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After one of his colleagues at Yale University denounced Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh, accusing him of sexual misconduct, Christina Baker Kline, Montclair's best-selling author, said she knew that she had to act.
Kline, who had previously accused former President George H. W. Bush of fumbling, has allied with other women who attended Yale to write a letter of support to Deborah Ramirez. In the letter, published online Monday, the women call the Senate Judiciary Committee to postpone Kavanaugh's confirmation vote until Ramirez and others' allegations can be reviewed and all the witnesses can testify.
As of Wednesday, more than 2,500 Yale alumni have signed the letter, which has also sparked a letter of support to Ramirez from Yale's graduate men.
"We were expecting 200 signatures," Kline said Wednesday, following the announcement of a third allegation against Kavanaugh completed titles. "It's really exciting to see and hopefully helpful to the woman who has come forward."
In an article published on Sunday, Ramirez told the New Yorker that Kavanaugh 53, who showed up at Yale in the early 1980s, was exposed to it at a steam party. Ramirez, 53, who was the second woman to make a public allegation against Kavanaugh, claims that he forced her to touch him without consent because she pushed him away.
Kline, 54, author of the 2017 novel "A Piece of the World" and the 2013 book "Orphan Train" and graduated from the university in 1986, says she does not know Kavanaugh or Ramirez, but have friends who knew Ramirez. She partnered with Kate Manning and Rebecca Steinitz, two other Yale alumni, to write the letter.
"We present ourselves as women of Yale because we have a common experience of the environment that has shaped not only the life and career of Judge Kavanaugh, but also ours," reads Kline's letter. and Yale.
"We congratulate his courage to come forward," says the letter. "We ask him respect and security to protect his privacy, his quality of life and his emotional stability."
Kline said she also experienced sexual misconduct at Yale.
"I myself have had two incidents that I have never mentioned publicly and that I will never do unless one of them is appointed for a position or introduces himself. to the presidency, "she says.
On Monday, Yale students protested against Kavanaugh's appointment by holding a sit-in at the law school and making their position known in Washington. The Associated Press reports that "just and deliberate" confirmation process.
Kline says she is encouraged by the student protests, but knows how much women can deal with these kinds of allegations. She experienced venom last year after writing about her meeting with Bush.
WATCH OUT: Dozens of students sit silently, wearing black, demanding a thorough examination of the charges against Yale alumnus and Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh. 31 law courts were canceled today as a result of a protest. # nbcct pic.twitter.com/yCthpadhuj
– Shannon Miller (@_ShannonMiller) September 24, 2018
"In some ways, it's discouraging because you'd like to think that we've made a lot of progress, but that many people are resisting these women's stories," she says. On the other hand, "I'm not sure that Yale's men would have written this letter 25 years ago," says Kline.
The author says that she understands very well why women would choose not to come forward unless the men involved are part of the public service.
"Why would you create these headaches for yourself?" she says. "She knew it would bring her grief and stress and she did," Kline said of Ramirez. She added that she thought it would be difficult for Republicans to move forward, given the three allegations against Kavanaugh.
"I would not be surprised if they removed her appointment," she said. "Republicans do not want three women to testify."
Like Kavanaugh, Ramirez graduated from Yale in 1987, a year after Kline. Kavanaugh was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
The letter from Yale graduates, signed by hundreds of alumni, acknowledges that students have had to adapt to the recent transformation of the university into a mixed institution (in 1969) in the 1980s and 18 at age 21, with the promotion of the fraternity and sorority culture (and accompanying holidays and beverages) among students.
"Many of our friends and classmates have struggled to make their way into age-old traditions reserved for men, and some of our friends and classmates have not facilitated this process," the letter reads. "The poignant stories we've heard recently – harassment, misconduct and assault – are unfortunately consistent with the campus culture at that time."
Kline says that drinking and partying was not necessarily the domain of fraternities when she was a student.
"The age of consumption was changing every year that I was there," she says. "When I arrived at Yale, the university itself was organizing barrel parties – it was somehow over there." Fraternities on campus were new and controversial.
Kline says that Kavanaugh was not as active on the "positive" campus as other prominent students who have become leaders in their fields.
"The picture that appears is that he seemed to work hard as a student and that his other interests were to be part of his fellowship and go to the party and all that," she says, describing "two aspects of of his personality ".
Ramirez's allegation follows a statement by Christine Blasey Ford, a 51-year-old research psychologist at Palo Alto University, who says Kavanaugh nailed her and tried to undress at a party at the House. Ford, alleged to have received death threats and had to leave his home after coming forward, is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
Kavanaugh denied Ford's allegations. In a statement provided by the White House, he described Ramirez's allegation as "simple, simple and easy."
A third allegation against Kavanaugh comes from Julie Swetnick, who was a high school student in Gaithersburg, Maryland, when she met Kavanaugh in the early 80's. On Wednesday, Stormy Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, issued a statement from his client, Swetnick, on Twitter, in which she alleges that she was gang-raped in 1982 after being drugged at a party where Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were present. The statement was sent to the Judiciary Committee of the Senate.
Swetnick, 55, said she often saw Kavanaugh and Judge trying to hit women in various home parties in the 1980s, Kavanaugh hurrying against women without their consent and trying to kidnap their clothes.
In October, as the #MeToo movement began to pick up steam after the revelations about Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, Kline released his own story.
After two women alleged that former President George HW Bush had tried them while they were posing for photos, Kline advanced in an essay for Slate to say that Bush would have allegedly tried it during A photo shoot in 2014 at a fundraiser for the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. Kline claimed that the former president, sitting in his wheelchair, had tried to tell a joke before the incident. Her husband also posed for the picture.
She said that Bush had told her that she was beautiful, then asked, "Do you want to know my favorite book?"
"David Cop-a-feel," he would have told him before hurrying her back, "hard," she said, adding that she had instinctively passed her hand. Other women who say the former president has abused them described Bush using variants of the "flic-a-feel" line.
After her story was published, Kline told NJ Advance Media that she had received a lot of hate mail. She wanted to express herself, she said, because she could not stand that other women were being decried.
"Think about the first woman who went out publicly," she said at the time. "She was totally defamed."
After Kline presented her story, she was contacted by other women who shared similar allegations against Bush.
Amy Kuperinsky can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.
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