A Bay Area woman has come forward, accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in high school back in the 1980s.
That woman, Christine Blasey Ford, is now a professor at Palo Alto University.
Ford came forward to The Washington Post over the weekend, telling the newspaper that Kavanaugh and a friend corralled her in a bedroom during a house gathering at a house in Maryland in the early 1980’s.
She says both boys were “stumbling drunk” and that the friend watched as Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and clumsily tried to pull off her clothes. She says she tried to scream and Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand.
Deborah Katz, the lawyer who is representing Ford, says Ford considers Kavanaugh’s actions “attempted rape.”
Since Ford came forward, more than 200 alumnae of Holton-Arms — an all-girls school in Bethesda, Maryland — have signed an open letter of support.
That letter contains the signatures of alumnae from classes ranging from 1967 to 2018.
Ford’s experience “is all too consistent with stories we have heard and lived while attending Holton,” the letter says. “Many of us are survivors ourselves.”
Among those who signed the letter was actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who graduated from the school in 1979.
“I was class of ’79 and signed this letter,” she tweeted in support Monday night.
>> Click here to read the full open letter.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a public hearing next Monday with Kavanaugh and Ford, according to GOP chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
Kavanaugh denies assaulting Ford.