The Nation : Senate on Notice--Ignore Women at Your Own Risk

Three years ago, eight women members of the House of Representatives, led by Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) and then-Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), crossed the Capitol to express their support for Anita F. Hill and their concern about how the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee was dealing with her claim of sexual harassment. They were denied entrance, blocked at the door of the U.S. Senate.

Last week, nine women members of the House, once again led by Schroeder, again crossed to the Senate to express their concern about sexual harassment. This time, they got in. This time, they stood behind now-Sen. Boxer as she and the six other women members of the U.S. Senate, joining together across partisan lines, sought to block the retirement of Naval Chief of Operations Frank B. Kelso II at four-star status, because of his role in the Tailhook sexual-harassment scandal.

It is a measure of how much things have changed that, notwithstanding the opposition of the President, the secretary of defense, the Navy secretary and the widely respected chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, notwithstanding that a deal had been struck with Kelso so he would be allowed his full pension, the women almost won.

Tailhook remains a black mark for the military, and with reason. More than 80 women have come forward to complain they were harassed, sometimes violently, at the 1991 naval aviators’ convention sponsored by the Tailhook Assn. Kelso was the highest-ranking officer at that convention, one of 30 admirals, two generals and three reserve generals who attended, and claimed to have seen nothing.

While a Navy investigation exonerated him, the Navy’s own judge, Capt. William T. Vest Jr., found that Kelso had been dishonest about his activities at the convention and had used his rank to manipulate the investigation to shield himself and other senior officers from responsibility. Navy Lt. Paula A. Coughlin, who blew the whistle on Tailhook, has since resigned because of the harassment she says she has suffered as punishment for coming forward.

Last year, Navy Secretary John H. Dalton tried to dismiss Kelso for his failure of leadership in the Tailhook scandal. This year, he apparently made a deal with the admiral, promising him the support of the President and civilian defense leaders in exchange for his resignation. Plainly, no one thought to consult the women members of the Senate before reaching this deal--even though the Senate is required to approve the retirement of all three-star and four-star officers. Next time, they will.

What was striking about Tuesday’s 54-43 Senate vote was not only the ability of the women members to put aside partisan and ideological differences and find common ground on the issue of sexual harassment, but also the reaction of their male colleagues. Republican Sen. Arlen C. Specter of Pennsylvania, who led the inquisition of Anita Hill, and then nearly lost his seat to an unknown woman challenger, voted with the women against Kelso. Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato, the New York Republican who was one of Clarence Thomas’ strongest defenders, was one of Kelso’s sharpest critics.

To be sure, not all the men in the Senate have “gotten it,” or are frightened enough of the wrath of voters to pretend they have. Had the women triumphed, Kelso’s annual $84,300 pension would have been reduced by $17,000 a year.

In opposing that reduction, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) invoked the hardship that would be visited upon the admiral’s wife as a result of her husband’s reduced pension, while Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) argued that no penalties should be imposed because Kelso is “a father of two young women who are very sensitive of their father’s role in this matter.” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another Kelso defender, described the debate as “a completely unpleasant and distasteful exercise”--an emotion no doubt shared by many of his squirming male colleagues, not to mention the 80 women who had the misfortune to walk down the wrong hotel hallways at the Tailhook convention.

Still, the ability of the women to muster 43 votes against what was a done deal sends a powerful message not only to the U.S. military, but also to the political powers in Washington. For all the debate about whether there really is a women’s vote or whether feminism is a minority movement or if Anita Hill changed anything, Tuesday’s vote is an answer.

Whatever else might be said of the men of the Senate, they are as politically astute a group as any that exists in America. If “white men in the Senate are fearful of women,” as one Defense Department aide put it, it is because now, unlike three years ago, they believe they have reason to be afraid. Women in the Senate today have power, because women in this country do. Sexual harassment is a potent issue not because the Senate has chosen to make it the focus--there is probably no issue most senators like less--but because the country leaves them no choice.

No one may have been more uncomfortable during the debate than Sen. Robert W. Packwood (R-Ore.), under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee because of charges of sexual harassment from some two-dozen women over a span of 20 years. In a Senate where women have this much power, and sexual harassment is so potent an issue, Packwood has reason to be afraid.

Charges against Packwood range from telling sexually explicit jokes to unwanted kissing and grabbing. If true, they establish a troubling pattern of offensive conduct where alcohol may have played a role. But Packwood is not charged with exchanging jobs for sex, or creating a continuing, abusive environment--the legal standards of sexual harassment. The danger in the Packwood case, unlike Kelso’s, is not that he will get off with nothing, but that he will be burned at the stake, treated as a felon even though he committed no crime, and scapegoated for the sexual abuses that have been rampant not just in one Senate office, but in every branch of government.

There is an important line between making someone a symbol and making him a scapegoat. What seems reprehensible conduct today was often widely accepted a decade ago. Retrospective judgments of sexual behavior have the potential to be extremely unfair. And there remains a difference, or there should, between offensive conduct and criminal conduct.

That does not mean that Packwood should be excused. But it does mean that both he and his accusers are entitled to fairness and dignity in any proceedings. In dealing with the Packwood case, the challenge for the women senators, who Tuesday left no doubt that they now have power, is to use that power with the sort of wisdom, judiciousness and maturity that was so clearly lacking three years ago when their male colleagues were called upon to deal with Anita Hill.*