politics

Trump’s Pick to Replace Kavanaugh Regrets Her Past Writing on Date Rape

Neomi Rao.
Neomi Rao. Photo: Zach Gibson/Getty Images

In November 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Neomi Rao, the White House’s current regulatory czar, to fill Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s former seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., circuit. On Tuesday, she appeared in front of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where senators posed a number of questions regarding a number of controversial opinion essays she wrote while in college at Yale in the 1990s, the Washington Post reports.

Rao, 45, has never served as a judge before; prior to serving as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, she was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in Virginia. In January, BuzzFeed News reported on a number of essays she wrote for the Yale Herald between 1994 and 1996. In one such essay, called “Shades of Gray,” she argued that “It has always seemed self-evident to me that even if I drank a lot, I would still be responsible for my actions. A man who rapes a drunk girl should be prosecuted. At the same time, a good way to avoid a potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober.”

During the hearing, Senator Kamala Harris asked her what steps she “had in mind that women should take to avoid becoming a victim of sexual assault.” In response, Rao discussed “the common-sense idea” of “trying to avoid being the victim of any crime.”

She defended the idea that women should take it upon themselves to stay sober in order to avoid being raped, explaining that “it’s just a way to make [sexual assault] less likely; it is not to blame the victim. Rape and sexual assault are horrible crimes, but we’re talking about what can you do to keep yourself safe.”

Harris also referenced a column in which Rao argued that “no means no” was part of an idealist fantasy, something that only exists in an “artificial alternative world” dreamed up by “nurture feminists.” Rao said she “would not express myself that way today,” and does not stand by her past writing. However, as Refinery 29 notes, she did sign off on the Title IX restrictions implemented by Betsy DeVos last fall, which limit the definition of sexual harassment on college campuses and provide additional protections to students accused of assault.)

At another moment in the hearing, Republican senator Jodi Ernst questioned Rao about another college essay in which she said that teaching women that they’re equal to men is “dangerous feminist idealism.”

“I very much regret that statement,” Rao told Ernst. “I’ve always believed strongly in the equality of women and men and for equal rights and opportunities for women. I’m honestly not sure why I wrote that in college.”

During other parts of the hearing, senators questioned Rao about other statements she’s made in the past, including an assertion she made in 2014 that the Gun-Free School Zones Act was a “grandstanding statute.” She said that no, she does not presently believe that; she says she said that because she was “responding to the person I was interviewing.”

Senator Dick Durbin also questioned her on a column that claimed that a LGBTQ+ rights group on Yale’s campus was “spreading myths” about AIDS; in turn, she admitted “I do not recall” what she was talking about. He also quoted her as writing for the Yale Free Press, in 1993, that “myths of racial and sexual oppression propagate themselves, create hysteria, and finally lead to the formation of some whining new group.” Again, Rao did not seem to recall to which issue she was directly referring at the time, but claimed she was speaking from an “idealism” stemming from Dr. Martin Luther King’s work.

“I would really struggle to reconcile what you said about racial oppression as a myth with the legacy of Martin Luther King,” Durbin said in response.

Trump’s Pick to Replace Kavanaugh Regrets Past Views on Rape