The Kavanaugh Files: Gender, Gesture, and the Making of a Supreme Court Justice

The Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network and the Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at NYU Law, together with the Verbatim Performance Lab at NYU Steinhardt, present The Kavanaugh Files, a verbatim performance of key moments from the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of fall 2018. Performers present the original words, gestures, and disfluencies of the real-life people, and in most cases, the genders have been inverted — women perform the roles that men had in the real hearings, and men perform the women. The Kavanaugh Files asks viewers to consider how our perception of a person’s behavior is influenced by their gender, and how that impact the ways in which we respond to national events. A post-performance discussion with Melissa Murray, Member, ACS Board of Directors; Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Birnbaum Women's Leadership Network, and Joe Salvatore, Clinical Associate Professor, NYU Steinhardt and Director, Verbatim Performance Lab, will follow. This program is co-sponsored by the American Constitution Society (ACS) student chapter at NYU Law, the Black Allied Law Students Association (BALSA), the Latinx Law Students Association (LaLSA), Law Women, and the Women of Color Collective (WoCC). Register by 2/25 here.