The Internet Archive, a digital archiving company, decided to publish an unredacted version of Judge Brett Kavanaugh's 1983 yearbook, which has been used as evidence during hearings relating to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's sexual assault allegations. Up until now we've only seen a few pages of the yearbook, including Kavanaugh and Mark Judge's. Now, most of the yearbook is online for the public to see. Pages involving faculty and lower classmen were not included.
“By providing access to the 1983 Georgetown Prep yearbook, the Internet Archive is serving its mission as a library, helping people more fully understand the context of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court,” Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, told The Intercept.
It has been argued that Kavanaugh's yearbook page gives a glimpse into who he was during high school. This is the page in question:
The unredacted version of Brett Kavanaugh's 1983 yearbook page: pic.twitter.com/SD2jExHZDW
— Beth Baumann (@eb454) October 3, 2018
One of the reasons people are flipping through the yearbook has to do with the words "Renate Alumni," which is seen throughout the yearbook, on individual students' pages and in a group of football players, that included Kavanaugh. According to the New York Times, the word "Renate" is a reference to Renate Schroeder, a student at the Catholic girls' school at the time. The term was allegedly used for "football players' unsubstantiated boasting about their conquests."
They were very disrespectful, at least verbally, with Renate,” classmate Sean Hagan said, referring to Kavanuagh and his friends. “I can’t express how disgusted I am with them, then and now.”
Interestingly enough, Renate Schroeder Dolphin was one of the 65 women who signed a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee saying they knew Kavanaugh during their high school years. The letter also said that "he has behaved honorably and treated women with respect."
When Dolphin signed the letter on Sept. 14, she was unaware of the yearbook references with her name.
“I learned about these yearbook pages only a few days ago,” Ms. Dolphin said in a statement to The Times. “I don’t know what ‘Renate Alumnus’ actually means. I can’t begin to comprehend what goes through the minds of 17-year-old boys who write such things, but the insinuation is horrible, hurtful and simply untrue. I pray their daughters are never treated this way. I will have no further comment.”
Kavanaugh's attorney, Alexandra Walsh, said Kavanuagh and Renate Dolphin were friends in high school.
“Judge Kavanaugh and Ms. Dolphin attended one high school event together and shared a brief kiss good night following that event,” Walsh said in a statement. “They had no other such encounter. The language from Judge Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook refers to the fact that he and Ms. Dolphin attended that one high school event together and nothing else.”
Dolphin said the kiss never happened.
According to four of the men who were seen in a picture with Kavanaugh captioned "Renate Alumni," the term is a reference to those who dated or went to dances with Dolphin.
It's also important to note that Mark Judge was the yearbook's captions editor. According to a report by The Atlantic, a Georgetown Prep alum said the captions "are broadly reflective of the general sense of humor of the student body – at least the 'popular' kids."
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