Christine Blasey Ford receives 'courage' award for Kavanaugh testimony

In a rare public appearance to pick up an award, the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault says she had a responsibility to come forward, NBC News reports.

Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, spoke Sunday after she accepted the Rodger Baldwin Courage Award from the ACLU of Southern California in Beverly Hills.

She said: “When I came forward last September, I did not feel courageous. I was simply doing my duty as a citizen. I understood that not everyone would welcome my information, and I was prepared for a variety of outcomes, including being dismissed.”

Blasey Ford testified in September 2018 during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings that Kavanaugh assaulted her during a house party with other teenagers in suburban Maryland in 1982.

According to Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh and a friend allegedly confronted her in one of the bedrooms at that party. She claimed Kavanaugh then pinned her to the bed and groped her over her clothes, muffling her screams with his hand.

“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and they’re having fun at my expense,” Blasey Ford recalled before Congress last year, referring to Kavanaugh and his friend, who she said was in the room at the time of the alleged attack. “I was underneath one of them, while the two laughed. Two friends having a really good time with one another.”

Her devastating testimony gripped the nation, but Republican senators ultimately stuck by Kavanaugh and he was confirmed.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.

Blasey Ford, meanwhile, says she has received threats and has had to hire security to protect her family since coming forward.