What to watch for when Kavanaugh testifies this week
This week, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell joined a number of U.S. senators in a call to delay the nomination process of Judge Brett Kavanaugh in order to allow an investigation into the accusations of sexual assault leveled by Palo Alto University Professor Christine Blasey Ford. Ford has volunteered to testify, but has also requested that her testimony accompany an FBI investigation that could corroborate her claims.
This is a sensible request, one that the Senate should be eager to accommodate in its role to advise the president on his nominations to the Supreme Court and to ensure that anyone who enters a lifetime appointment to the Court is a person of integrity. Political commitments aside, we should all agree that any person who is willing to violate the rights of another person — and who would do so merely to satisfy his or her own desires — cannot be trusted to uphold the laws of the land or to safeguard those who need the protection of the law most. This is why the allegations made against Kavanaugh should matter to all of us.
But we are not living in sensible times, and the likelihood that Ford’s accusation will be treated with the sensitivity and attention it deserves is low. This fact alone tells us how unimportant the integrity of the Supreme Court is to those who are eager to see their nominee approved at any cost. Yet a justice on the Supreme Court should not be motivated by such cynical politics and for this reason, if no other, Judge Kavanaugh himself should welcome an investigation of Ford’s allegations as an opportunity to demonstrate his integrity to the American people.
Without an investigation, we won’t be able to know whether the event Ford describes was a “youthful indiscretion,” a case of mistaken identity, or something else. Regardless, Kavanaugh will almost certainly continue to deny the allegations made against him. But in doing so, he can either be an exemplar of male responsibility who acknowledges the persistence of sexual harassment and assault (even as he might deny particular allegations), or he can protect himself and the system of male domination that is circling its wagons around him by insinuating that he is a victim or that victims of sexual violence cannot be trusted when they speak out.
Until or unless there is an investigation, the best we can do is to “read” Kavanaugh’s testimony to see what it reveals about his attitudes toward victims of sexual assault and his sense of responsibility to those who have been victimized. We can ask ourselves a few questions as we do so, which should help us see whether Kavanaugh should be entrusted to serve the United States on the Supreme Court.
First, does Kavanaugh tend to protect the powerless or the powerful?
By many accounts, Kavanaugh has been an advocate for women within the legal profession. He says he was shocked to learn that Judge Alex Kozinski, of the ninth circuit, for whom Kavanaugh had clerked in the early 1990s and with whom he had worked for many decades since, was accused of sexual harassment and assault by several female colleagues. When asked by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) whether he believed the women who made allegations of sexual misconduct toward Judge Kozinski, Kavanaugh said without hesitation “I have no reason not to believe them, Senator.” This is a powerful statement if what Kavanaugh is saying is that he is inclined to accept the word of several women over that of a trusted colleague.
Unfortunately, Kavanaugh didn’t stop there. In his written testimony, Kavanaugh seemed to revert back to protecting himself and his colleagues, by suggesting that Kozinski’s behavior might not have been that egregious: “Judge Kozinski worked in a small courthouse in Pasadena with ten other judges, numerous law clerks, and court employees. Apparently, none of them knew of any misconduct, or they presumably would have reported it.” Kavanaugh reiterated this statement while under questioning from Sen. Hirono, saying that Judge Kozinski was surrounded by “prominent federal judges . . . who worked side by side with him day after day . . .” If they didn’t see it, he seemed to be saying, how bad could it be?
https://crosscut.com/2018/09/what-watch-when-kavanaugh-testifies-week
