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'This Is How Victims Are Isolated and Silenced': Debbie Ramirez on the Kavanaugh Confirmation Vote

By Amanda Michelle Gomez, ThinkProgress

06 October 18

Read the full statement from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's accuser, Debbie Ramirez.

ebbie Ramirez, who attended Yale with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, said the Senate’s treatment of her was reminiscent of when the judge first assaulted her 35 years ago.

“[T]he other students in the room chose to laugh and look the other way as sexual violence was perpetrated on me by Brett Kavanaugh,” Ramirez said in a statement released Saturday, just a few hours before Kavanaugh’s final confirmation vote.

“As I watch many of the Senators speak and vote on the floor of the Senate I feel like I’m right back at Yale where half the room is laughing and looking the other way. Only this time, instead of drunk college kids, it is US Senators who are deliberately ignoring his behavior.”

Ramirez told the New Yorker that Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her at a college party, thrusting his penis in her face and making her touch it without her consent. She is one of three women who accused President Donald Trump’s nominee of sexual assault.

Despite Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s credible testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in which she described her own assault and reports that the FBI investigation into the allegations were far from thorough, enough senators say they are voting in favor of the nomination to confirm Kavanaugh.

Many senators have said they believe Dr. Ford was assaulted but that it wasn’t Kavanaugh and that she’s “mixed up” and “mistaken” — meaning, they do not actually believe her. So Kavanaugh, a man who is opposed by a majority of the country, is all but certain to become the next Supreme Court justice.

Ramirez’s statement echoed Dr. Ford’s testimony. Dr. Ford told senators she could never forget the “uproarious laughter” from Kavanaugh and his college friend Mark Judge when the former assaulted her in high school. Using her expertise as a psychologist professor, she said “indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter — the uproarious laughter between the two and they’re having fun at my expense.”

Read the full statement from Kavanaugh’s accuser, Debbie Ramirez:

Thirty-five years ago, the other students in the room chose to laugh and look the other way as sexual violence was perpetrated on me by Brett Kavanaugh. As I watch many of the Senators speak and vote on the floor of the Senate I feel like I’m right back at Yale where half the room is laughing and looking the other way. Only this time, instead of drunk college kids, it is US Senators who are deliberately ignoring his behavior. This is how victims are isolated and silenced.

But I do have corroborating witnesses speaking for me, although they were not allowed to speak to the FBI, and I feel extremely grateful for them and for the overwhelming amount of support that I have received and continue to receive during this extremely difficult and painful time. There may be people with power who are looking the other way, but there are millions more who are standing together, speaking up about personal experiences of sexual violence and taking action to support survivors. This is truly a collective moment of survivors and allies standing together.

Thank you for hearing me, seeing me and believing me. I am grateful for each and every one of you. We will not be silenced.

We stand in truth and light,

Debbie Ramirez

(pronouns she, her, hers)