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Over the weekend, Deborah Ramirez alleged in the New Yorker that Kavanaugh was exposing her to a dorm room party during their first year at university, an allegation Kavanaugh categorically rejected. But with only a few days to be confirmed in the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh's time at Yale, the groups he joined, and the people he knew were all re-submitted examination.
In recent days, supporters of Kavanaugh and Ramirez have come forward to tell stories of two very different people, from disparate worlds: Kavanaugh from the world of privileges and private schools. According to her former colleague and Yale graduate in 1988, Jo Miller, Ramirez came from a more humble education that forced her to work in Yale's canteens at school.
More than a dozen interviews with people who attended Yale in the mid-1980s, while Kavanaugh and Ramirez were students, painted a complex, if not contradictory, picture of Kavanaugh at the same time. Time: A young student in Maryland, who was considered a sportsman, belonged to one of the oldest secret societies of the school, Truth and Courage, as well as a fraternity – Delta Kappa Epsilon – sometimes known for his antics on campus. campus with a flag made of female underwear. In a photo that the Yale Daily News republished last week, two men can be seen hoisting the underwear flag. According to the newspaper, the legend was "DKE at stake".
"DKE had a reputation for drinking," recalls John Hechinger, a Yale graduate in 1988 and author of a book about "True Gentlemen" fraternities. "It was more appealing to conservatives with traditional views on masculinity and femininity."
Hechinger did not know Kavanaugh personally, but stated that in the 1980s in Yale, DKE was one of the few fraternities and was considered an aberration on the campus of the school, a remnant of the culture of "old establishment" known for its consumption of alcohol and its flag. underwear incident.
Another Yale woman in 1987 who did not personally know Kavanaugh said: "DKE was considered a bad person, widely considered a drunkard and a sportsman. Joining such a fellowship was a way of saying no to Yale's culture. "
But others accuse the critics of DKE at that time were too harsh.
Christopher Munnelly, who was a few years behind Kavanaugh and graduated in 1990, challenged the notion that DKE was a magnet for the out-of-control party. At the time, Munnelly stated that DKE did not even have a fraternity house and that their official meetings would take place in the common rooms of residential buildings where alcohol was not allowed .
"You can not have a pet without a house," he said. "The notion that [Kavanaugh] was part of a party fraternity is not the case. "
Munnelly knew Kavanaugh when he was a freshman. He recalled that Kavanaugh was kind and sociable to young people, despite the divisions that sometimes exist between the lower and upper classes of fraternities.
"He was a listener, introspective," said Munnelly, adding that Kavanaugh, "has not carried his ambition on his sleeve."
Munnelly remembers the week of engagement or the "week of hell," as he called it, a collection of silly jokes, but nothing questionable, telling how a promise was to carry a perch for a week or how older brothers buildings with pencils. But when it came to Kavanaugh, Munnelly said he never remembered something controversial.
James Roche, Kavanaugh's roommate in the fall of 1983, also issued a statement saying that Kavanaugh was "a heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time".
"(H) e became aggressive and warlike when he was very drunk," said Roche.
A classmate who attended many of the same holidays as Brett Kavanaugh, but did not want to be identified, said he was "aggressive, obnoxious, drunk, part of the crowd he was dragging with".
Roche added that he had become friends with Ramirez in Yale's early days and that he "did not observe the incident in question," he recalls "Brett often drinking excessively and becoming drunk incohéremment ".
"After my time with Debbie, I believe she's exceptionally honest and direct and I can not imagine," Roche said. "Based on my time with Brett, I believe he and his social entourage were capable of the actions described by Debbie."
Ramirez was known for his friendship, but as Roche reminded, someone who was "very worried about the idea of integrating".
"She felt that everyone at Yale was very rich, very intelligent and very sophisticated and that, as a Puerto Rican, from a less privileged background, she was a stranger."
Others have also described Ramirez as an honest and humble person, an outgoing and friendly person.
"There is no reason in the world why it would manifest itself if it was not true," said Julie Heller, who graduated from Yale in 1988 and sometimes attended parties with Ramirez. "She was social, but not particularly rowdy, I would not say she was a great matchmaker."
At the time, said a Yale class student in 1987, Ramirez would have struggled to know who to talk to about this kind of allegation. They pointed out that institutional attitudes towards the type of aggression that Ramirez alleges have changed radically since their stint at the university.
"I do not know how Yale could have handled all this," said an acquaintance of Ramirez from Pierson College.
Minouche Kandel, a former resident of Ezra Stiles College in Kavanaugh, said that "there just was not the same infrastructure" to report a sexual assault that exists today.
"Most likely, if something like that happened, you would not report it to the university, you could tell a friend," she said. "I would not even have thought to say anything."
Kavanaugh's friends have struggled in recent days to find the person they knew was making allegations against him, allegations they say have never heard of at the time.
Dwayne Oxley, who lived on the same floor as Kavanaugh for a few years at Ezra Stiles College, said that he was "friendly" to Ramirez, but "that's not quite what I knew under the Brett Kavanaugh's name. " He said, like many students at the time, that Kavanaugh could have drunk, but "I have never seen him in a state where he did not control".
The varied memories of Kavanaugh's classmates from the Yale era testify to what has become a more important struggle for the Senate Judiciary Committee as he prepares to hear from Christine's testimony Blasey Ford who claimed that Kavanaugh had assaulted him at a party in Washington. they were teens in high school – another accusation that Kavanaugh strongly denies.
For some senators, Kavanaugh's first-time roommate, claiming he was "aggressive" when he was drunk, was disqualifying.
"The fact that his roommate said that he had come home drunk and bellicose, I find credible and I find that corroborates the claims of Ms. Ramirez and Dr. Ford," said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
Senator Bob Corker, a Republican who expressed his desire to see Ford testify, said he had no way of reviewing the memories of his classmates from Yale or others. For him, the story of Brett Kavanaugh will have to come from two people who will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday: Ford and Kavanaugh himself.
"I have finished my program tomorrow, I plan to watch the audience from beginning to end and this will be the testimony we will have to make to make decisions." I did not speak to any of my friends. I do not really have the ability to do that then, "said Corker, adding that he thought the majority staff were following the potential tracks regarding Kavanaugh's background.
Chris Dudley, a brother of the brotherhood who graduated in 1987 with Kavanaugh and eventually ran as a Republican candidate for Oregon, said he had known Kavanaugh on the basketball court where Kavanaugh was playing at the JV . Dudley stayed close to Kavanaugh, texting him in recent days to stand where Kavanaugh was fighting allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.
He was "just a great guy," said Dudley, adding that he had never seen Kavanaugh become aggressive when he was drinking alcohol.
"He was not that kind of person," Dudley remembered.
A woman who resided at Kavanaugh Middle School in Ezra Stiles and who said that she knew Kavanaugh very well and often shared meals with him, said that Ramirez's allegations about Kavanaugh were "shocking" and "I do not do not think so. one minute."
"I have never seen this behavior on Brett's part for the entire time I've known him," she said. "Some people around us, but not Brett Kavanaugh, had never seen that, I had never seen anything like that."
Programming Note: Watch the full coverage of Thursday's hearing on Kavanaugh-Ford starting at 8:30 am at CNN.com/go on your desktop, smartphone and tablet, and via CNNgo apps for Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire and Android TV – no connection required.
Ann O 'Neill and Ellie Kauffman of CNN contributed to this report.
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