Students demand George Mason University fire Brett Kavanaugh

Students calling themselves “survivors” are demanding George Mason University immediately fire Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is set to teach a summer elective course for the university’s law school.

The recently created group “Mason For Survivors” has started a petition calling on the university to “terminate AND void ALL contracts and affiliation with Brett Kavanaugh at George Mason University.”

The group took to Twitter to promote its petition with the tagline #CancelKavanaugh. As of Thursday afternoon, it has already garnered more than 2,500 signatures.

Mason For Survivors bills itself as a “student-led advocacy group in solidarity with survivors, advocating for transparency, and demanding systemic reform at GMU.” The group’s Twitter account was created last month, not long after it was announced that Kavanaugh signed a three-year contract with the university.

Under the terms of the contract, Kavanaugh will teach for the university’s Antonin Scalia Law School as a distinguished visiting professor. The Supreme Court justice and his former law clerk Jennifer Mascott will teach a class titled “Creation of the Constitution” this summer, according to the Fourth Estate student newspaper.

The two-credit course will take place in Runnymede, England, the location of the sealing of the Magna Carta, and will run from July 22 to Aug. 2.

But firing Kavanaugh isn’t the group’s only grievance: They claim Kavanaugh’s hiring is only one in a series of incidents that prove the university has “failed survivors and the Mason community.”

The group’s petition includes a slew of other demands, including the “release [of] any and all documents … related to the hiring of Brett Kavanaugh as faculty at George Mason University,” a town hall, a formal apology from the university to survivors, Title IX policy reform, the implementation of policies preventing outside donor influence, and the hiring of an on-campus 24/7 Mason PD Sexual Assault Coordinator, among other things.

The group held an event this Wednesday on campus to “put pressure on … the administration to address student concerns regarding the Kavanaugh hiring and Title IX resources on campus.”

Elijah Nichols, the media co-lead for the group, said he “fully” believes its demands will be met, according to a report by Newsweek. “From meetings with student leaders, as well as Mason For Survivor allies, we’ve seen a great level of compliance.”

“As of now, the university is working on getting a town hall scheduled with the administrators that we and other students have asked for,” Nichols added.

However, the university shows no signs of firing Kavanaugh. The university’s president, Angel Cabrera, defended the decision to hire Kavanaugh in a March 27 statement, saying the university is committed to having students taught by the “most influential legal experts in the nation.”

“I respect the views of people who disagreed with Justice Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation due to questions raised about his sexual conduct in high school. But he was confirmed and is now a sitting Justice,” Cabrera said. “The law school has determined that the involvement of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice contributes to making our law program uniquely valuable for our students. And I accept their judgment.”

“This decision, controversial as it may be, in no way affects the university’s ongoing efforts to eradicate sexual violence from our campuses,” he added.

But all the controversy surrounding Kavanaugh doesn’t seem to have dampened his popularity at the university: The class he is set to teach is currently oversubscribed, according to Cabrera’s statement.

Troy Worden is a recent graduate in English and philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was president of the Berkeley College Republicans in 2017.