Justice at last

Thursday morning, we lamented all the things the Legislature had yet to accomplish in its almost-over session. Thursday afternoon, pols scratched one of the items off our list: Speaker Carl Heastie announced the Assembly will soon vote on the Adult Survivors Act, which cleared the Senate unanimously last month, giving hope to sexual abuse victims who’ve been prevented from seeking justice by restrictive statutes of limitations.

It was three years ago that Gov. Cuomo visited the Daily News newsroom and, honoring a cause championed by this newspaper, signed into law the Child Victims Act, groundbreaking legislation opening up a one-year lookback window allowing people who had been molested as children to take their abusers and their enablers to court. That only happened because of an awakening — the understanding that sexual abuse against young people is so profoundly difficult to reckon with that it often takes years for a person to process what happened to them, much less to confront their tormentor and whoever might have abetted him or her.

The same psychological dynamic applies when a victim is 19 or 25 or 35 or 60. Yet in New York, civil statutes of limitations have historically given as little as one year and five years at most for adult victims to go to court. That was prospectively remedied in 2019 — but going backward in time, generations of abuse have yet to be unearthed.

We all know by now of the gynecologist Robert Hadden accused of abuse by at least 175 women and the movie producer turned serial predator. Larry Nassar’s violations of scores of gymnasts were not centered in New York, but there are surely college students, athletes, employees and others here with harrowing stories of exploitation by those with similar power over them.

When Gov. Hochul signs the Adult Survivors Act authored by Sen. Brad Hoylman and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, a reckoning will begin. It will not be easy or painless, but in the end, we will be the better for it.