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“I learned about these yearbook pages only a few days ago,” Ms. Dolphin said in a statement to The New York 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.”
Alexandra Walsh, a lawyer for Judge Kavanaugh, said in a statement: “Judge Kavanaugh was friends with Renate Dolphin in high school. He admired her very much then, and he admires her to this day."
“Judge Kavanaugh and Ms. Dolphin attended one high school event together and shared a brief kiss good night following that event,” the statement continued. “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.”
Ms. Dolphin said she had never kissed Judge Kavanaugh. “I think Brett must have me confused with someone else, because I never kissed him,” she said through her lawyer.
In an interview on Fox News on Monday, Judge Kavanaugh defended his high school behavior in general terms. “People might have had too many beers on occasion and people generally in high school — I think all of us have probably done things we look back on in high school and regret or cringe a bit,” he said.
A White House spokesman, Raj Shah, declined to comment beyond the statement from Judge Kavanaugh’s lawyer.
Four of the men who were pictured with Judge Kavanaugh in a photo captioned “Renate Alumni” said it was simply a reference to their dating or going to dances with Ms. Dolphin.
An elite Catholic boys’ high school founded in 1789, Georgetown Prep is known for its motto, “Forming men for others,” a reference to its many alumni who have gone into public service. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch of the Supreme Court is a graduate, as is Jerome H. Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Judge Kavanaugh, a member of the football team and the captain of the basketball team, played a prominent role in Georgetown Prep’s firmament in the early 1980s. The school’s culture was one of heavy drinking and at times insensitivity.
The 1983 yearbook, for example, includes multiple apparent references to the Ku Klux Klan (but not on Judge Kavanaugh’s page). His page, in addition to the “Alumnius” entry, mentions his role as “treasurer” of the “Keg City Club.”
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