More than 2,400 law professors have signed on to a letter saying that Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh displayed a lack of judicial restraint at a Senate hearing last week — behavior that would be disqualifying for any court nominee.

Kavanaugh was responding to accusations from a California professor, Christine Blasey Ford, that he sexually assaulted her at a house party when they were teenagers in the 1980s. At the hearing, he vehemently defended his innocence and derided what he called “a calculated and orchestrated political hit.”

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“As someone who knew and liked Brett Kavanaugh when we clerked together, I have tried very hard to stay out of this process and to give him the benefit of the doubt,” said Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School. But Kavanaugh’s behavior at the hearing last week “was not what we should expect of a Supreme Court Justice. Telling obvious lies about his background, yelling at senators, refusing to answer questions, and blaming his troubles on others is not appropriate behavior.”