The following article by Ann E. Marimow was posted on the Washington Post website August 7, 2018:
The Post’s Robert Barnes explains some of the factors that could influence whether Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh is confirmed. (Video: Monica Akhtar/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
In the spring of 2015, Brett M. Kavanaugh returned to his alma mater in New Haven, Conn., to address the Black Law Students Association. The student who introduced him said Kavanaugh was concerned that African Americans and other minorities were being shut out of coveted clerkships with federal judges like him.
Kavanaugh concluded the session by handing out his email address and phone number and encouraging the Yale students to apply. Indeed, two of Kavanaugh’s four law clerks this year were African American students he met during annual visits to Yale, and Kavanaugh and his supporters have touted his record of hiring young lawyers from diverse backgrounds to work with him at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“It was important to him that everyone have access,” recalled Rakim Brooks, who introduced the judge that day and completed a year-long clerkship with him this summer just as President Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.