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Noon Edition

Kavanaugh Nomination, Sexual Assault Allegations And 'Me Too'

Brett Kavanaugh (Left) faces allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in high school. (Wikimedia Commons)

Noon Edition airs on Fridays at noon on WFIU.

Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the United States Supreme Court is threatened after allegations by Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her at a party when Kavanaugh was 17.

Ford alleges that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, covering her mouth as he groped her and tried to remove her clothes.

The allegations come at a time when the news is filled with accusations of sexual misconduct against powerful men.

How should society react to these specific allegations against Kavanaugh and allegations of past sexual misconduct in general?

On this week's Noon Edition, we'll discuss the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh in the "MeToo" era.

Guests:

Zoe Peterson, Director, Kinsey Institute Sexual Assault Research Initiative and Associate Professor at Indiana University's School of Education

Steve Sanders, Associate Professor of Law at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law

Jennifer Drobac, R. Bruce Townsend Professor of Law at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

Conversation

Jennifer Drobac says that the stringent requirements for guilt in a criminal trial do not apply to this situation.

"This is not a criminal trial," Drobac says. "This is not a civil trial. The standards for proof of those forms do not apply. This is a job interview."

Zoe Peterson says that it's not unusual for victims of sexual assault to wait for years to tell anyone what happened, or even never break their silence.

"It is incredibly common for people not to disclose rape, and if they do disclose, to disclose after quite a long delay, and there's all kinds of reasons for that," Peterson says. "One of the reasons is because of fear and retaliation."

Read More: Trump Attacks Kavanaugh Accuser By Name Amid Negotiations For Hearing

Peterson says that a lack of education about sexual assault often leads to victims not coming forward sooner.

"A lot of people don't come forward immediately because they don't immediately recognize that what happened to them qualifies as sexual assault or rape," she says.

Steve Sanders says that Christine Blasey Ford's behavior before and during the making of these allegations lends credibility to her side of the story.

"She talked about this with a therapist some years ago, so there's corroboration there long before anyone knew Brett Kavanaugh's name at the national level," Sanders says. "She's the one who wants an FBI investigation. Typically a person who is worried about being exposed as a liar, which is a federal crime when you're talking to the FBI, isn't the one calling for an FBI investigation while the other one is doing everything they can to avoid it."

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