A personal story about sexual harrassment and buried memories.
I was in graduate school in the early 70's. I was in my early 20's. I was married. My husband was serving in Vietnam. In order to fulfill the requirements for my Masters Degree I had 2 required courses: a language and statistics. I struggled with the statistics course taught by a young male professor. At the end of the semester, he asked me to speak to him after class. I can see myself standing alone with him in the empty classroom. He told me that he was very concerned that I would flunk the course and endanger my Masters Degree. He told me that the only way that I was going to pass the course was if I spent the weekend with him. I can see myself frozen in that room and stunned. I don't remember what I said to him but it must have been polite because later that evening I had dinner with some classmates in the school cafeteria and he approached our table...smiling. One thing that is vivid in my memory is that he had a tray of liver and onions and it stank. I think I let a day go by. I had no idea what to do. I had never been exposed to anything like this in my life. I knew, from what he had said to me, that my 3 years of graduate studies and all of that tuition was on the line. This man had put it on the line.
The next day, I made an appointment with the Dean. I told him what had happened. I was embarrassed to talk about it and, as much as I really admired this Dean, I wasn't expecting much. He looked at me, shook his head and told me that I was the third student that had come to him with the same story. This is interesting to me now looking back...there were two other women...no action had been taken based on their complaints...I was the straw that broke the camel's back. This professor was terminated or put on leave, or something. All I knew at the time was that he was gone and someone else graded my exam. I passed or was passed and I graduated and got on with my life. I forgot about the whole ugly episode.
Until Anita Hill in 1991...20 years later. By then, I had a child and was a practicing attorney. I was sitting with a friend watching Hill testify and it all flooded back...every bit of it including the stinking tray of liver and onions. I never paid a lot of attention to talk about "recovered memory" but I can tell you that it happens. After Anita Hill, I buried all of it again...until this past week and Harvey. When I close my eyes I can see it all. It doesn't bother me now because I am way out of harm's way but I remember the naive convent school girl standing in that classroom facing that little ugly shit of a Professor who had my future in his grubby hands.
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Same story here and no, it did not stop after I quit working. It still goes on today and no one seems to give a damn! 
That is what they'll try to get you to agree to and believe no matter how very wrong it is/was.
Shame on these SOBs, Shame on Them!
