After Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed, McLean  High School reacted– both positively and negatively. The overall student population was surprisingly split on the very controversial issue.

AP Government teacher Rachel Baxter aired the confirmation hearings and held in-class discussions about the situation in all of her classes.

“Students did express different viewpoints when we discussed the confirmation,” Baxter said.”I think that students thought that they were pretty well educated about it, but from talking about it in all of my government classes and history classes, it became obvious that there were a lot of misconceptions and a lot of wrong information that students had.”

Still, some students were dedicated to keeping up with the confirmation process because they realized how important it was.

“I don’t support Kavanaugh’s confirmation simply because his confirmation process was such a mess and the FBI investigation needs to be more thorough when you have these serious accusations against a supposed justice for the Supreme Court,” senior Nathaniel Wyerman said.

A big point of contention for many students was how incomplete the FBI investigation on the matter was.

“I feel like the FBI investigation was not thorough enough and the fact that the Trump administration was in complete control of it and the fact that they commissioned it for one week in order to delay the confirmation process minimally shows that republicans did not have enough emphasis on the matter,” Wyerman said.

Still, some felt that the hearings in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the basis for the investigation, was a political smear by the Democratic Party.

“You can’t claim someone assaulted you without concrete evidence… this country’s court system doesn’t work like that,” junior Max Wohlschlegel said. “It also showed the world how desperate the Democratic Party is right now, how far they’re willing to go in order to get their way.”

Other students brought up his politics, which many feel are dangerous and an antithesis to any sort of progress.

“From this whole situation we can see that there is no way that Kavanaugh can be an unbiased justice, his justiceship is going to be so vengeful and already in the US there are so many issues that his confirmation goes against completely,” senior Kaiti Bachman said.

Regardless of the allegations and his behavior in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, some students still approve Kavanaugh for his political opinions and demeanor on the bench.

“I fully support Justice Kavanaugh not just because the head of the Executive Branch nominated him, but because I believe in his values, ability to make fair decisions, and his work ethic,” Wohlschlegel said. “He has proven himself as a judge in lower courts, being fair, and he looks at the situation from every possible angle, just as any qualified judge would.”

Though the student body was divided on the issue, encouraging students to be being well-educated and thinking critically about the allegations was a important goal for teachers like Baxter, especially given the enormity of the situations.

“Getting an appointment to a Supreme Court seat is an incredibly important thing especially for someone who is as young as Kavanaugh who will probably be there for decades to come,” Baxter said. “Also there have not been allegations like this since Anita Hill in 1991, before any of you were alive so it is a very historic thing that I wanted you guys to witness.”