Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is a psychology researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine and a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University. She has worked on Stanford University School of Medicine Collaborative Clinical Psychology Program and specializes in statistical modeling.
As an undergrad, she received her Bachelor’s degree in Experimental Psychology from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, her Master’s in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University, and her PhD in Educational Psychology from University of Southern California; her 1995 dissertation was entitled Measuring Young Children's Coping Responses to Interpersonal Conflict. She also earned an additional master's degree in Epidemiology, with a focus on the subject of Biostatistics, from Stanford University School of Medicine.
Dr. Ford began teaching at Stanford University in 1988, and also currently at Palo Alto University, in which she participates in educational programs with the Stanford University School of Medicine as a member of a consortium group with Palo Alto University. She teaches courses in psychometrics, research methodology, and statistics. Additionally, Dr. Ford has consulted for several pharmaceutical companies, worked as the director of biostatistics at Corcept Therapeutics, and collaborated with FDA statisticians.
Ford is an expert within her field, and widely published in a vast array of topics.
Helena Chmura Kraemer, a Stanford professor emeritus in biostatistics who has co-authored a book and several articles with Dr. Ford, states that Ford "specializes in designing statistical models for research projects in order to make sure they come to accurate conclusions". She has written numerous academic/peer reviewed articles published in academic journals on topics such as depression, child abuse, and trauma. In 2015 she co-authored a book titled How Many Subjects? Statistical Power Analysis in Research. Additionally, in 2016 she published her research in the academic journal Behavior Therapy, which explores the social impact of hiding one’s sexual orientation. Psychologist William Gibson from the American Psychological Association stated that Dr. Ford’s research "demonstrates that issues of identity have relevance to mental health outcomes in ways that much of previous work misses”.
Dr. Ford is a subject matter expert in trauma. She is an accomplished and successful Psychologist, researcher, and professor. Amongst these amazing and noteworthy accomplishments, Dr. Ford is a wife and a mother to two sons.
She is also a survivor of sexual assault.
I will not go into Dr. Ford’s story too much because she tells it herself in her compelling, heart-wrenching testimony at Judge Kavanaugh’s Senate hearing. But I will go into the events leading up to the hearing and the subsequent after effects of the Confirmation Vote.
In early July, 2018, Dr. Ford wrote to her representative, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, after seeing Judge Kavanaugh’s name on President Trump’s shortlist of nominees for Supreme Court Justice. In her letter, Dr. Ford detailed her experiences with Judge Kavanaugh as a teen, that he had sexually assaulted her at a party in high school, and asked to be kept anonymous, adamantly expressing her worry that her identity would become public. She stated that she was “terrified”. And for good reason, which we’ll talk about later. Congresswoman Eshoo found Ford’s account to be credible, and met with Dr. Ford, after which, they decided to take the issue to Senator Dianne Feinstein, their Californian Senator and ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who was due to deliberate Kavanaugh nomination. Dr. Ford’s letter to Senator Feinstein accounted her sexual assault by Judge Kavanaugh when both of them were still in high school in Maryland. She then asked her story be confidential.
The next month, in August, Dr. Ford took a polygraph administered by a former FBI agent, who found her statement and accounts to be truthful. On September 13, in order to protect Dr. Ford’s identity, Senator Feinstein sent the letter Ford had written her to the FBI, who redacted Ford’s name, and sent the letter to the White House as an update to Kavanaugh’s background check. The White House, in turn, sent the letter to each member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
On September 16, because the media circus had begun to identify Dr. Ford as the accuser, Dr. Ford made her identity public. Dr. Ford then testified at Judge Kavanaugh's hearing, where she recounted the events and subsequent impact those events have had and continue to have on her life. She was strong. She was brave. She was courageous. And even though it took everything out of her, even though she faced mountainous ridicule and hateful vitriol from GOP and many of the Republican Senators and party members (who called her a liar, a political pawn in the Democrats arsenal to take over), SHE SPOKE HER TRUTH. She stood up, she spoke out, and she PUT HERSELF OUT THERE. She did so because she believed it was her “civic duty” to say something; she could not live with herself knowing what kind of person he truly is and not say anything, given the importance of the lifetime appointment as a Justice in the Supreme Court.
I am so grateful for Dr. Ford for being willing, and courageous, and brave enough to share her story, a story that so many, innumerous, women share. Dr. Ford is a hero. She has not wavered, even after the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HARSHLY, DISGUSTINGLY, AND DISTASTEFULLY MOCKED HER ON NATIONAL TELEVISION, IN FRONT OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. She has not wavered under the accusatory and malicious attacks from media and talking heads and Republican Senators. She has not wavered after receiving death threats to her and her family, who STILL cannot return home because of the intensity and extent to which those threats were made.
She has not wavered, even though the man that she knows, in 100% certainty because it is burned into her brain (AND SHE KNEW HIM BEFORE THE ASSAULT), sexually assaulted her at a party in high school when she was fifteen and he was seventeen.
SHE. HAS. NOT. WAVERED.
Dr. Ford’s resiliency has inspired thousands of women to speak up about their experiences (and several other women who have similar experiences with Kavanaugh), to speak their truths, to stand up to their assaulters, to take control of their narrative and fight back.
Dr. Ford has given hope to so many survivors and has demonstrated that survivors are not alone. Dr. Ford is a feminist icon because she has, inadvertently, ushered in a new wave of resistance fighters.
WE BELIEVE YOU. WE STAND WITH YOU.
WOMEN WILL NOT FORGET.
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