Blog posts and people on Twitter claimed Monday that students left scathing RateMyProfessors.com reviews for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who alleged that Supreme…
Blog posts and people on Twitter claimed Monday that students left scathing RateMyProfessors.com reviews for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who alleged that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers about 35 years ago.
Video-clip editing service Grabien published a post about the reviews. ”’Something’s Wrong With Her’: Christine Ford’s Students Savage Her In Reviews,” the headline read.
“The student reviews are brutal and suggest she has severe psychological problems,” a Gateway Pundit post about the reviews said.
“Twitter is actively blocking true facts about Judge Kavanaugh accuser from being exposed,” Twitter user Michael Moates said Monday in a since-deleted tweet, referencing a video that showed Twitter would not allow a tweet with a link to The Federalist Papers story to be posted.
Many other laypeople on social media said that Ford received negative reviews from students.
Verdict: False
The reviews were for a different professor with a similar name at a different school, not Kavanaugh’s accuser.
Fact Check:
The reports cited reviews for Christine A. Ford, a professor who taught in the Department of Social Work at California State University-Fullerton.
“Prof. Ford is unprofessional, lacks appropriate filters, and I am honestly scared of her. She’s made comments both in class and in e-mails, if you cross her, you will be on her bad side,” read a review from 2014.
“Christine ford is the worst educator I have ever experienced. Avoid taking her class and avoid any interaction with this person,” another 2014 review said.
The Christine Ford at Cal State-Fullerton is not the woman who alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.
Christine Blasey Ford, who wrote in a letter to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein that Kavanaugh attempted to “disrobe” her and put his hand over her mouth at a high school party, teaches clinical psychology at Palo Alto University and teaches in a consortium with Stanford University. She goes by Christine Blasey professionally.
Her profiles for Palo Alto University and Stanford University showed zero reviews as of Monday.
The Drudge Report tweeted a link to the Grabien story Monday. Many prominent conservatives, including political commentator Andrew Klavan, radio personality Mark Levin and former game show host Chuck Woolery, shared the story on social media.
Grabien retracted the story later Monday and apologized for the mistake. “We regret not going to greater lengths to ensure this was indeed the same Christine Ford. Please do not share this article with anyone (and if you have, delete it/withdraw it); we are only leaving the page up so you can see this important update,” an editor’s note said.
Gateway Pundit updated its article to remove the reviews and noted that they were for the wrong Christine Ford. “An earlier post referenced Ford as an unpopular professor but we have since learned this was a different educator with the same name,” an update note read.
Drudge, Klavan and Levin deleted their tweets about the story.
Following inquiries from The Daily Caller News Foundation Tuesday, Woolery deleted his tweet and Moates deleted his tweet and apologized for the error. The Federalist Papers deleted its post about the reviews.
Despite the corrections, laypeople on social media continue to spread the reviews and misreport that they apply to Christine Blasey Ford.
The most critical reviews on RateMyProfessors.com for the Christine A. Ford at Cal State-Fullerton appear to have been deleted. An archive captured Sunday showed eight student ratings on the page while there were five reviews on the page Tuesday. RateMyProfessors did not respond to a request for comment.
The Federalist Papers did not respond to requests for comment.
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