Daniel Zhao, Staff Photographer

It was Oct. 6, 2018, and the Women’s Table bloomed. In a 50–48 vote, the Senate had just confirmed Justice Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90 as the newest member of the United States Supreme Court and many Yalies mourned. Students adorned the sculpture with flowers, taped cards to its surface and scrawled “SOLIDARITY WITH SURVIVORS” on the ground in rainbow chalk.

That July, former President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh to replace the retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. If confirmed, Kavanaugh would solidify a conservative majority among the nine justices.

Several months later — and a year after the #MeToo movement — a morass of concerns regarding partisanship, Kavanaugh’s conduct and numerous allegations of sexual assault surrounded the nominee, one of which came from a fellow classmate at Yale. Throughout the confirmation process, the Yale community, including students, faculty and alumni, protested Kavanaugh’s placement in the nation’s highest court.

“I am overwhelmingly disappointed. I am disappointed that the Senate did not listen to the calls of millions of Americans, especially survivors,” said Briana Clark LAW ’20, who helped organize a 2018 sit-in at Sterling Law Building alongside the group Yale Law Students Demanding Better after Kavanaugh’s confirmation. “I am disappointed that the Senate did not listen to thousands of university professors regarding concerns over Judge Kavanaugh’s temperament and partisanship. I am disappointed that the FBI investigation was not only unfair, it was impartial, incomplete and appears to be a complete ruse.”

As a student at Yale, Kavanaugh belonged to Ezra Stiles College, wrote for the sports desk at the News and served as a Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal. Kavanaugh also was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon — a fraternity notorious for its history of sexual misconduct and mistreatment of women, including waving a flag of women’s undergarments during Kavanugh’s sophomore year — and joined the all-male secret society Truth and Courage, which was vulgarly nicknamed “Tit and Clit”. 

According to a New Haven Police report from 1985, officers questioned Kavanaugh for his involvement in a bar fight at the now-defunct pizzeria and alehouse Demery’s.

At first, many supported Kavanaugh’s nomination. Kavanaugh had clerked for Kennedy, worked for former president George W. Bush ’68 and judged on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Yale Law School issued a statement supporting the alum and professor Akhil Amar ’80 LAW ’84 penned a New York Times op-ed endorsing Trump’s choice. 

But debate over Kavanaugh’s record faded to questions of his character after three women — Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez ’87 and Julie Swetnick — accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

The offences alleged by Ford and Swetnick both occurred at Washington D.C. house parties in the early 1980s. Ramirez claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drinking game in Lawrence Hall on Old Campus.

In a statement to the New Yorker referencing Ramirez, Kavanaugh said “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple.”

Kavanaugh is not the only Supreme Court justice to face such allegations. In 1991, Anita Hill LAW ’80 came forward with charges of sexual harassment against Justice Clarence Thomas ’74. 

Abby Lee ’21 wrote in an opinion in the News that the weeks surrounding the Kavanaugh hearings were “some of the most painful weeks of [her] life, easily the most painful of [her] time at Yale.”

Lee noted that with the Kavanaugh confirmation, she was reminded that sexual assault on college campuses is not only a political dispute, but continues to remain a pervasive problem that deeply impacts individuals.

On Sept. 24 2018 — two weeks before the United States Senate voted to confirm Kavanaugh — 100 Yale law students flocked to the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. to protest Kavanaugh’s nomination. Jacob Schriner-Briggs LAW ’21 and Jesse Tripathi LAW ’21 were arrested, though they were not convicted and the authorities released them after four hours.

On the same day, 300 Yale community members gathered at Sterling Law Building to express their discontent with the proceedings.

“I sit with you, I’m proud to be here in a hallway I spent three years of my life traversing,” Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73, D-Conn. who attended the protest said. “Today is an opportunity and an occasion to show we stand with survivors of sexual assault.”

Two days later, over 200 undergraduates rallied at the Women’s Table, chanting “Yale’s complicit, that we know, Kavanaugh has got to go.” Dean of Yale College Marvin Chun, who was present at the event, declined to comment for he felt it was “a day for listening.”

Amar — who had previously supported Kavanaugh and even testified on his behalf — wrote an op-ed for the News that though he still believes Kavanaugh is qualified for the job, a thorough investigation into the allegations would offer the “best way forward, not just for the Court and the country and Kavanaugh’s accusers, but also for Kavanaugh himself.”

Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken, who had previously been silent on the topic, also called for a full investigation.

Alumni who studied at Yale at the same time as Kavanaugh told the News that they were willing to testify about his conduct in college and to support an in-depth investigation into the accusations against him.

“We spent a week believing the FBI would listen to us if we called them enough times or knocked on their doors enough times,” Rebecca Steinitz ’86 said. “It was a charade of an investigation.”

Steinitz organized an open letter supporting Ramirez and Ford that over 3,000 female alumni signed. Another letter, signed by 10 of Kavanaugh’s former classmates, emphasized the judge’s good character and support for women, particularly female athletics.

Kavanaugh’s conduct during his confirmation and the partisan clashes surrounding his hearing raised concern about whether he could serve on the court, a body that is supposed to stand above politics.

“Judge Kavanaugh was far too aggressive,” said Joshua Galperin, a research scholar and lecturer at Yale Law School. “He didn’t show an appropriate level of restraint and respect. But, most importantly, he demonstrated a real partisan anger, and that’s really something we don’t want to see in a judge.”

Galperin joined law professors across the country in signing an open letter in the New York Times opposing Kavanaugh’s confirmation. He said he had not opposed the nomination based on the sexual assault charges, but Kavanaugh’s behavior at the hearing on Sept. 27 — in which he responded to Ford’s testimony — changed his mind.

In April 2021, Kavanaugh penned a majority opinion rejecting limits to life-sentences for juvenile offenders.