Speaking Out, Facing Attacks
Survivors: Treatment Of Judge’s Accuser All Too Familiar
An allegation of a decades-old assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — and President Donald Trump’s blunt questioning of the credibility of his accuser — have ignited a painful and public debate about the treatment of survivors of sexual assault.
“Even after the millions of #MeToo stories, women who speak their truth about the harassment, sexual assault and rape are routinely shamed, scrutinized, threatened, cut off from friends and family and somehow repeatedly blamed for acts of sexual violence perpetrated on them,’’ said Laura Cordes, executive director of the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence.
Cordes and sexual assault survivors in Connecticut are rallying behind Chris-
tine Blasey Ford, a California college professor who says she was assaulted as a teen by Kavanaugh, the federal appeals court judge who is facing a tense confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee. Ford has agreed to testify before the committee later this week.
Cordes and others who spoke out at the state Capitol in Hartford last week said that it is common for victims to delay reporting the details of sexual assaults.
“Dr. Ford, we believe you,’’ said Tara Flynn, of Naugatuck, who said she was sexually assaulted at the age of 14. “We all need to stick together and do what’s right. ... Nobody who is falsely accusing somebody would ask for an FBI investigation, in my opinion.’’
Trump challenged Ford’s credibility, asking why she did not file a police report after Kavanaugh allegedly held her down in a bedroom at a high school party and assaulted her. Kavanaugh has strongly denied the allegations and has called for a hearing so he can clear his name.
On Friday, Trump tweeted, “if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with Local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents.”
Those who work with sexual assault survivors said the criticism that Ford is facing, which has escalated to include death threats, is the reason that many women are reluctant to report their assaults.
“Pain, sadness, shame, self-doubt, guilt, fear. These are some of the reasons I decided not to file a police report when I was assaulted at a house party in my teens,” said Lindsey Jones of Wethersfield, who spoke at a Capitol press conference with other sexual assault survivors last week. “I believed that I must bear at least some responsibility for the assault because I had been drinking underage, and a brief visit to the victims’ services offices of my college only confirmed that belief.’’
She added, “I believed that the depression and the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder I experienced in the years following the assault were the result of my own personal failings. … It’s been 15 years, and I am still in pain, and the people who assaulted me have not faced a single consequence.’’
Flynn said she was assaulted by a man whose children she baby-sat.
“He said nobody would believe me,’’ Flynn said. “I didn’t tell until I got a phone call that he had possibly raped a baby sitter after me. That was the only thing that got me to come forward and speak up. … I needed to stop him from doing it again.’’
The man served five years in prison, she said, and has since been released.
On Friday, Democrats on the committee wrote to Sen. Charles Grassley, the committee’s chair, criticizing Republicans who “have already made up their minds’’ about Ford’s allegation of assault.
“Some have gone so far as to state ‘she’s mixed up; she’s mistaken’ … These shameful attacks show why it is so difficult for survivors of sexual assault to come forward,” said the letter, which was signed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal and nine other Democrats. The “treatment of Dr. Ford has unquestionably been worse than the disgraceful treatment that Anita Hill received 27 years ago.”
Cordes pointed to the comments of Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican on the judiciary committee, for saying that Kavanaugh is an honest judge who declared he was never at the party that Ford described.
“His memories are believed, and not questioned, yet [Ford’s] are scrutinized and it is suggested that she is mixed up — an all-too-familiar scenario that victims face,’’ Cordes said.
Blumenthal said Trump’s comments about Ford, which came in a string of tweets, were out of bounds.
“The president should know better,’’ said Blumenthal, who is expected to play an important role questioning Kavanaugh. “Survivors of sexual assault suffer from exactly the kind of anguish, fear, embarrassment, and self-blaming that caused Dr. Blasey Ford to wait this long to report it. They seek confidentiality because they’re afraid of the nightmare, in their own lives, that she is going through now — maybe on a smaller scale. But it is the reason that sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes in the country.’’
The fast-changing atmosphere around the hearings has captured national attention as senators have been meeting behind the scenes to plan their next steps. Ford first claimed Kavanaugh assaulted her in a July 30 letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the judiciary committee. She went public in a story in The Washington Post earlier this month.
Kavanaugh has visited the White House and discussed potential questions that he could be asked. While denying that any attack took place more than 30 years ago, Kavanaugh has said he wants a public hearing as soon as possible in order to clear his name. Kavanaugh, 53, received his undergraduate and law school degrees from Yale University in New Haven.
On Friday, faculty at Yale Law School penned an open letter to the judiciary committee, urging the Senate to “conduct a fair and deliberate confirmation process.”
“With so much at stake for the Supreme Court and the nation, we are concerned about a rush to judgment that threatens both the integrity of the process and the public’s confidence in the Court,” the letter signed by 50 faculty members reads. “Where, as here, a sexual assault has been alleged against an individual nominated for a lifetime appointment in a position of public trust, a partisan hearing alone cannot be the forum to determine the truth of the matter. Allegations of sexual assault require a neutral factfinder and an investigation that can ascertain facts fairly.”
The letter goes on to say: “In subsequent hearings, all of those who testify, and particularly women testifying about sexual assault, must be treated with respect. Some questions are so fundamental to judicial integrity that the Senate cannot rush past them without undermining the public’s confidence in the Court. This is particularly so for an appointment that will yield a deciding vote on women’s rights and myriad other questions of immense consequence in American lives.”
In a statement that was released by the White House earlier this month, Kavanaugh said, “I have never done anything like what the accuser describes — to her or to anyone. Because this never happened, I had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself.’’
Blumenthal and nine other Democrats on the 21-member judiciary committee are asking for a much broader hearing that would include testimony from the FBI, the examiner who conducted a polygraph of Ford and Mark Judge, a high school classmate of Kavanaugh’s whom Ford identified as being at the party. Judge has said that he never witnessed Kavanaugh acting in the way that was described by Ford.
In a tweet Friday, Trump called for the committee, including its ranking member from California, to hold a vote on the nomination.
“Senator Feinstein and the Democrats held the letter for months, only to release it with a bang after the hearings were OVER — done very purposefully to Obstruct & Resist & Delay,” Trump tweeted. “Let her testify, or not, and TAKE THE VOTE!”