WHY WE HATE THE MEDIA, KAVANAUGH EDITIONPOSTED ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2018 BY STEVEN HAYWARD
It is hard to single out the most egregious media treatment of the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh because the field is so large and the competition so intense. But The Guardian at least deserves to make the Finals with its story today entitled “‘No accident’ Brett Kavanaugh’s female law clerks ‘looked like models’, Yale professor told students.”
It is a transparent attempt to paint Kavanaugh as a sexist pig, but the story depends on besmirching the reputation of two eminent Yale Law Professors, Amy Chua and Jed Rubinfeld. Just watch how this story unfolds:
A top professor at Yale Law School who strongly endorsed supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor to women” privately told a group of law students last year that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female law clerks all “looked like models” and would provide advice to students about their physical appearance if they wanted to work for him, the Guardian has learned.
Amy Chua, a Yale professor who wrote a bestselling book on parenting called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, was known for instructing female law students who were preparing for interviews with Kavanaugh on ways they could dress to exude a “model-like” femininity to help them win a post in Kavanaugh’s chambers, according to sources.
Did they get this information from Prof. Chua herself? No—it comes from anonymous “sources.” How many sources? The story doesn’t say. Let’s keep going:
Yale provided Kavanaugh with many of the judge’s clerks over the years, and Chua played an outsized role in vetting the clerks who worked for him. But the process made some students deeply uncomfortable.
One source said that in at least one case, a law student was so put off by Chua’s advice about how she needed to look, and its implications, that she decided not to pursue a clerkship with Kavanaugh, a powerful member of the judiciary who had a formal role in vetting clerks who served in the US supreme court.
In one case, Jed Rubenfeld, also an influential professor at Yale and who is married to Chua, told a prospective clerk that Kavanaugh liked a certain “look”.
“He told me, ‘You should know that Judge Kavanaugh hires women with a certain look,’” one woman told the Guardian. “He did not say what the look was and I did not ask.”
Sources who spoke to the Guardian about their experiences with Chua and Rubenfeld would only speak under the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution and damage to their future careers.
Did The Guardian ask Prof. Chua to comment on these allegations? It is not until very far down in the story that you learn this:
Chua has cancelled her classes at Yale this semester and, according to her office, has been hospitalised and is not taking calls. Rubenfeld sent an email to the Yale Law School community that said his wife had been ill and in hospital and had a long period of recuperation ahead of her.
I was told by a good source last week that Chua’s illness is life-threatening. Gee—what classy journalism on The Guardian‘s part. But they were just getting warmed up. The Guardian story goes on to report that Chua’s husband, Prof. Rubenfeld, is currently under investigation himself by Yale on unspecified harassment charges, though this has nothing to do with the Kavanaugh matter—it is clearly just a smear:
The Guardian has learned that Rubenfeld is currently the subject of an internal investigation at Yale. The investigation is focused on Rubenfeld’s conduct, particularly with female law students. Students have also raised related concerns to Yale authorities about Chua’s powerful influence in the clerkships process. The investigation was initiated before Kavanaugh was nominated by Donald Trump to serve on the high court.
Rubenfeld said in a statement to the Guardian: “In June, Yale University informed me that it would conduct what it terms an ‘informal review’ of certain allegations, but that to preserve anonymity, I was not entitled to know any specifics. As a result, I do not know what I am alleged to have said or done. I was further advised that the allegations were not of the kind that would jeopardize my position as a long-tenured member of the faculty.
“For some years, I have contended with personal attacks and false allegations in reaction to my writing on difficult and controversial but important topics in the law. I have reason to suspect I am now facing more of the same. While I believe strongly that universities must conduct appropriate reviews of any allegations of misconduct, I am also deeply concerned about the intensifying challenges to the most basic values of due process and free, respectful academic expression and exchange at Yale and around the country.”
The Guardian leaves out a lot here. While Amy Chua is best known as the author of the famous book about “tiger moms,” her most recent book, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, goes unmentioned in The Guardian article. This is relevant because it is clear from this book and other writings that Chua does not subscribe to leftist orthodoxy about identify politics. Plus, quite obviously she’s Asian, and as we know the Left now considers Asians to be “white” for their political purposes.
The Guardian article is a blatant piece of character assassination, and journalism so shoddy and biased that it doesn’t even rise to the level of fake news. Their operating rule is simple: anyone who stands in the way of leftist power must be destroyed. Smear Kavanaugh. And smear anyone who might have anything good to say about him.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/why-we-hate-the-media-kavanaugh-edition.php
