THE OP-EDS
Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas
To Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas,
I don’t like you.
Sometimes I sit and think about how two men accused of sexual assault and harassment are sitting on the highest court in the U.S.—with lifetime appointments, mind you—and I get mad.
This is one of those times.
I’ll start with Clarence Thomas. Anita Hill, during your 1991 confirmation hearing, spoke of how when she worked for you, you kept asking her out, not taking no for an answer. How you talked about sex and pornography and breasts in vivid detail in the workplace; how you bragged about your own sexual accomplishments. Then you denied her claims and let congressmen—emphasis on the men because the Judiciary Committee was entirely male at the time—tear Hill apart, questioning her mental stability and calling her a liar. There were four other women prepared to testify against you, but somehow you slipped away. You got away by calling Hill’s misery a “High Tech Lynching,” forgetting the fact that Hill too was Black.
You disgust me.
And then in 2018, Brett Kavanaugh got away with the same thing. Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor, said you sexually assaulted her in high school, forcing her into a room, pinning her to the bed, and groping her. When Ford tried to scream, you covered her mouth. Journalists Ronan Farrow and Jane Meyer published another woman's accusation. While you were at Yale, Deborah Ramirez says you exposed yourself and pushed your penis in her face at a house party. There were no witnesses, but several classmates said they heard about it and believed Ramirez. You flat out denied all accusations, mentioning 30 times how much you like beer in the process.
When I think of both of you on the bench I think of my best friend, Madison. Madison was sexually assaulted after a boy walked her home from a party, convinced her to let him stay the night because he was “too drunk to walk home,” and then sexually assaulted her while she was asleep. I think of my friend Jennifer, who has been sexually assaulted twice in a three-month span. I think about the time I was walking down the Ann Arbor streets with three girls, two of whom I had just met that night, and they were debating whether one of them should report their rape.
Madison, after the assault, experienced regular panic attacks. She couldn’t sleep at night; she had to switch beds with her roommate. She went to a therapist to deal with her depression. When she heard another girl say her assaulter was the “sweetest guy ever,” she was horrified but too petrified to say anything. When her assaulter started dating another girl, eventually fathering her child, Madison never said anything. Madison never reported her sexual assault. Neither did Jennifer. I’m not sure what the girl on the street chose. Reporting sexual assault and rape is incredibly difficult. It may seem easy—you call the police, report it to your university if you’re in college, then you’re done—but the emotional turmoil is so much more than that. The person traumatized by the assault has to be the one to denounce their perpetrator. And there’s always the fear that people will call you a liar who makes things up for attention.
That’s what happened to Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford, the people who accused each of you of sexual assault.
False accusations of sexual assault are incredibly rare, with one study estimating the prevalence is between 2% and 10%. Yet during the two Senate hearings, Senators belittled Hill and Ford. At Hill’s hearings, Republican Senator Orin Hatch called her testimony “too contrived, too slick” to be true. Hatch is still in the Senate, and during your hearings, Kavanaugh, he said he felt bad this was happening to you. Republican Senator Lindsay Graham said Ford’s accusation is “the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics.” Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called you a man of “strong character and tremendous integrity,” labeling Ford a “smear campaign.”
What's worse is what you declared, Kavanaugh, after Ford said she was terrified to be there and discussed how your assault dramatically changed her life. You said your confirmation process “has become a national disgrace” because of how you were treated; you blamed the Democrats for making it a “frenzy,” an “orchestrated political hit,” a “circus.” You defended yourself by saying the Senate should listen to your friends and family instead of listening to Ford. Character witnesses do not absolve you of sexual assault. I can only think of Madison, who had to sit and listen to people describe her assaulter as a great person.
The Supreme Court’s approval rating is tanking, in part because of the stain you both bring to the bench with these allegations and the way the hearings were handled. No politician should stand by a sexual assaulter because they are from the same party, which is exactly what occurred at these hearings. Especially disgusting is the way you each treated the hearings. Even if you’re as innocent as you claim, I despise the way you dismissed these women, labeling their brave admissions lynchings and circuses.
Clarence and Kavanaugh, your hearings were 27 years apart. Since the MeToo movement exploded in 2017, you probably thought you were screwed, Kavanaugh, since powerful men were finally being held accountable for their actions. There was no way you’d be let off as easily as Thomas.
But then you were. After 27 years, there were minor improvements but the result was the same: a man accused of sexual assault ended up on the highest court of the United States in a lifelong position. Men accused of sexual harassment or assault now constitute 22.2% of the highest court of the United States.
I thought America had come a long way since 1991, but I’ve learned we still have progress to make. All survivors of sexual assault deserve to be listened to with respect, and I learned in 2018 that members of Congress are incapable of doing so. If in another 27 years someone nominated to the Supreme Court is accused of sexual assault or harassment, I hope politicians treat the survivor with respect, listen with compassion as they recount their horror.
But more importantly, I hope this judge is not confirmed to the Court. You two should serve as warnings to future generations. I hope they look on your hearings with disgust.
​
Sincerely,
Katie Burgin
Congressman Ted Cruz
Anything politicians do is to increase their chance of reelection. One place they're definitely thinking about reelection? Congressional hearings. The audience effect magnifies a politician’s behavior, especially if it’s a high-profile hearing that makes for good TV. Hearings, in other words, are full of grandstanding, full of politicians behaving in a showy, ostentatious manner to attract attention.
It’s no surprise, then, that Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court hearings were full of grandstanding, especially from the Republican party and one of their most controversial members, Ted Cruz. A recent study found congressional members are more likely to grandstand when they’re a member of a minority party in a unified government—a.k.a. the Republican party today. When you don’t have a good opportunity to influence policy, why contribute anything of substance?
That appeared to be Ted Cruz’s mindset, at least. In the midst of a rant about Critical Race Theory, the Republican party’s latest boogeyman, he leaned under his desk for a prop: books. Books about race that are ostensibly recommended at Jackson’s daughter’s school, to be more specific. Bringing the books was already ludicrous, when you consider that her daughter’s school’s curriculum has nothing to do with her ability as a judge, but then Cruz’s assistant flies in with pages from Antiracist Baby blown up on a poster board.
I found myself wondering: who spent the time to make the book’s pages into large posters? Was it one of Cruz’s assistants? An intern? Cruz himself? How much time did this take, to come up with the idea, to locate a spot to print the posters, to send them to the printers, to pick them up? Who paid for it—did American tax dollars go towards printing out blown-up pages of a children’s book?
But I digress. Cruz asked if Jackson thought babies were racist, and Jackson had to take the time to answer that she doesn’t believe any child should be made to feel that they’re racist or not valued, before explaining that critical race theory is an academic theory taught at law schools. Right-wing conservatives can't seem to grasp this point. And then Cruz told Jackson that Ibram X. Kendi, the prominent Black intellectual who wrote Antiracist Baby and other bestselling books about race, was advocating against Dr. Martin Luther King’s teachings. Cruz asserted, “What [Kendi’s] book argues for is the exact opposite of what Dr. King spoke about on the floor of the Lincoln memorial.”
Let’s go through that again: a white man lectured a Black woman about what Dr. King wanted by saying a Black intellectual got it wrong.
What a farce.
What angers me most is that Cruz got what he wanted—attention. After his questioning, he trended on U.S. Twitter, mostly because people were angry at his insane line of questioning and poking fun at him as a person. But as Oscar Wilde said, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” What’s true for 19th century Irish playwrights is true for politicians of all stripes. Name recognition is crucial in politics. Every time Cruz trends on Twitter, especially when it’s the “woke mob” tearing him apart, he’s happy. Cruz is happy that he was able to publicly position-take on critical race theory, proving to his right-wing base that he fights the insane leftists trying to brainwash their children with ideas about antiracism and equality. Viewers are only left to wonder if Cruz would have chosen critical race theory to pick on if Jackson was not Black.
The public’s perception of the Supreme Court is declining sharply, in part because of the actions of politicians at Supreme Court hearings. When Cruz acts like this, he’s undermining the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, making one of the most hallowed branches of the U.S. government into a partisan joke. He’s foolishly harming the Court just so he can be reelected. He’s far from the only Senator making this decision. Republican Senator Lindsay Graham asked Jackson if she’s religious. After she responded that she’s Protestant but that doesn’t matter because there’s no religious test to be a judge, Graham asked her to rate her faithfulness on a scale of one to ten. He then questioned if she could fairly judge a Catholic and ranted about how Democrats unfairly treated now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn asked if Jackson thought pedophiles are misunderstood, trying to paint her as light on crime, and then asked her to define 'woman', referencing the current debate on transgender rights.
It’s a shout in the void, because all political calculations point to grandstanding, but my plea is this: bring decency back into politics. The intention of these hearings are to see whether Jackson would be a good Supreme Court Justice, to gather information about her ability as a judge. Talking about hot-button topics that have nothing to do with her judicial skills damage an institution that is crucial for the functioning of our nation. Have some class, Ted Cruz.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett
American politics have turned into a cesspool. Dreadful fights over children's education, blatant discrimination against transgender Americans, bizarre Christmas cards with gun-flaunting children, rioters in the Capitol—we’ve seen it all and more. Andrew Cuomo, the man we lauded as a great leader of the pandemic, is actually a horrible person, booted from his job for numerous sexual harassment allegations and covering up COVID-19 deaths. Other politicians don’t even try to hide their shameful behavior, abandoning all notions of chivalry and citizenship to score political points.
No one seizes on these examples of immorality like social media users. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself. I like Twitter, the ultimate public forum, since it gives me access to differing political viewpoints from the comfort of my bed. But, damn, people on there can be mean.
Studies have shown that exposure to partisan viewpoints on social media increases polarization, a dire problem considering polarization has already dramatically worsened over the past forty years. The United States, according to some worried researchers, is far more polarized than even the likes of Eastern Europe and Latin America.
This partisanship has not passed over the Supreme Court. The judicial branch is supposed to be too virtuous for politics, staying above the fray to interpret the Constitution and apply the law. Instead, today Americans view it as a partisan branch where justices are handpicked by presidents to further their political agenda.
It is not a reach to argue that no instance in Supreme Court history was as partisan as Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2020. Her nomination was yet another example of the cesspool nature of American politics, with progressives angry because of Barrett’s conservative judicial philosophy and the right-wingers patting themselves on the back for nominating a woman skeptical of Roe v. Wade to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The whole process was mired by the fact that the Republican Party blocked Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in March of 2016, claiming it was too close to the upcoming presidential election. Now, six months further into an election year, they rammed Barrett through the nomination process. The Senate hearings, predictably, were contentious. Twitter was inflamed, claiming she was unqualified for the court and a Trump loyalist that would roll back civil liberties.
You can probably read between the lines: I’m a Democrat and I hold fairly progressive views. As I watched her nomination unfold, I had a poor view of Amy Coney Barrett. I didn’t like her personal opinions. I still don’t. Yet, when I learned more about her life, I found it harder and harder to hate her as a person. By all reports, she is smart, driven, and compassionate.
At Rhodes College, Barrett was named the most outstanding English department graduate. She attended Notre Dame Law, where she edited their law review and graduated first in her class. After graduation, Barrett clerked for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and now calls him her mentor. Other clerks, even the liberal ones, remember how smart she was. Barrett worked in private practice for a short period of time before joining the Notre Dame Law School faculty. Not once, not twice, but three times, Barrett was named professor of the year. When Barrett was nominated to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, every Notre Dame Law School faculty member supported her appointment.
And that’s just her professional credentials. By all reports, Barrett and her family—she has seven kids—are incredibly considerate, good people. One of her college sorority sisters remembered her as a “dedicated new sister, whip-smart, and incredibly kind.” She’s known for volunteering at her children’s school, and her family is a regular at Notre Dame Tailgates. A fellow law professor called her family “radically generous and hospitable,” and a different professor lauded how he has “never once seen Barrett place her needs above those of others.” She “genuinely seeks to understand others’ arguments.” The second professor shared how when a blind law student approached Barrett asking for help getting technological support, Barrett went to Notre Dame administration herself and then mentored the student for three years.
You would not get any of this from Twitter.
One Democratic podcaster called Barrett “the most illegitimate Supreme Court Justice ever” and said she is “more unfit for the bench than even Kavanaugh was.” Kavanaugh, you probably remember, was accused of sexual assault. In the process of flat-out denying the allegation, he mentioned 30 times how much he likes beer. How the podcaster decided Barrett was more illegitimate than Kavanaugh, I don’t know. His tweet did, however, get 39,200 likes.
Elizabeth Warren condemned Barrett's extremism. Others criticized her apparent inexperience. Random people said she has absolutely no business being on the United States Supreme Court; she was only nominated for being a religious, right-winged extremist and loyalist.
But should Amy Coney Barrett be the enemy? I don’t think so. Her personal political opinions aside, maybe you can attack her for not refusing her nomination due to the dubious circumstances. But picture yourself in her shoes. Few lawyers nominated to the Supreme Court would turn down such a prestigious lifelong position.
Barrett, based on all descriptions of her personality, is someone I want in government. She hasn’t committed sexual assault—which should be the bare minimum, really—and she doesn’t pose with guns on her Christmas card.
Her nomination process was horrible, an act of Republican hypocrisy. Personally, I wish she wasn’t nominated because I want someone more liberal on the court. But I hate how people automatically label her a horrible person, making her a stand-in for policies and processes they don’t like. The inability to separate people’s personal lives from their politics, especially on social media, is one reason politics are so cruel today.
I am saying this from a place of privilege: the LGBTQ community and low-income Americans have valid fears about her place on the Supreme Court. She spoke at a program to train Christian law students, a program run by the law firm that represented the Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple. She was skeptical of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, which created Obamacare and gave healthcare to millions of poor Americans. Anti-abortion groups love her because she’s displayed anti-abortion beliefs in her personal life. She has, though, said it's never appropriate for a judge to impose their personal opinion on the law.
You can attack someone’s beliefs while acknowledging that they are a decent human being, albeit an imperfect one. Some may argue that your political beliefs make you who you are—i.e., if you support a law firm that represents homophobic clients, that makes you a bad person—but the world is more nuanced than that. I find it hard to write off my grandparents, the people who knit me blankets and plan elaborate Easter egg hunts, because they own MAGA hats.
And Barrett, thus far, hasn’t been as awful as the doomsayers warned. Barrett supported the Affordable Care Act when it came under scrutiny in 2021. She’s broken from the conservative pack, such as when she sided with liberal judges to rule that Alabama cannot execute a man until his pastor is by his side. Barrett suggested that Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that cemented marriage equality, will not be overturned. Of course, she hasn’t turned into a liberal lion—she remains a conservative judge with an originalist thought-process—but what is to be expected of someone Trump nominated?
Besides, criticizing Barrett for the little things (Like for forgetting the fifth right of the First Amendment. Who doesn’t make mistakes under intense scrutiny?) makes people into hypocrites when someone of their political affiliation comes around. Democrats got angry when Barrett avoided questions, and now Republicans are doing the same for Biden’s nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson.
It boils down to this: treat people with respect, even if they have a different political viewpoint. It’s not always the case, but many, including Amy Coney Barrett, are decent people politics aside. With the one-dimensional, warped view of social media, it’s easy to forget this fact. People are people, and people are complex, not to be automatically thrown away because of their political ideology.