In The Harvard Law Record, students Molly Coleman, Vail Kohnert-Yount, Jake Meiseles, & Sejal Singh write: "Unless a full and fair investigation is conducted, Harvard Law School cannot allow Kavanaugh to continue teaching its students and the Senate cannot confirm him to the Supreme Court."
The beginning of their opinion piece is below, with a link to the entire document.
The credible allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee and Harvard Law School lecturer Brett Kavanaugh have left us with more questions than answers. Given that Kavanaugh's class , "The Supreme Court since 2005," is still on the schedule for winter term of this academic year, we have a few questions for the Harvard Law School administration.
Will Harvard Law School take seriously the credible allegation of Kavanaugh's sexual assault against a young woman before he is allowed to continue teaching young women? Or will Harvard allow him to teach students without further inquiry--and continue paying him our tuition money? In 2018, he earned $27,490 for 9 days of teaching.
Has Harvard Law School considered how this opportunity to learn about the Supreme Court might not be equally available to women because many will self-select out of a class taught by a credibly accused sexual assailant? Women at this law school are already forced to opt out of clerkships and employment opportunities in order to avoid alleged sexual predators; they should not also be forced to opt out of classes. The administration diminishes women's access to education when they fail to address allegations of abuse. Does Harvard have a process for handling allegations of this nature, and if so, is Kavanaugh being treated as any other faculty member would be? Or is he exempt from these processes because of his national prestige? Is a relationship with powerful jurists more important to Harvard Law School than the concerns of its students?
One would think that praising a president who is not only a known sexual predator, but who has even bragged about it, would at least call into question Kavanaugh's stated commitment to gender equity. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, one-third of the men on the Supreme Court will have been credibly accused of sexual harassment or assault of women without accountability or apology. There will be almost as many men credibly accused of sexual harassment or assault sitting on the Supreme Court as there are women on the Court, total.
