i graduated from the university with academic honors and proceeded to the , where i received my jd degree in 1980. upon graduation from law school, i became a practicing lawyer with the , in 1981, i was introduced to now judge thomas by a mutual friend. judge thomas told me that he was anticipating a political appointment, and he asked if i would be interested in working with him. he was, in fact, appointed as assistant secretary of education for civil rights. after he had taken that post, he asked if i would become his assistant, and i accepted that position.
during this period at the department of education, my working relationship with judge thomas was positive. i had a good deal of responsibility and independence. i thought he respected my work and that he trusted my judgment. after approximately three months of working there, he asked me to go out socially with him.
i declined the invitation to go out socially with him and explained to him that i thought it would jeopardize what at the time i considered to be a very good working relationship. i had a normal social life with other men outside of the office. i believed then, as now, that having a social relationship with a person who was supervising my work would be ill-advised. i was very uncomfortable with the idea and told him so.
my working relationship became even more strained when judge thomas began to use work situations to discuss sex. on these occasions, he would call me into his office for reports on education issues and projects, or he might suggest that, because of the time pressures of his schedule, we go to lunch to a government cafeteria. after a brief discussion of work, he would turn the conversation to a discussion of sexual matters.
because i was extremely uncomfortable talking about sex with him at all and particularly in such a graphic way, i told him that i did not want to talk about these subjects. i would also try to change the subject to education matters or to nonsexual personal matters such as his background or his beliefs. my efforts to change the subject were rarely successful.
during the latter part of my time at the department of education, the social pressures and any conversation of his offensive behavior ended. i began both to believe and hope that our working relationship could be a proper, cordial, and professional one.
for my first months at the eeoc, where i continued to be an assistant to judge thomas, there were no sexual conversations or overtures. however, during the fall and winter of 1982, these began again. the comments were random and ranged from pressing me about why i didn't go out with him to remarks about my personal appearance. i remember his saying that some day i would have to tell him the real reason that i wouldn't go out with him.
one of the oddest episodes i remember was an occasion in which thomas was drinking a coke in his office. he got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the coke, looked at the can and asked, "who has pubic hair on my coke?" on other occasions, he referred to the size of his own penis as being larger than normal, and he also spoke on some occasions of the pleasures he had given to women with oral sex.
