Law Professor Warned Students That Kavanaugh Liked Clerks With A ‘Certain Look’

Tiger Mom: Amy Chua offers some insights as to why some cultural groups, like Jews, succeed while others don?t. Image by Getty Images
A former Yale Law School student said that a few years ago she was warned by a professor during her clerkship interview process that Judge Brett Kavanaugh liked his female clerks to have a “certain look,” HuffPost reported.
The outlet reported that Jed Rubenfeld and his wife, Amy Chua — author of the 2011 book “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” — were the professors doling out the advice on Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court candidate accused of sexually assaulting a girl when they were in high school.
Although Rubenfeld told the student that Kavanaugh, then a well-known judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, was known to hire female clerks with a “certain look,” he assured her that he hadn’t heard anything further.
The student, who asked to remain anonymous, also said Chua advised her to be and dress “outgoing.”
“[Chua] strongly urged me to send her pictures of what I was thinking of wearing so she could evaluate,” she told HuffPost. “I did not.”
Asked for a response, Chua told HuffPost: “For the more than ten years I’ve known him, Judge Kavanaugh’s first and only litmus test in hiring has been excellence.”
Chua and Rubenfeld’s daughter recently accepted a clerkship with Kavanaugh.
“As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal, he has also been an exceptional mentor to his female clerks,” Chua continued in the statement. “Among my proudest moments as a parent was the day I learned our daughter would join those ranks.”
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Fast Forward Brooklyn event with Itamar Ben-Gvir cancelled days before Israeli far-right minister’s US trip
-
Culture How Abraham Lincoln in a kippah wound up making a $250,000 deal on ‘Shark Tank’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.