'Tiger Mom' Prof Denies Kavanaugh Story

Amy Chua calls accusations "100% false"
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 23, 2018 9:40 AM CDT
'Tiger Mom' Prof Denies Kavanaugh Story
Amy Chua.   (Wikimedia Commons)

Amy Chua denies ever telling would-be clerks to dress a certain way when interviewing for jobs with Brett Kavanaugh, the Wall Street Journal reports. "Everything that is being said about the advice I give to students applying to Brett Kavanaugh—or any judge—is outrageous, 100% false, and the exact opposite of everything I have stood for and said for the last fifteen years," says Chua, a Yale Law School professor who made waves with her 2011 memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. According to reports in the Guardian and Huffington Post, Chua advised female students to adopt a "model-like" appearance for Kavanaugh and said it was "no accident" his female clerks "looked like models."

In her email to the Yale community Saturday, Chua admits to being "frank and transparent" with aspiring clerks but says she focused on having them review a judge's opinions and dress professionally. The kerfuffle comes amid a high-profile sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh and other problems for Chua, who is suffering from what she calls a "massive, freakish internal infection" while husband Jed Rubenfeld, also a Yale Law prof, is being investigated by the school for alleged remarks to female students. Meanwhile, the Guardian stands by its Chua story: "Kavanaugh tends to hire women who are generally attractive," an unidentified former Yale student tells the paper. "I don't think it is a sexual thing, but [Kavanaugh] likes to have pretty clerks." (More sexism stories.)

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