A University Dean Defended Brett Kavanaugh. You Can Guess What Happened Next.
A university dean who defended Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh from uncorroborated allegations of sexual assault has resigned from his leadership post.
Will Rainford, Catholic University’s dean of social service, had held his position for five years, but was suspended after tweeting logical questions of the women who came forward to accused Kavanaugh just before he was set to be confirmed.
“Swetnick is 55 y/o,” Rainford said on in a since-deleted tweet, according to The Washington Post. “Kavanaugh is 52 y/o. Since when do senior girls hang with freshmen boys? If it happened when Kavanaugh was a senior, Swetnick was an adult drinking with & by her admission, having sex with underage boys. In another universe, he would be victim & she the perp!”
Many people questioned the age difference between Swetnick and Kavanaugh at the time she made her ludicrous accusations, which initially claimed Kavanaugh spiked the punch at parties in order to get women drunk for gang-rapes. She contradicted her salacious claims in an NBC interview in early October, which aired even though the media outlet acknowledged it couldn’t find any evidence to corroborate her claim.
Swetnick and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, have since been referred for criminal investigation for making false statements. Unsurprisingly, The Washington Post failed to mention this in its article about Rainford’s tweets. All it said was that “Kavanaugh denied Swetnick’s allegation.”
Rainford tweeted this from a now-deleted account, @NCSSSDean, which gave away his position as dean of the National Catholic School of Social Service.
In another tweet, Rainford questioned why Kavanaugh’s first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, took a polygraph test prior to making her accusation.
“Riddle me this,” Rainford said, according to the Post. “Why would the accuser of Kavanaugh take a polygraph, paid for by someone else and administered by private investigator in early August, if she wanted to remain anonymous and had no intention of reporting the alleged assault?”
These are pretty standard questions that many Americans had. They don’t demean the accusers, unless you’re part of the “Believe All Women” crowd who opposed Kavanaugh anyway and demanded we believe each outlandish claim even after alleged corroborating witnesses said they remembered no such event.
Rainford was suspended by his university over the tweets. Catholic University President John Garvey called the tweets “unacceptable” when he announced Rainford’s suspension.
“We should expect any opinion he expresses about sexual assault to be thoughtful, constructive, and reflective of the values of Catholic University, particularly in communications from the account handle @NCSSSDean,” Garvey said at the time. “While it was appropriate for him to apologize and to delete his Twitter and Facebook accounts, this does not excuse the serious lack of judgment and insensitivity of his comments.”
By “thoughtful, constructive, and reflective of the values,” he means Rainford should have accepted the accusations at face value and considered the women victims without any evidence, as colleges and universities across the country demand.
Side note: Catholic University was sued in 2017 by a male student accused of sexual assault after the school’s Title IX coordinator helped the accusing female “create a coherent narrative” to explain why her text messages didn’t match her allegation. She had repeatedly told the male student the sex was consensual but a year after their encounter filed a complaint alleging sexual assault. The school was also accused of “selectively excluding evidence that would have shown Jane Doe was not telling the truth.”
Back to Rainford’s tweets. He apologized for them and said he “unfortunately degraded” one of Kavanaugh’s accusers.
On Wednesday, Rainford resigned from his leadership position with the university.
“After much prayer and discernment, I am submitting my resignation to you as Dean of the National Catholic School of Social Service, effective immediately,” Rainford wrote. “I do so with all good will for the University and School. Given the needs of the faculty and direction of the School, I believe a different academic leader is warranted.”
Rainford will remain a tenured associate professor at Catholic, and will return to teaching in the spring semester.