In some cases, the women had almost forgiven and forgotten; in others, the retelling of the incidents still left them chilled.

That was why the Thomas-Hill episode reverberated so loudly--rather than involving an anonymous shadowy accuser and an inconsequential boss, the alleged scenario involved a respected professional woman and a U.S. Supreme Court nominee. As a result, the country--whether it fully believed Anita Hill’s story or not--came to grips with the fact that such behavior could occur even among the upper tiers of the social strata.

And here we are a year later, with a local “he said/she said” scandal nearing a full boil. Again, it pits men in high places and holding the public trust--Newport Beach Police Chief Arb Campbell and one of his top assistants, Capt. Anthony Villa--against professional women under their charge.

Originally, the charges against Campbell were passive--namely, that he had condoned good friend Villa’s alleged improper behavior. But with Thursday’s new charges by a Newport Beach police dispatcher that both men raped her at a party 11 years ago and threatened her with job retaliation if she reported it, Campbell and Villa, who deny all the charges, are suddenly fighting for their reputations against a much larger backdrop.

What made the charges against Clarence Thomas so troubling, aside from his imminent elevation to the Supreme Court, was that the alleged events occurred while he was running a federal anti-discrimination agency. It goes without saying that the rape charges against Campbell and Villa strike an even more menacing chord.

In light of the latest charges, Newport Beach City Manager Kevin J. Murphy made the right call in putting both Campbell and Villa on administrative leave. He protects their rights to presumed innocence, while acknowledging that the gravity of the charges warrants a strong response.

What’s troubling about the charges is who’s filing them. Police officers are sitting ducks for all kinds of misconduct charges, but they usually come from the public. I’ve argued in this column before that Laguna Beach, for example, too quickly fired a rookie cop after he was charged with sexual impropriety by four women whom he had arrested.

I didn’t argue that he was innocent, only that he deserved a formal hearing considering that the women making the charges--all arrested for drunkenness--may have had an ax to grind or were trying to get their charges dropped.

But when several former and current employees of the police department make the allegations, as is the case in Newport Beach, it makes you wonder. Anyone who’s been around a police department knows the pressure the women would be under after charging the chief and a captain with improprieties. Common sense tells you that those aren’t charges to look askance at.

Curiously, Campbell announced his retirement a day before the latest rape charge was leveled against him. He hopes to retire next May, he said, with full benefits.

Which leads me to a closing thought as we wait for the truth in this case to unfold.

If he were a worker in the private sector, Campbell’s pension wouldn’t automatically be affected by any on-the-job misconduct. In general, pension lawyers tell me, federal law prohibits an employer from punishing a former employee for misdeeds by withholding his or her pension.

Apparently, it’s somewhat less clear with public employee pensions.

What should happen is clear, at least in my mind. If a police chief and captain sexually assaulted a woman and then used the power of their office to cover it up, they should forfeit any taxpayer-financed pension.

The rationale is simple: The pension is meant to reward officeholders for public service. If they used that public position to suppress a crime, they should be stripped of any perks.

Require the public to pay for a criminal’s pension?

That’s rape under any definition.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.