Yale Law School dean responds to reports that Kavanaugh hired women with 'certain look'
By Justin Wise - 09/20/18 08:03 PM EDT
The dean of Yale Law School on Thursday expressed "enormous concern" about reports that a professor at the school had advised students to have a "certain look" to earn a judicial clerkship with judge Brett Kavanaugh.
NBC News reports that Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken sent a letter to the law school community on Thursday responding to reports that were published in both The Guardian and The Huffington Post.
Gerken said the "the allegations being reported are of enormous concern to me and to the School."
"While we cannot comment on individual complaints or investigations, the Law School and the University thoroughly investigate all complaints regarding violations of University rules and take no options off the table," Gerken wrote, before encouraging students and faculty to report misconduct incidents.
"The Law School has a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which all of our students can live and learn in a community of mutual respect, free of harassment of any kind."
NBC News noted that a spokeswoman for Yale Law School confirmed that the letter was written in response to news reports about "faculty conduct by two members of our faculty."
The letter was written amid reports that Amy Chua, a law professor at Yale, told a group of students that it was “not an accident†that Kavanaugh’s law clerks “look like models,†according to The Guardian.
Jed Rubenfeld, a professor and Chua's husband, also told a student on at least one occasion that Kavanaugh, now President Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, "hires women with a certain look," according to the reports.
"He did not say what the look was and I did not ask," the student said, according to The Guardian.
"For the more than 10 years I've known him, Judge Kavanaugh’s first and only litmus test in hiring has been excellence. He hires only the most qualified clerks, and they have been diverse as well as exceptionally talented and capable," Chua said via email to NBC News.
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https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/407711-yale-law-school-dean-expresses-enormous-concern-over-students