Columbia Law’s Model of #MeToo Hypocrisy
Faculty protested Kavanaugh but have no problem with Biden’s commencement speech.
During the media circus surrounding then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings — a circus brought to town by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who at the 11th hour trotted out Christine Blasey Ford and her spurious allegations of sexual assault — the faculty of Columbia Law School circulated a petition declaring Kavanaugh unfit to serve on the highest court in the land. It was eventually signed by 2,400 law professors in solidarity with students protesting against President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, and it was a classic example of the Left’s emotional and irrational mob mentality.
Ford’s bizarre tale of sexual assault at the hands of a then-17-year-old Kavanaugh more than 35 years ago was shockingly light on details and utterly uncorroborated, and yet petitioners demanded that the foundational principles of jurisprudence be ignored in favor of a brand-new “believe all women” standard.
The sad irony is that Columbia Law School purportedly exists, well, to teach law. Thus, the school’s faculty petition was itself a profound failure to defend that most fundamental tenet of American jurisprudence — that one is deemed innocent until proven guilty.
This week, Columbia added yet another stain to its reputation: abject hypocrisy. Its law school invited accused sexual assailant Joe Biden to give the commencement address for this year’s graduating class, yet there have been no protests from students and no faculty-initiated petitions calling for Biden to be so much as disinvited, much less dropped as the Democrat presidential nominee. It’s as if the detailed and corroborated allegations of lifelong Democrat Tara Reade are nonexistent.
When challenged recently by Fox News about this glaring double standard, most faculty members refused to respond. A few pushed back, however, with one law professor ridiculously claiming that his objection to Kavanaugh had nothing to do with Ford’s charges but rather had everything to do with his “temperament.” (He seems fine, however, with Biden’s catalog of angry outbursts and his clear-cut cognitive decline.) Another professor simply stated that he didn’t believe Reade. So much for that “believe all women” trope.
Apparently for the Left, standards — even their own creations, never mind those that have long been established law — are never to be applied consistently when it’s a political agenda at stake.