Catholic University suspends dean over comment that ‘degraded’ Kavanaugh accuser

A dean at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., has been suspended for attacking women who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault on his Twitter account.

The Washington Post reports that the university’s president, John Garvey, confirmed the suspension of Will Rainford Friday evening in an email to campus that said Rainford would remain as head of the university’s school of social service.

{mosads}His letter followed Rainford’s tweets from a now-deleted Twitter handle, @NCSSSDean, that questioned the accounts of two of Kavanaugh’s accusers, Julie Swetnick and Christine Blasey Ford.

“Swetnick is 55 y/o,” he wrote Wednesday on Twitter, according to the Post. “Kavanaugh is 52 y/o. Since when do senior girls hang with freshmen boys? If it happened when Kavanaugh was a senior, Swetnick was an adult drinking with&by her admission, having sex with underage boys. In another universe, he would be victim & she the perp!”

“Riddle me this. Why would the accuser of Kavanaugh take a polygraph, paid for by someone else and administered by private investigator in early August, if she wanted to remain anonymous and had no intention of reporting the alleged assault?” he asked of Ford’s account.

Rainford deleted his social media accounts Thursday, and apologized to the school’s provost, according to the Post. In a letter to the school, he wrote that “my tweet suggested that [Swetnick] was not the victim of sexual assault. I offer no excuse. It was impulsive and thoughtless and I apologize.”

On Friday, Garvey suspended the dean and wrote in a letter to students and faculty that Rainford’s actions “are unacceptable.”

“We should expect any opinion he expresses about sexual assault to be thoughtful, constructive, and reflective of the values of Catholic University, particularly in communications from the account handle @NCSSSDean. While it was appropriate for him to apologize and to delete his Twitter and Facebook accounts, this does not excuse the serious lack of judgment and insensitivity of his comments,” Garvey wrote in a letter.

Rainford did not respond to requests for comment from the Post, but apologized to offended alumni and students in his letter to the school of social services.

“I am aware that many of you are angry, frustrated, and hurt,” he wrote, according to the newspaper. “For this I am truly sorry.”