Thread by @ClaraJeffery

1/ Please enjoy a bunch of male law professors arguing that it's nuts for anyone to think that Amy Chua's op-ed defense of Bret Kavanaugh and BK giving Chua's daughter a SCOTUS clerkship—despite the Chu's claiming that she wasn't interested in that plum position is "gross."

https://twitter.com/HoffProf/status/1138869027172802560

2/ Along the way you will encounter: Men reframing the terms of the argument, that I didn't make, and I guess claiming that even though it looks bad, it doesn't rise to the standard of a criminal case of quid pro quo (again, I didn't say.)

3/ We hear about their mommy issues. We hear about how hard it is for Ivy League law profs to idk, something. What we mostly see is a fucking stunning lack of a common person's understanding of corruption. Did a contract have to be agreed upon for something to be corrupt? ...

4/ No! FFS if there is one thing we've learned in the last 3 years, there is plenty of blatant corruption that evidently! has no precise statutory remedy. THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT.

5/ But~~deep breath~~I avoided RTing all of this because, it's a super fascinating if extremely disturbing window into a) the grift behind clerkships b) their Frebreeze nose blindness to it all c) HOLY FUCKING SHIT WOMEN LAWYERS I SEE YOU.

THAT IS UNTIL THIS MF ASSHOLE

6/ This dude jumps on a thread, which thanks to some nuanced comments by another prof had ended in an informative place I think, 6 hrs later CALLS ME HON and is like measuring his dick to his friend. Ok, that's twitter but...

7/ he. teaches. women.

8/ Now, I've avoided looking to see whether any of this is ideological. I don't care. If a liberal SCOTUS nominee was accuse of sexual assault and his defender's daughter got a clerkship with exact same set of facts I would be just as appalled.

9/ As i have stated repeatedly through that thread, the thing I find most disturbing—aside from the insane mansplaining and now outright misogyny directed at me—is that this is so normalized to all of them. It's like Felicity Huffman on steroids. BUT WITH BONUS SEXUAL ASSAULT.

10/ These guys (and I have my exception, don't forget) seemingly don't see anything wrong with this like, DID YOU SEE THE UNTOUCHABLES, kind of graft. And, it is seemingly their default to mansplain to even! the editor of a national magazine.

11/ I mean JFC if these guys talk to me like this, god only knows how they talk to their students and coworkers. The. mind. reels.

12/ Now, it's late in Kentucky. And @brianlfrye has apologized. At least for the misspelled diminutive. We women are very good at accepting such apologies. Because we have to be. However I encourage him and anyone to get to the core of this debate: does this appear corrupt.

13/ Does it, in your gut, feel like this is something that should have never been proffered, and if proffered, accepted. That's it. What does YOUR moral compass tell you.

14/ To me, it's a signal of deep rot. Now I personally think that the Kavanaugh nomination, hearings, and appointment are an appalling stain on our judiciary. But Through this conversation I have (shout out coming) really started focusing on the perhaps greater issue.

15/ Anyway, I'm not sure how much others can see because some profs are for sure deleting comments (which...) and Twitter's architecture for threading sucks, increasingly.

But I'd like to praise @smbrnsn, who actually engaged in a dialogue about why the clerkship process sucks.

16/ Structural and cultural reasons (the nuances of which I was unaware) about why efforts at reform have floundered.

@MotherJones has just launched a corruption project. motherjones.com/media/2019/04/… You can be sure that this is a topic on which we will be following up.