TEXT B
Paula Jones’case against Bill Clinton is now, for all possible political consequences and capacity for media sensation, a fairy routine lawsuit of its kind. It does, however, have enormous social significance. For those of us who care about sexual harassment, the matter of Jones v. Clinton is a great conundrum. Consider: if Jones, the former Arkansas state employee, proves her claims, then we must face the fact that we helped to elect someone--Bill Clinton--who has betrayed us on this vital issue. But if she is proved to be lying, then we must accept that we pushed onto the public agenda an issue that is venerable to manipulation by alleged victims. The skeptics will use Jones case to cast doubt on the whole cause.
Still, Ms Jones deserves the chance to prove her case; she has a right to pursue this claim and have the process work. It will be difficult: these kinds of cases usually are, and Ms. Jones task of suing a sitting president is harder than most.
She does have one thing sitting on her side: her case is in the courts. Sexual-harassment claims are really about violations of the alleged victims civil rights, and there is no better from for determining and assessing those violations--and finding the truth--than federal court. The judicial system can put aside political to decide these complicated issues. That is a feat that neither the Senate Judicial nor ethics commit-tees have been able to accomplish--witness the Clarence-Thomas and Bob Packwood affairs. One lesson: the legal arena, not the political one, is the place to settle these sensitive problems.
Some have argued that the people (the "feminists") who rallied around me have failed to support Jones. Our situations, however, are quite different. In 1991 the country was in the middle of a public de-bate over whether Clarence Thomas should be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Throughout that summer, interest groups on both sides weighed in on his nomination. It was a public forum that invited a public conversation. But a pending civil action--even one against the president--does not generally invite that kind of public engagement.
Most of the public seems content to let the process move forward. And given the conundrum, am created by the claim, it is no wonder that many ("feminists" included) have been slow to jump into the Jones-Clinton fray. But people from all works of life remain open to her suit. We don’t yet know which outcome we must confront: the president who betrayed the issue or the woman who used it. Whichever it is, we should continue to pursue sexual harassment with the same kind of energy and interest in eliminating the problem that we have in the past, regardless of who is the accused or the accuser. The statistics show that about 40 percent of women in the work force will encounter some form of harassment. We can’t afford to abandon this issue now.
The federal courts are much better than the Senate Judicial or ethics committees in determining and assessing those violations because ______.