The Hill reports…
Nearly a thousand female faculty members at law schools around the country signed onto a letter sent to the Senate opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, arguing the judge lacks “the requisite judicial temperament” to sit on the court.
Kathleen Engel, a research professor at Suffolk University Law School who helped organize the letter, told The Hill on Thursday that more than 900 women have signed onto the document since it was first circulated on Monday night.
“Our goal is for the Senate to take its obligation to the American public seriously,” she said. “It is really a tragedy for the country and it threatens our democracy to have such a politicized process and to have a candidate who is really taking politics into the courtroom as a judge.”
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The letter cited Kavanaugh’s conduct during a Senate Judiciary Hearing last week where he denied allegations from Christine Blasey Ford that he pinned her to a bed and groped her during a 1980s high school party. The signatories suggested that Kavanaugh’s combative interactions with female Democratic senators during the hearing were particularly problematic.
“Judge Kavanaugh’s lack of respect for our democratic institutions, and for women in positions of power in particular, revealed that he does not have the requisite judicial temperament,” the letter states.
“We would never allow our students to engage in such conduct even in mock proceedings in the classroom,” the letter continues. “If the venue for Judge Kavanaugh’s conduct had been a courtroom, a judge might have found him in contempt.”
The women who signed onto the letter, which was sent to the Senate on Wednesday, also expressed doubts about Kavanaugh’s impartiality after he blasted the hearing last week as part of an “orchestrated political hit” born out of frustration about the 2016 election.
