(Image source from: The Hill)

A California professor has gone public with allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were high school students in the early 1980s.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the 51-year-old Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist who teaches at Palo Alto University, alleged that Kavanaugh and a friend - both "stumbling drunk" - corralled her in a bedroom. There, according to the account, Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed and groped her while attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothes she was wearing over it.

She claimed that the incident occurred at a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County, Md.

Kavanaugh issued a statement last week that he "categorically and unequivocally" denied doing anything of the sort after an anonymous account of the allegations with much less detail emerged. Ford said she had sought anonymity, but as parts of her story emerged without her consent, decided that she should be the one to tell it.

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According to the Post story, Ford had called a Post tip line and contacted both Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, D-Calif. and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee in July. But she had sought to keep her identity secret.

Feinstein issued a vague news release Thursday saying she had information about Kavanaugh that she had referred to federal investigative authorities, but she did not name the individual who provided the information.

The Post reported that Ford discussed the alleged incident in 2012 during couples therapy with her therapy and that portions of the therapist's notes were reviewed by the newspaper. Those notes did not specifically mention Kavanaugh but said she claimed she was attacked by students "from an elitist boys' school" who later gained prominence.

By Sowmya Sangam