The allegations against Brett Kavanaugh have been careful to include not only his age at the time of his alleged assault, but the fact that he was a student at Georgetown Prep. Assaults are a pandemic in our culture today, but his alleged actions speak beyond toxic masculinity and the general rape culture that holds all women hostage today. Brett Kavanaugh is a symptom of something worse. He is the fullest expression of elitism blended with misogyny that is cultivated and groomed at private, all-male institutions like Georgetown Prep.

I know because I went there.

I was proud when I was accepted as a freshman. I loved that the school dated back to 1789—  just two years after the signing of the Constitution—making our school older than modern France. Coming from a brand new public school, I marveled at the marble columns of the chapel that was built with an anonymous donation during the Great Depression.

It is a potent brew of pride that is heady stuff for a 15-year-old, and it meant the world to me to be included. I was coming from a public middle school in rural Maryland, and I loved my teachers and had an incredible education, but I had been bullied every day for my bookishness. I believed Prep’s story about itself—I was so excited to be a part of such a noble institution of scholars and athletes “committed to justice.”

As part of our orientation, we were told what an honor it is to be a “Man for Others.” I was in awe of the access to power being a Prep grad might secure for me.

I remember Justice Scalia spoke at our annual Father-Son Dinner. We sat in the gym and feasted on steak as he addressed us. He pointed out that he attended Xavier High School, which was still in our network of esteem and familiarity as a Jesuit school like ours. He laughed about his decision in determining the course of the election of George Bush over Al Gore, and said “Well, I got that right,” to thunderous applause. Brett Kavanaugh worked for George Bush during that very campaign.

I wonder at what point in his career Brett Kavanaugh felt that he would someday serve on the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh was two years ahead of Justice Gorsuch at Prep. They would have passed each other in the halls. Did they already feel confident even then that would rise to such prominence?

As a teacher now , I truly believe in the power of the growth mindset. Rather than telling a student “you are smart” or “you are good,” you should praise the effort a student invests. My education at Prep had a different tenor however. Teachers offered intermittent, lukewarm constructive feedback on our behavior, but the general message of the school was that we were already fully actualized as “Men for Others.” Largely by virtue of our parents’ being able to pay the admission ticket, we were Prep students. We were the best. We hated our rival schools and looked down on everyone else.

Kavanaugh was two years ahead of Justice Gorsuch at Prep. They would have passed each other in the halls. Did they already feel confident even then that would rise to such prominence?
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No one should walk with the certainty of their own innate goodness, least of all unformed, adolescent boys. As many lessons as we learned about how special we were, we learned even more from the lack of response to our worst behaviors.

I remember a young woman who substituted for my English class weeping as she erased “I want to fuck Ms. ________ in the ass” from the blackboard. If the boy who wrote it was disciplined, I never heard about it; his actions were never condemned. I also remember our class president getting elected on the slogan “Bleachers,” because he had “fingered” a girl beneath them. Before big games against rival schools, the “Boosters” (an elected group of cheerleaders who would get the fans going before and during games) would paper the hallways with posters with such slogans as “Beat the Pagans” when we played schools that were not religious, and “Hoya Saxa,” etc. One popular poster was a cartoon of a rabbit’s head that on closer inspection revealed a woman parting her legs. It would appear alongside other posters praising certain players or generally hyping the team. It served no other purpose and had no other meaning.

When you believe you are superior and untouchable, the least moral commit heinous crimes. The same lack of accountability that led to the rampant abuse finally being called out by the #MeToo movement, the rape of children in the Catholic Church by priests, rapes in the military and abuses by the police force—these all stem from the same corrupting sense of superiority.

I don’t think a day went by that I didn’t see a penis scrawled on a chalkboard or a desk. Everyday in the hall I would regularly see guys punch each other in the groin. I would often find myself doubled over in pain having just been punched out of nowhere. On two separate occasions I was choked until I almost blacked out. This was normal, everyday behavior. That is the culture enabled by the dangerous and passive permissiveness of “boys will be boys.” I have never been a fighter and in truth, I’m not particularly quick with words. I had very little defense. The idea of telling a teacher never crossed my mind. I’m not even certain who I would have told.  

When I was a sophomore, I was taught math by a very old priest. He was a big fan of the football team, and he would let football players sleep in class because they needed rest. He hated me, presumably for my lack of athleticism and my preference for extra-curricular activities which he deemed unmanly. He made a point of telling me that, “we get men ready for college, not art.” A student chimed in in agreement that “if I didn’t like it, I should just leave.”

No one should walk with the certainty of their own innate goodness, least of all unformed, adolescent boys.
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On another occasion, when I took exception to his taking additional points he’d taken off of one of my tests, he called me a “pussy” and punched me in the head.

I wonder how Kavanaugh, a star athlete at the school, would have been treated. I wonder what he would have said if he had been in that class with me. The image of his yearbook page that is now circulating indicate that he was inculcated in and upholding of this same cruel and misogynistic culture.

We did not have a comprehensive sexual health education at Prep. Freshmen were required to take physical education, and we had a rigorous program of units on weightlifting and other sports. One day out of every class cycle, we met with a coach who styled himself as “Doctor.” There was no textbook or curriculum. He simply shared amusing anecdotes and gave us words of wisdom such as:

“Boys, the first time you have sex, you’re not going to last long. So you should probably be drunk so you’ll last a little longer.”

There were high fives around the room. Everyone laughed. There was no discussion of how to use contraception and there was certainly no attempt to discuss what consent was.

During freshman orientation at college, I remember we were having a water balloon fight. I had gotten to know a student named Charles, and I picked him up and went to throw him in the kiddie pool of water and balloons. He cried out for me to stop, and he looked so upset and scared, I realized that I had crossed a line and I needed to rethink how to interact with other men. I felt awful—I saw in Charles a brief glimpse of the hurt and humiliation I’d felt throughout all of high school.

As an educator now, I am horrified at my memories of high school. It took me years to learn about healthy sexual relationships and healthy relationships in general. I worry about how our failures of education are perpetuating rape culture. The  statistics for sexual assaults are staggering. One in five women will be raped in their lives and more than 90% of sexual assault victims on college campuses do not report the assault. We spend more time articulating the honor code and investigating claims of plagiarism and cheating than we do the health and safety of our students, especially that of the girls and young women attending our schools.

At all-boys’ schools, when students stand shoulder to shoulder with their classmates and hear that they are called to greatness, they also internalize the absence of women from their position of privilege and power. Women are not part of the club. They are separate. They are for conquest; they are for dating; they are for marriage. Women are not peers. Some boys graduate and go on to unpack and unlearn these lessons. Others find new clubs with guarded access. They join fraternities. They go on to business schools and law firms and seek out institutions with disproportionately more men than women. Look at the gender breakdown of boardrooms everywhere. Look at the Supreme Court.

The question of the quality of sex education is vital for our schools now, and also in considering what education our current leaders have had. Has Brett Kavanaugh ever attended a course on sexual health? When would he have learned about consent? I don’t believe he learned about it at Prep. I wonder what curriculum he might have had at Yale. The world is different now than it was in ‘70s and ‘80s yet we are letting men with largely unchanged attitudes from those decades literally pass judgement on cases that define our lives and our society.

We've internalized the absence of women from their position of privilege and power. Women are not part of the club. They are separate. They are for conquest; they are for dating; they are for marriage. Women are not peers.
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Court cases demand that crimes be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, and institutions like Georgetown Prep have honed their ability to cast shadows for almost three centuries. I will never know exactly what happened to some of the victims at my school, and we will similarly never have conclusive evidence proving guilt. That is no accident. We learned implicitly which victims were not valued by the community and therefore expendable.

The new teacher here only temporarily? Graffiti desks in her room with threats of sexual assault. The librarian who just wanted to create a quiet space for study? Mock him every day and make his life miserable. Attack the isolated and the vulnerable, but be sure to do it when there are no witnesses. It’s safe to do anything in front of your classmates and your Prep brother, of course—they will always have your back and laugh about it later.  All the while we were confident that we were “Men for Others,” confident in our goodness and the promise of great futures.

The burden of proof should not be on the victim, but sadly it is. While the legal system remains imperfect and we cannot hope for immediate change, surely we could stop rewarding alleged predators and abusers. We don’t need to know whether or not Kavanaugh is definitively guilty of any one of the many allegations being leveled against him now.

He is not a man for others; he’s a man for other men, and the women of our nation deserve better.

I almost hesitate to contribute to the flurry of commentary around the now infamous New York Times op-ed.

The Kavanaugh hearings demand the disinfecting sunlight of an O-type star—burning very hot and very bright—after all. But the subtext of the op-ed points to two of the most alarming things about Trumpism. First, the fact that most of its opponents—especially on the right—condemn Trump’s style rather than his substance; second, that as a result of this, the groundwork is already being laid for Trumpism sans Trump.

The op-ed is a not-so-subtle plea to do the very thing we must never do: blame Trump’s proto-fascism entirely on the personal failings and quirks of one man:

“We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.”

The editorial is, in truth, the confession of an enabler and—despite its nearly unprecedented nature as a devastatingly public betrayal from within—a very traditionally Washington attempt by the author to position themselves for future jobs.

As scathing as the press has been about Trump and his omnishambolic government, there remain two glowing bright spots where even they must buckle and fawn in praise: American military strikes (let us recall Brian Williams’ woeful misunderstanding of Leonard Cohen’s music when the anchor said he was “guided by the beauty of our weapons”), and the mythic “adults in the room” of the Trump White House. These are the “men of honour,” mostly ex-military, who are supposedly sacrificing themselves to be close to Trump, and thus are able to restrain him.

The op-ed author made sure they eagerly claimed the “adult” title, and with good reason: Their audience was not ordinary Americans, but the country’s intelligentsia—political operatives, the non-profit world, academics, and journalists. It was a lullaby meant to reassure them that the “adults in the room” were real, implicitly noble conservatives who put “country first.” In that vein of media-friendly mythologizing, the coup de grace was shamelessly grabbing onto the coattails of the late John McCain’s newly sewn, saint-like hagiography.

The editorial is the confession of an enabler and a very traditionally Washington attempt by the author to position themselves for future jobs.
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Why? Remember that this administration has been uniquely radioactive for its employees and officials. Normally a White House stint is a golden ticket to plum jobs worldwide. That’s not proven true for Trump’s feckless adjutants, however. There’s a skin-deep stain of association with things like Trump’s Charlottesville remarks, where he praised neo-Nazis, insisting there were “good people on both sides” of a one-sided assault—acts which culminated in a terror attack that cost a young socialist counterprotester her life and injured many others.

“Out, damned spot!” cry Trump’s staffers and murderous ministers. They scrub feverishly in hopes of removing the mark that might keep them from a lifetime of corporate boards and preselection for safe seats. Painting themselves as the “adults in the room” media darlings—snatching the halo unworthily bestowed on Chief of Staff John Kelly or Defense Secretary Jim Mattis—is the only way they might cleanse themselves.

We shouldn’t allow this to work. The true thesis of the op-ed is “Trump is horrible, we know, but we’re good people, really.” The signal is sent up, particularly to other conservatives and the baleful number of credulous liberals who still desperately need to believe in the “compassionate conservative”:

“Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.”

Take them at their word. Don’t get them wrong. They’re right wing and fine with the continual looting of our country and its imperialist ambitions. They just don’t want to be as uncouth and “anti-trade” as Trump. But for malingering as they have, like a long lasting cold, they deserve no mercy or sympathy.

As this is the umpteen-thousandth take on the op-ed I’ll only delve into one more issue, which I feel hasn’t received its due attention. The op-ed is deliberately designed to instill complacency. The last section, which invokes the ghost of Senator McCain in an unintentionally apposite way, is a call to lay down arms.

“The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility. Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.”

The author blames us all for our fate. We allowed ourselves to sink low with Trump, and even our opposition to him is darkened by his long shadow. Aside from the fact that one should always beware anyone peddling “no labels” as a solution to social problems—even the Bible begins with a parable about the importance and power of naming things—this is the bit of the op-ed where you see the oil leaking.

The allegations in the op-ed are deadly serious, and yet that merely indicts the author further for their craven complicity. Even now Republicans are lamenting that the op-ed has backfired because it will make it harder to “contain” Trump. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) went so far as to validate the piece’s major claims about Trump, yet still laments its publication. They represent a perverse GOP consensus with the author: although Trump can be removed, they’d rather control him. No matter who gets hurt.

There’s something slick about it all; it’s all Trump’s fault, but it’s also the nation’s fault. Who’s not at fault? The author, and their cadre of “resistive” but polite proto-fascists.

This sly nonsense should be met with resistance worthy of that name; it is how we’ll deal with the immediate crisis of Trump and the aftermath of rebuilding a shattered society. Resistance must not be limited to opposing one man; it must address itself to the conditions that made him possible—such as the venality of operatives like this anonymous official. We must dispense with the comforting myth that these “adults in the room” are anything but efficient enablers.

In a word: fight. Treacly unity smothered by the flag is precisely the sort of sleepwalking that led us into Trump’s fever dream. To get out of it, we’ll have to dare to call things what they are, disobey—and horror of horrors—break decorum.

The author wants to tamp down on this as it might upend their plush boardroom chair. No more or less.

The author soft-pedals the “adults in the room” line as “cold comfort.” It’s no comfort at all to know that an administrative coup—with repercussions that will far outlast this presidency—is taking place and lies in the hands of such cowardly people that they’d sacrifice us all to Trump’s furies for a tax cut.

There is but one ice-bath of cold comfort in this mess: the knowledge that Trump himself is absolutely tormented by the question of who wrote the op-ed, and that its author is equally tormented by their tell-tale-heart beating beneath the White House floorboards.

When the two finally meet, each will see the other and find himself; they’ll know, silently, that they deserve each other.