Herman Cain harassment allegations: why they're not Clarence Thomas redux
Herman Cain 鈥� is he 2011鈥檚 Clarence Thomas?
After all, today Mr. Cain, an African-American, is the subject of reports that female employees at a restaurant trade association accused him of sexual harassment in the 1990s. Twenty years ago, Supreme Court Justice Thomas, an African-American, was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, who worked with him at a federal government agency.
The Thomas-Hill confrontation was a combustible mix of race, gender, and power relationships. It played out before a national audience in public testimony, leaving neither the accused nor the accuser unscathed.
In the end, Thomas was confirmed after enough members of the Senate Judiciary Committee decided there was no convincing proof of the allegations. In his own testimony, the future high court justice framed the process as 鈥渁 high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves.鈥�
On Monday, some Cain supporters were making an explicit comparison between the two cases. Conservative author and talk show host Ann Coulter said Cain, like Thomas, was the victim of a 鈥渉igh-tech lynching鈥� due to his conservative beliefs.
Back in May, Cain himself had predicted in an interview with the that liberals and Democrats would find a race-based way to attack him. He brought up Thomas as a point of reference.
鈥淚鈥檓 ready for the same high-tech lynching that he went through,鈥� said Cain at the time.
On Sunday night, as the Politico story on the allegations of sexual harassment broke, the Cain campaign implicitly raised the Thomas experience again.
鈥淪adly, we鈥檝e seen this movie played out before,鈥� said Cain team on its twitter feed.
But having lived through the Thomas confirmation hearings, we have this to say about that: Cain鈥檚 story is unlikely to mirror Thomas鈥檚 story. There is at least one crucial way in which the current media pixel-storm is different from what happened 20 years ago.
Ms. Hill鈥檚 allegations were explosive, and many believe them today. But there wasn鈥檛 much in the way of written evidence to support her case. She took no official action against Thomas at the time of the alleged offenses. Indeed, she continued working with him, notes the conservative blog .
Yes, we know that was a different era with different standards, but we鈥檙e not here to reargue the Thomas case on either side. The point is that Cain鈥檚 case is different: the women who felt he had harassed them reported it at the time. There charges were investigated. According to Cain himself, the counsel of the National Restaurant Association carried out an investigation of the charges. Presumably, a copy of that investigation still exists in the trade group鈥檚 files.
Cain himself said Monday that the investigation exonerated him. Perhaps it does 鈥� we don鈥檛 know, because we haven鈥檛 seen it. But the written report would provide a fact check on what Cain has said about the matter. The trade group probably has records showing whether Cain knew about the financial payments it made to the women at the time.
The Thomas case had no such documentary trove, and so devolved into 鈥渉e said/she said鈥� argument.
The Cain allegations? The contemporaneous report could provide powerful evidence one way or another 鈥� if it is ever released. Which is a very big 鈥渋f,鈥� of course. Cain himself says he is the victim of a 鈥渨itch hunt,鈥� and that he won鈥檛 call for the report to be made public. But the pressure on him to do otherwise could become overwhelming if, say, the women involved go public in coming days and dispute aspects of his story.
