Christine Blasey Ford nominated for UNC Distinguished Alumna Award

Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser has been nominated by her alma mater for its distinguished alumna award for “speaking truth to power.”

According to a report in CNN, Christine Blasey Ford is being pushed for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Distinguished Alumna Award because she was “speaking truth to power” when she publicly accused then-Judge Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

Jennifer Ho, a professor of English at UNC, stated in her letter nominating Ms. Blasey Ford that her testimony “was something that was extraordinary in how ordinary it was: she told the truth about a sexual assault she experienced when she was fifteen years old at the hands of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.”

Justice Kavanaugh has denied attempting to rape Ms. Blasey Ford.

Ms. Blasey Ford has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UNC, which she received in 1988.

According to the university’s web page, alumni must be nominated by Oct. 15 and have made “an outstanding contribution to humanity in any walk of life.”

Ms. Ho’s nominating letter said that “Dr. Blasey Ford giving her testimony, speaking truth to power, was an inspiration for so many of us. Her accomplishment is to be an alumna of integrity, who despite great personal cost to herself and her family told her story of her sexual assault and emboldened others to also find the courage to speak out against injustice.”

Ms. Ho insisted that the letter and the nomination are not partisan acts.

“There may be people reading this nomination letter who will take issue with Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony or who may see this letter as an example of partisan politics,” Ms. Ho’s letter states, according to a posted version of it at CNN.

“But this letter nominating Dr. Blasey Ford is not about partisan politics: it is about recognizing that the simple act of speaking one’s truth, especially when that truth involves sexual assault, is an act of bravery. We live in a society that does not believe women,” she wrote.

There were several inconsistencies and vaguenesses in Ms. Blasey Ford’s claim that the future justice attacked her at a drinking party at an unspecified time in the 1980s when they were high schoolers.

Her claims, of which she told nobody until couples therapy with her husband in 2012, had no independent corroboration, and none of the witnesses Ms. Blasey Ford said were at the party could recall such an event.

The Senate confirmed Justice Kavanaugh on a 50-48 vote last week and he heard his first case Tuesday.