Hundreds of black-clad students at Yale Law School staged a silent sit-in on Monday while about 100 more traveled to Washington to demand an investigation into the sexual-misconduct allegations against one of the school’s alumni, Brett M. Kavanaugh.
Faculty members canceled or rescheduled more than 30 classes as opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, and concerns about Yale’s response to the growing controversy, intensified.
In D.C., the students and about 100 other supporters, including the #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, gathered in front of the Supreme Court steps and hoisted signs that proclaimed, “We believe women” and “We won’t go back.”
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Hundreds of black-clad students at Yale Law School staged a silent sit-in on Monday while about 100 more traveled to Washington to demand an investigation into the sexual-misconduct allegations against one of the school’s alumni, Brett M. Kavanaugh.
Faculty members canceled or rescheduled more than 30 classes as opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, and concerns about Yale’s response to the growing controversy, intensified.
In D.C., the students and about 100 other supporters, including the #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, gathered in front of the Supreme Court steps and hoisted signs that proclaimed, “We believe women” and “We won’t go back.”
The demonstration, part of a national walkout in support of Kavanaugh’s accusers, was followed by a gathering of the law students in the Russell Senate Office Building with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, and Sen. Christopher Coons, Democrat of Delaware.
“People are angry. There is nothing ordinary about what’s happening now,” said a third-year Yale law student, Dana Bolger. “That’s why we walked out of classes, we got on a bus … because this isn’t business as usual, and we wanted to make sure senators heard that message.”
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The law school’s dean, Heather Gerken, released a statement on Monday acknowledging that the allegations against Kavanaugh were “rightly causing deep concern” at Yale and across the country. Kavanaugh graduated from Yale’s undergraduate college in 1987 and from its law school in 1990.
Gerken pointed out that faculty members, as well as students, have been making their voices heard.
“As dean, I cannot take a position on the nomination,” she wrote, “but I am so proud of the work our community is doing to engage with these issues, and I stand with them in supporting the importance of fair process, the rule of law, and the integrity of the legal system.”
In an open letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday, 50 law professors at Yale called for a full and fair investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh. They cautioned against a “rush to judgment” that could shake the public’s confidence in the Supreme Court.
“This is particularly so for an appointment that will yield a deciding vote on women’s rights and myriad other questions of immense consequence in American lives,” the letter said.
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‘Wonderful Mentor’
Two months ago, Yale issued a news release about Kavanaugh’s nomination that quoted colleagues praising him as a “wonderful mentor” and teacher who “commands wide and deep respect among scholars, lawyers, judges, and justices.”
Many at Yale were upset that the university didn’t dial back that statement after Christine Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University, accused Kavanaugh of pushing her into a bedroom when they were both in high school in the early 1980s, pinning her down on the bed, trying to take her clothes off, and then covering her mouth with his hand to muffle her screams.
Kavanaugh and Ford are scheduled to testify about those allegations before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
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On Sunday, The New Yorker reported that a second woman, Deborah Ramirez, had come forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Ramirez, who attended Yale with Kavanaugh, said he had thrust his genitals in her face during a drinking game during the 1983-84 academic year, when he was a freshman.
Kavanaugh has strenuously denied the allegations brought by both Ramirez and Ford, calling them part of a “smear” campaign designed to derail his nomination.
Another letter circulating this week, signed “the women of Yale,” expressed support for Ramirez and Ford, and demanded that a vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination be delayed while the allegations against him are thoroughly investigated.
Fueling anger on the campus were reports that two law-school faculty members had encouraged female students to dress the part when applying for clerkships under Kavanaugh, who preferred to hire pretty women, the faculty members reportedly indicated.
Former law students have said that one of the professors, Amy Chua, coached them to dress in an “outgoing” fashion when interviewing for a clerkship with Kavanaugh, and told them it was “no accident” that his law clerks looked like fashion models.
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Her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, who is also a Yale law professor, has been accused of making similar comments to female law students.
Chua, who is best known outside academe for her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, has denied saying any such thing to students. She released a statement calling the reports “outrageous, 100% false, and the exact opposite of everything I have stood for and said for the last 15 years.”
Chua said she tells students to “dress professionally – not too casually – and to avoid inappropriate clothing.”
Gerken said the statements attributed to Chua and Rubenfeld were “of enormous concern” and urged anyone with information about such conversations to come forward. Yale is conducting an internal investigation into Rubenfeld’s treatment of female students, according to The Guardian, which quoted him as saying the allegations were “not of the kind that would jeopardize my position as a long-tenured member of the faculty.”
Neither Rubenfeld nor Chua, who is on medical leave this semester, responded to requests for comment.
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‘Model of Complicity’
On the Yale campus, posters were hung last week conveying such messages as “YLS is a model of complicity” and “Is there nothing more important to YLS than its proximity to power and prestige?”
After their 30-minute silent protest on Monday, students who had crowded into a hallway of the Sterling Law Building took to a microphone to express their frustration with Yale’s response to the Kavanaugh controversy.
Dianne Lake, a second-year law student, told The Chronicle that protesters want to ensure that allegations of sexual misconduct are taken seriously, and that women who come forward are treated with respect.
Students are demanding more accountability and transparency in the process for selecting judicial clerks, Lake said. And they want to prevent what happened to one Yale Law graduate, Anita F. Hill, from happening to anyone else who testifies against a Supreme Court nominee.
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“Her voice was not heard, and her character was discredited,” Lake said. “We want to make sure we don’t make the same mistake again.”
The students also want to hold Yale responsible “for the role it’s played in this nomination process by inadvertently injecting itself through the press release” praising Kavanaugh, she said.
Bolger, the third-year law student, agreed. “I think that our institution has been complicit in pushing forward this nomination and loading adoration upon his credentials,” she said. “We see our role as combating that narrative and saying ‘No.’ Yale law students and Yale law faculty do not stand behind this nominee and do not think he is fit for the highest court in the land.”
Cailin Crowe contributed reporting from Washington.
Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, student success, and job training, as well as free speech and other topics in daily news. Follow her @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.