Marilyn Quayle Reports She Was Sexual Harassment Victim

WASHINGTON — Marilyn Quayle, the wife of Vice President Dan Quayle, said in a broadcast interview Friday that she had been the victim of sexual harassment.

Quayle, an attorney, told ABC-TV in a telephone interview with Barbara Walters that the harassment began with “a law school professor.”

“I point-blank nipped it in the bud,” she said.

Quayle, 42, is a 1974 graduate of the Indiana University Law School.

She said she had also been the victim of sexual harassment in Washington, but she did not give details.

The vice president’s wife reiterated her support for President Bush’s Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas and said she believed “everything he has said.” When asked if she therefore believed that Anita Faye Hill, who has accused Thomas of sexual harassment, was lying, Quayle said: “Maybe the years have distorted what happened in her mind. It was a long time ago.”

“I don’t think any woman in the work force has not had some form of sexual harassment,” Quayle said.

Asked why she had not reported incidents of sexual harassment from her own life, she said: “I am one of those people who won’t tolerate anything I do not like. In each instance I confronted the person doing it, starting with a law school professor.”