Over 1,000 law professors demanded the Senate dismiss Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for Supreme Court. The professors signed a letter where they argue that Kavanaugh showed no sign of judicial restraint at the hearing in Senate last week as he responded to the sexual assault claims against him.
Bernard Harcourt of the Columbia Law School said in a statement for The Washington Post that the letter was a result of a dispute among his colleagues who discussed Kavanaugh’s “unprecedented and unfathomable demeanor” during the hearing.
The 53-year-old Supreme Court nominee snapped at senators over the course of the hearing, during which he visibly lost his temper and made accusations against Democrats, claiming that they were conducting a “calculated and orchestrated political hit.”
According to Harcourt, professors from nearly 100 schools signed the letter within 30 hours. The Columbia professor added that it “was a spontaneous reaction to the hearing.”
The letter has been published by The New York Times, and reads that “judicial temperament is one of the most important qualities of a judge.”
“The question at issue was, of course, painful for anyone. But Judge Kavanaugh exhibited a lack of commitment to judicious inquiry,” they say.
“Instead of trying to sort out with reason and care the allegations that were raised, Judge Kavanaugh responded in an intemperate, inflammatory and partial manner, as he interrupted and, at times, was discourteous to senators,” they add, noting that while they have differing views on Kavanaugh’s other qualifications of Kavanaugh, they are “united, as professors of law and scholars in believing that Judge Kavanaugh did not display the impartiality and judicial temperament requisite to sit on the highest court of our land. “
“Judges must step aside if they are at risk of being perceived as or of being unfair,” the law professors remind senators, adding that “as Congress has previously put it, a judge or justice ‘shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned’.”
Be the first to comment