We Believe You, Christine: Response to Allegations against Kavanaugh

September 17. 2018
Noreen Farrell

In response to Christine Blasey Ford speaking out about allegations of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh, Equal Rights Advocates Executive Director Noreen Farrell issued the following statement:

Professor Christine Blasey Ford chose to tell the nation about a horrific encounter she had Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. She said that she feared sexual assault, and the terror of those moments continues to haunt her to this day.

We believe Christine Blasey Ford. More importantly, we think her claims should matter to the legislators considering the Supreme Court nomination of a man to whom they will entrust the civil and constitutional rights of women.

It has been twenty-seven years since an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee moved the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas, despite the disturbing testimony of Anita Hill about his sexual harassment. The question for this moment is whether we have progressed enough as a nation to demand a different outcome.

As civil rights advocates who have fought against sexual violence in education for 45 years, we have heard stories like Christine Blasey Ford’s from many student survivors. All too often, sexual harassers, rapists and abusers from high school or college become powerful men who infect our workplaces and make decisions that impact our lives.

Equal Rights Advocates calls upon the Senate Judiciary Committee, including its four esteemed female members, to stop giving powerful men a free pass when it comes to sexual harassment and assault. Kavanaugh’s road to the Supreme Court must end here. We call on the Committee to halt any vote on Kavanaugh until the completion of an investigation of Blasey Ford’s accusations.

Brett Kavanaugh’s public record has already shown him to be antagonistic to policies and laws that make life more equitable for women and our families. From healthcare to equal pay, abortion to labor rights, Judge Kavanaugh’s consistent hostility to fundamental human and civil rights renders him unfit for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, where he will have the power to make decisions about a woman’s right to reproductive autonomy and to be paid as much as a man for her equal work. Moreover, his truthfulness now and in the past has been credibly questioned.

The stakes for women in this country were already too high to allow this nomination to go forward. Christine Blasey Ford has just made them higher, and she deserves the right to be heard.

Equal Rights Advocates (ERA) is a national civil rights organization dedicated to protecting and expanding economic and educational access and opportunities for women and girls.