On Thursday, September 27, Parker students and faculty watched as both psychology professor at Palo Alto University Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee at separate times. Blasey Ford painfully retold the story of Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault on her in high school.

Christine Blasey Ford, in an interview with “The Washington Post,” publicly accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, of sexual misconduct on September 16. The confirmation vote for Kavanaugh was initially scheduled to take place on September 20, but following the release of Ford’s allegations of sexual assault, the Senate vote was changed and could take place as soon as Friday, October 5.  

Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee that this event took place at a high school party, just over 30 years ago.  Ford recalled that as teenagers, Kavanaugh and a friend, Mark Judge, corralled her into a bedroom upstairs where they pinned her down. Kavanaugh groped her and attempted to undress her, while Judge watched from nearby, helping Kavanaugh to keep Ford quiet.  

In her opening statement to the committee, Ford said that the decision to speak up was not an easy one for her to make. “I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school,” said Ford.

At Parker, on the day of the Senate hearing, junior and Model UN captain, Lindsay Carlin, led a Model UN symposium—in which students served as US senators—while the hearing took place, allowing students to gain a new perspective from their assigned senator’s view.

Although the hearings were major political events, Carlin found that at Parker, not all students could keep up with current events in their classes. “In Bigelow, someone presents news every day in class, and Kavanaugh has come up more than once in our national news,” said Carlin. “I know that not all teachers do that though.”

Many Parker faculty members including history teacher Andrew Bigelow and English teacher Bonnie Seebold watched the hearings themselves. Through Model UN and their teachers, students were able to better connect with the faculty by coalescing around this historic event in the history of the United States.