Brett Kavanaugh Likes Women Clerks Who 'Looked a Certain Way'
PoliticsAn unnamed Yale Law School student was advised that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh liked his women clerks to have a “certain look.”
The Huffington Post reports that the student was prepping for judicial clerkships when her professors—Jed Rubenfeld and his wife Amy Chua of Tiger Mom fame—offered this ever so sage advice, which she considered a “yellow flag.”
From the Huffington Post:
Rubenfeld took care to warn her about two judges in particular: First, Alex Kozinski, then a judge on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, was known to sexually harass his clerks, he told her. (Kozinski retired in December amid accusations of harassment.)
The other was Kavanaugh. Though the judge was known to hire female clerks who had a “certain look,” Rubenfeld told her, he emphasized that he had heard nothing else untoward.
“He did not say what the ‘certain look’ was. I did not ask,” the woman said. “It was very clear to me that he was talking about physical appearance, because it was phrased as a warning ― and because it came after the warning about Judge Kozinski.”
The student already knew to steer clear of Kozinski, but decided to interview with Kavanaugh anyway. Enter Chua. Chua is reputed for helping Yalies score prestigious clerkships with federal judges, apparently by any means necessary.
“She advised me to be and dress ‘outgoing,’” the former Yale student said. “She strongly urged me to send her pictures of what I was thinking of wearing so she could evaluate. I did not.”
Chua’s response to the Huffington Post’s request for comment didn’t deny these allegations. “For the more than ten years I’ve known him, Judge Kavanaugh’s first and only litmus test in hiring has been excellence,” said Chua, indicating she’s still Team Kav even after he was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who knew Kavanaugh when they were teens in the ‘80s.
Her statement also echoes a nauseatingly glowing piece she penned in July for The Wall Street Journal titled “Kavanaugh Is a Mentor to Women.”