In Kavanaugh confirmation, local profs describe ‘legislative hand clamped over the mouths of women’

The declaration is blunt and jarring.

“We recognize this moment for what it is — a legislative hand clamped over the mouths of women,” the nearly 800-word letter reads in part.

“But we refuse to be silenced, and we refuse to be still. As others have done and so others may do, we will speak truth and champion justice.”

The statement comes in reaction to the confirmation of our newest Supreme Court justice, Brett Kavanaugh, courtesy of 11 female faculty members of the University of Puget Sound.

The proclamation — evocative of the testimony offered by professor Christine Blasey Ford — is part of a sharply worded letter sent to The News Tribune and other local publications.

The effort — both powerful and timely — sprang from an Oct. 6 gathering, the day Kavanaugh was officially confirmed, according to Tiffany Aldrich MacBain, professor and chairwoman of the UPS Department of English.

If we’re assigning adjectives, the letter is also brave and (unfortunately) necessary. By making the letter public, the professors at this small, private college know they’re opening themselves up to push back and potential vitriol.

They don’t care. That’s what the moment demands, they say.

Put simply, they’ve had enough.

Aldrich MacBain recalls watching the Kavanaugh confirmation process play out, and “knowing on a gut level that what Dr. Ford was saying was true.”

At the same time, she described the proceedings as a “performance … knowing the entire time that (senators) were going to do what they wanted to do.”

“I guess the thing we all felt, every one of us, was rage,” Aldrich MacBain described.

In the letter, the professors express an understandable anger over what they describe as the “closely guarded power over women’s personal agency,” exponsed during Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

Acknowledging her “pessimistic view,” Robin Jacobson, an associate professor of politics and government at UPS and one of the letter’s authors, couldn’t help but note the “lack of progress” when comparing the way Anita Hill was treated nearly 30 years ago to the treatment Ford received.

Or, as the letter put it: “In a pantomime of fairness and concern, (the Senate) allowed Professor Ford to speak, and then they hastened to mute and thus diminish the significance of her testimony.

“Silencing can take literal form or it can be symbolic, as when someone is permitted to speak and deliberately not heard.”

It’s a searing condemnation of what this country just watched transpire – yet again.

And it’s exactly right.

Jacobson said that motivation for the letter stemmed from a desire to “mark this political moment” and channel their “anger into action moving forward.” She said the issues Kavanaugh’s confirmation process spotlighted go far beyond typical partisan politics.

Jacobson also stressed that the views expressed in the letter do not represent the views of the university.

“There had been, for many of us, a rage that had been sort of sitting with us for a long time,” she said this week. “And there was a moment when this was all over, that something productive had to be done.”

There’s that word again: Rage.

There’s plenty of it to go around.

Beyond venting, however, Jacobson and Aldrich MacBain describe the letter as a first step in something that hopefully grows much bigger.

Jacobson said there are issues to address on the UPS campus and beyond.

What form this eventually takes remains uncertain, she said.

“I would hope that we actually are inviting folks into a collective conversation, not just on campus but off campus, in figuring out what the next steps are,” Jacobson said.

So what impact can it have?

According to Aldrich MacBain, even amidst the palpable anger in the room and the acknowledged uncertainty of what comes next, there were signs that the stand the professors were taking was the right one.

She recalled how one of the women in attendance brought her 10-year-old daughter, who was tasked with taking notes.

“For a while she sat there … and then she disappeared,” Aldrich MacBain said.

Later, the child’s mother called the women into another room, where — unprompted — the girl had transcribed what she’d heard “in a really organized order.”

“We all stood there reading it,” Aldrich MacBain said. “And every time she wrote the word ‘act,’ she put it in all caps.”

“You can’t help but think of what you’re modeling for your children and for your students,” Aldrich MacBain said.

“For us to be quiet, and basically not use our voices … was just unthinkable,” the professor added.

This story was originally published October 15, 2018 at 5:49 PM.