IU student and political organizer Stanley Njuguna was arrested Wednesday for protesting at the hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Njuguna sat in the hearing watching his fellow protesters get up one by one to speak and be roughly escorted out of room. The urgency of the situation pulled him to his feet.
“He will not protect the Constitution,” Njuguna said as he stood in the hearing room. “He will serve corporations and his backwards worldview. The American people have no faith in you.”
Njuguna was photographed while being escorted out of the hearing and was featured in a Washington Post photograph about the Kavanaugh hearing protesters.
In Bloomington, Njuguna has led protests against the purchase of a Lenco Bearcat armored vehicle, spoke about racism on campus at a Black Student Union sit-in and has been active with IU Students for a Democratic Society.
He was one of many who were escorted out of the Senate confirmation hearing after voicing their opinions against Kavanaugh.
“I think that Brett Kavanaugh does not have the national interests in mind,” Njuguna said in an interview. “He’s not there to defend constitutional freedoms, he’s there to serve the interests of Trump and corporations and the far right.”
Njuguna, a senior studying law and public policy, is currently interning in Washington, D.C. for the Center for Popular Democracy, a nonprofit advocacy group. He said many of the people he worked with were also escorted out of the hearing and arrested. Those arrested were charged a fee of $35 and released.
“Sitting in a room full of national politicians like that was very daunting,” Njuguna said. “But we’re not in a time of political norms. We’re not just going to sit back and let these people with incredibly bad moral judgment rule our country.”
