JULY 6, 2018
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford reaches out to her congresswoman, Representative Anna Eshoo, and expresses her concerns regarding Brett Kavanaugh’s expected nomination to the Supreme Court.
JULY 9, 2018
President Donald Trump officially nominates Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.
JULY 30, 2018
Ford sends a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The letter alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while they were in high school and asks Feinstein not to release the letter publicly.
SEPTEMBER 4-7, 2018
Kavanaugh appears in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing. The hearings are consistently interrupted by protesters.
SEPTEMBER 16, 2018
Ford’s accusations are publicized in a report by the Washington Post.
SEPTEMBER 17, 2018
Kavanaugh denies Ford’s allegations.
SEPTEMBER 19, 2018
Debra Katz, Ford’s attorney, tells the Senate Judiciary Committee that Ford has agreed to testify before them.
SEPTEMBER 23, 2018
Deborah Ramirez brings forward new allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh in the New Yorker that occurred when Ramirez and Kavanaugh were students at Yale. Kavanaugh denies the allegations.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2018
A third woman’s accusations against Kavanaugh are brought forward by her attorney, Michael Avenatti. The woman, Julie Swetnick, says that Kavanaugh targeted girls for sexual assault by spiking their drinks at parties in college, and that he was present when she was gang raped. Kavanaugh denies these allegations as well.
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
Ford and Kavanaugh testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
SEPTEMBER 28, 2018
After being confronted in an elevator by sexual assault survivors, Senator Jeff Flake requests an investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee ask Trump to order the investigation. According to a statement from Trump the probe must be, “limited in scope and completed in less than a week.”
OCTOBER 4, 2018
The FBI delivers its findings to the Senate Judiciary Committee. During the investigation they interview nine people, but neither Ford nor Kavanaugh are on the list of interviewees.
OCTOBER 5, 2018
The Senate votes 51 to 49 to advance Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
OCTOBER 6, 2018
Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court with a vote of 50 to 48.
What is your perspective on Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court?
Soren Sheu
He/Him – Senior
“I believe the women. And I felt really bad for them because to have to go through that on such a public stage, it would make me very scared, and I think they are very brave for doing it … (sexual assault is) kind of legitimized a little bit and made people feel a little bit safer about the stuff they do and that there’s a chance that they can just get away with it … I thought we had come really far and I thought that the people in power had learned from their previous mistakes but they just hadn’t.”
Anonymous
“I was sexually assaulted when I was 12 so it’s like a punch in the face with a metal boxing glove.”
Danny Fisher
He/Him – Junior
“I think it was good that he was confirmed. I’ve put a lot of thought into it and I’ve been researching a lot and I don’t think there should of been anything to overturn his confirmation … I personally think that any accusation like that against a man, or any person, if you’re accused of something I honestly believe that it has got to be very hard on you.”
Iris Wolfe
She/Her – Freshman
“I feel like society, and people, tell you that girls have just as much power as guys now. But this makes me feel like that might not be as true as I feel like it is. (Because) personally, I feel like I have as much power as guys, but when you learn about stuff like this, it kind of changes that a little bit.”
Grace Riley
She/Her – Sophomore
“I think it’s really going to be a step down from where we were heading … with all of the Me Too movements in the past year, with people coming out and saying that sexual assault isn’t right and educating a lot of people. I thought we were moving toward a place where people felt comfortable coming out and saying that something like this happened to them, and people wouldn’t victim blame them, or judge them, and that they would be included in the community.”
Anonymous
“It honestly scares me because, as a girl, I know that what happened to Christine Blasey Ford could easily happen to me and nothing would happen.”
Molly Peterson
She/They – Junior
“It’s just another example of people in our government doing things that people in our country shouldn’t be doing. But people are like, ‘Oh this is acceptable because someone in our government is doing it and has been accused of it… and not facing the repercussions, when really it shouldn’t be okay … Everyone is saying that the system is broken but the system is working exactly how (people in power) intended it to work.”
