Harvard Law students call on school to reconsider Kavanaugh teaching post

A group of students at Harvard Law School is calling on the university to stop allowing President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, to hold a teaching job unless there is an investigation into the sexual assault allegations brought against him.

Kavanaugh is slated to teach a course called “The Supreme Court since 2005” in the 2019 winter term.

“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?” Molly Coleman, Vail Kohnert-Yount, Jake Meiseles and Sejal Singh write in The Harvard Law Record. “Or will Harvard allow him to teach students without further inquiry?

{mosads}”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 students continue.

Harvard Law School did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill about the op-ed.

HuffPost reported that Kavanaugh has taught courses at Harvard Law School since 2009 and that the students who wrote the op-ed are members of the Pipeline Parity Project, a group that advocates for abolishing discrimination and harassment in the legal industry. 

Kohnert-Yount told HuffPost that by allowing Kavanaugh to continue teaching, Harvard would place students in a “very uncomfortable position.”

The call from the students in a university publication comes as Kavanaugh faces increased scrutiny regarding sexual misconduct accusations levied against him. 

Christine Blasey Ford, a research professor in California, has accused Kavanaugh of pinning her to a bed one summer while they were in high school in the 1980s. Ford alleges that Kavanaugh groped “her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it.”

Kavanaugh has fiercely denied the charges, but multiple senators have voiced concerns about his Supreme Court confirmation vote proceeding. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) agreed to schedule another hearing on Monday to provide a chance for Kavanaugh and Ford to testify regarding the charges. 

Ford’s lawyer on Thursday told the Judiciary Committee that her client would be willing to testify next week if senators give her “terms that are fair and which ensure her safety,” according to a new New York Times report on Thursday.