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The Women Who Took Down Larry Nassar on Life After the Ruling


At the 2018 Women of the Year Summit, a group of women who helped take down former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar—accused of years of sexual abuse—came together on stage to discuss the extensive challenges they faced, before the trial and after his sentencing. As Glamour executive editor Wendy Naugle, who moderated the conversation, said in her introduction, “They’ve changed the way we talk about sexual assault and abuse in this country.”

Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to publicly accuse Nassar of assault, joined Andrea Munford, the detective who led the investigation, and Angela Povilaitis, the assistant Attorney General who led the prosecution. These women reflect but a fraction of the army that came together to bring justice against Nassar: More than 140 people came forward to file civil lawsuits against the disgraced doctor, including Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, alleging sexual abuse under the guise of treatment for injuries. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who presided over the case, came up after Denhollander, Munford, and Povilaitis left the stage. (Because Nassar has asked permission to repeal his sentencing, Judge Aquilina cannot speak to Denhollander, Munford, or the survivors, hence why they appeared separately.)

After hearing over 150 statements ranging two decades, Judge Aquilina sentenced Nassar to up to 175 years in prison. The response to the ruling was instantly huge, which surprised her at the time: “After it was over, I took a break and went and did four probation violations. I had no idea that the world was exploding,” the judge told Glamour in her WOTY profile. “I just did what I always do.”

In the panel titled The Collective Power of the Sister Army, Denhollander, Munford, and Povilaitis discussed how they banded together, prepared for a historic trial, and support survivors of sexual abuse. Then, Judge Aquilina spoke about why she allowed survivors to speak out in the courtroom. Below, the biggest moments of the panel.

PHOTO: Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images

Wendy Naugle, Rachael Denhollander, Andrea Munford, and Angela Povilaitis at Glamour’s Women of the Year Summit

On the culture of silencing survivors.

“I felt sick to my stomach when I made that phone call,” Denhollander remembered of when she first came forward. “I lost ten pounds in a week after giving the first interview.” By the time she came forward, she explained, she had experienced first-hand how survivors of sexual abuse were treated because of her church. Denhollander knew it would be important to come forward with a group, as opposed to a singular, anonymous voice.

“When you’re surrounded by the details, all of the time, it’s incredibly difficult,” Denhollander continued. “But what I was really the most afraid of was the investigation and the prosecutor I would get—I knew I could do everything in my power to move that case forward, but if I didn’t have an investigator and a prosecutor with the integrity and the skill to do what needed to be done there was nothing I could do.”

“When I met her I remember thinking she was so powerful and yet so nervous at the same time,” Munford said. “I had to do a lot of ensuring that I believed her, that I’d take this case [seriously], and that I wasn’t going to brush it aside no matter who it was.”

On why we must believe survivors.

Believing survivors of sexual assault is at the center of Povilaitis’s approach to prosecution of these cases: “A victim’s involvement in the criminal justice system shouldn’t create more trauma,” she told the audience. It’s important, she explained, “that we don’t blame them for their assault. That we allow them to have choices in their participation.” This thinking was essential to the plea agreement her team put together that allowed the survivors to give the victim impact statement during the Nassar trial. “It means the victim is a participant and that they have legitimate choices,” she added.

Povilaitis asked the audience: “If your friend came forward, how would you think about it? Start by believing and supporting that victim with their choices… These cases for decades have been treated with some skepticism. When a woman comes forward, she must have some motive to lie, or something to gain—and, quite frankly, as we’ve seen in the last few months with Dr. Ford’s testimony, there’s so much to lose by coming forward with your story—and no guarantees.”

On the paradigm shifts that need to happen to protect survivors.

Denhollander believes that the first step to encouraging survivors come forward with their stories is making them feel protected when they do. “As a survivor, it’s an incredible healing process to get to the point of verbalizing—when you spoke those words, it makes your assault real,” she shared. However, their experiences aren’t normally treated with care. “When you are in the middle of it, you’re hearing those lies—’you should’ve known better’—so loudly in your head, it’s safer to stay silent. Ultimately, that means the perpetrator keeps getting away.”

Munford also noted it’s important to be aware of how we react to someone’s story of a sexual assault: “A lot of people, they want to distance themselves from that—[they’ll think,] ‘That wouldn’t happen to me. So that victim must’ve done something wrong to have that happen, because I would’ve done something different. I would be safe. I would get out of that situation.’ I think we all need to be aware when we’re doing that, because every time somebody says, ‘she did something wrong’ or ‘she did something to deserve it,’ a survivor of sexual abuse, domestic violence, harassment hears that and it silences them. They think, ‘Well, now I’m not going to tell anybody because that’s the reaction I’m going to get.’”

2018 Glamour Women Of The Year Summit: Women Rise

PHOTO: Astrid Stawiarz / Getty Images

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina at Glamour’s Women of the Year Summit

Judge Aquilina about why she let survivors speak in her courtroom—and why it’s important that they did.

“I don’t see my role as [that of] a punisher—I really look at my role as one of rehabilitation for the safety and healing of any victim,” she said. “I’ve been a judge for fourteen years, and I’ve always let everybody speak. And that is because I know it’s so healing. When you look at the victims, they’re not the only [ones]: Their families, husbands, communities are all victims. It’s the people’s court. They have a right to speak.”

“I have found, throughout my fourteen years of being a judge, that allowing victims the safe place for the defendant to say, ‘You hurt me, I’m mad, and it’s not just me, it’s my husband and my kids…’ the healing begins,” Judge Aquilina continued. “And defendants need to hear that what they did was wrong and the effect [it had.] And that has an effect on defendants—most of them, not Larry Nassar, but most of them get out of prison. If we’ve treated them right, and if we’ve also listened to them, they change in a good way; if we make them angry, we shut them down or shut them out, the same way the sister survivors were shut down and shut up… they come back out and they do worse crimes. So I try to treat the courtroom as a community and give everybody a voice.”

“I would’ve listened to a 1,000 girls if that’s what it took,” she added.

Judge Aquilina on the ripple effect of the Nassar trial.

In response to accusations of judicial impartiality, she recalled hearing from some of her peers who disagreed with allowing so many testimonies in court—but those, she said, “were few and numbered”: “There are always going to be naysayers—I don’t listen to naysayers, I never will and never have. Most of the judges said, ‘I watched you, and I’m going to rethink what I do in the courtroom…because I saw the transformation.’ That’s not just from my community—it’s from around the world.”

“What’s happened now is people come to court… They’ve watched the videos of the Nassar case,” she said. “They use that as the model. They come to my courtroom and tell me what happened. If they’re afraid, they bring their grandmother, they bring their friend… It’s clear to me that that’s what happened. The ripple effect is ongoing… It’s been an incredible feeling that this tragedy has turned into something so valuable.”

Find out more about Glamour‘s 2018 Women of the Year here.

Related Content:

The Army of Women Who Took Down Larry Nassar

Olympic Gymnast Aly Raisman Says She Was Sexually Assaulted By Team Doctor Larry Nassar

9 Times Being a Woman in 2018 Was Genuinely Powerful



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Supreme Court Sides With Baker In Narrow Ruling on Same-Sex Wedding Cake Case


The Supreme Court on Monday issued a ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, siding with the baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

While LGBTQ+ groups pointed out that the Court acknowledged their rights, they also noted something that was noticeably missing—Monday’s ruling was neither a hit or an advance for our current civil rights laws, as many expected it would be.

“In today’s narrow ruling against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Supreme Court acknowledged that LGBTQ people are equal and have a right to live free from the indignity of discrimination,” Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Chad Griffin said in an emailed statement. “Anti-LGBTQ extremists did not win the sweeping ‘license to discriminate’ they have been hoping for—and today’s ruling does not change our nation’s longstanding civil rights laws. Yet, the fact remains that LGBTQ people face alarming levels of discrimination all across the country and HRC’s efforts to advance equality are as urgent as ever.”

But what exactly does it mean for the LGBTQ community and religious freedom going forward? And what does it mean that the decision was “narrow?”

The case stems from a 2012 incident where David Mullins and Charlie Craig visited Masterpiece Cakeshop looking for a cake for their wedding reception. The baker, Jack Phillips, refused to make the custom cake, claiming that support for same-sex marriage went against his religious beliefs. The couple then filed a discrimination complaint with Colorado’s civil rights commission. They won with the commission and the state courts, where Philips asserted that his First Amendment rights had been violated.

The Colorado Court of Appeals held that they had not. That’s when the case made its way to the Supreme Court.

Monday’s “narrow” decision refers to the legal definitions and not to the actual vote of 7-2 in favor. In writing the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, “The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts, all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.”

The majority opinion focused less on the issue of free speech and more on problems with the way the case was initially handle by the civil rights commission in Colorado. According to Kennedy, one commissioner “crossed the line” with the following statement: “Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust.” Kennedy called the sentiment “inappropriate for a commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law.”

But in dissent, Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote: “When a couple contacts a bakery for a wedding cake, the product they are seeking is a cake celebrating their wedding ― not a cake celebrating heterosexual weddings or same-sex weddings ― and that is the service [the couple] were denied.”

For some perspective on what cultural impact this decision might have, Glamour spoke to Rachel Tiven, CEO of Lamda Legal—a national organization that works ”to achieve full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people through litigation, education, and public policy,” according to their website.

“This should have been an open and shut case for the Supreme Court,” she says. “Every single case like this that has appeared in court so far, courts have resoundingly said it’s not okay to discriminate just because your religion tells you to.”

“Under our laws, federal law and the law in many, many, many states, you can say, ‘No Shirt. No Shoes. No Service.’ but you cannot say, ‘No Shirt. No Shoes. No Lesbians.’ This is dangerously much closer to that than any decision has been.”

Tiven fears that this case now provides a roadmap for other people and businesses who are looking to discriminate. She notes that it is important to remember “that nothing in this decision changes existing non-discrimination law.”

On the other side, Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) who represented Philips released this statement following the court’s ruling: “Creative professionals who serve all people should be free to create art consistent with their convictions without the threat of government punishment. Government hostility toward people of faith has no place in our society, yet the state of Colorado was openly antagonistic toward Jack’s religious beliefs about marriage.”

“The court was right to condemn that,” Waggoner wrote. “Tolerance and respect for good-faith differences of opinion are essential in a society like ours. This decision makes clear that the government must respect Jack’s beliefs about marriage.”

While they may have exhausted all of their legal options, Craig and Mullins have vowed to keep fighting discrimination.

The couple issued a statement on the court’s ruling. “Today’s decision means our fight against discrimination and unfair treatment will continue,” they said. “We have always believed that in America, you should not be turned away from a business open to the public because of who you are. We brought this case because no one should have to face the shame, embarrassment, and humiliation of being told ‘we don’t serve your kind here’ that we faced, and we will continue fighting until no one does.”

The two are not without a fair amount of political support, as well.

In a statement, Democratic congressional leader Nancy Pelosi said: “The Masterpiece Cakeshop case is about the most fundamental right of all Americans: to be free from persecution and discrimination because of who they are or whom they love. While narrowly framed to apply to the decision-making process undertaken by the state commission, today’s wrongheaded decision fails to uphold equality in this case.”

“No business or organization open to the public should hide their discriminatory practices behind the guise of religious liberty.”



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What You Should Know About the Supreme Court Arbitration Ruling that Ruth Bader Ginsburg Called 'Egregiously Wrong'


Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always been a fierce warrior for equal rights—so much, in fact, that her tenacity and determination has earned her the nickname of the “Notorious RBG.” On Monday, she lived up to her name and reminded everyone of her champion litigator skills by standing up to the Supreme Court’s majority opinion on allowing employers using arbitration agreements to block workers from coming together to file class-action suits, calling the decision “egregiously wrong.”

In a rare move, RBG read her written dissent from the bench, CNN reports, saying, “The court today holds enforceable these arm-twisted, take-it-or-leave-it contracts—including the provisions requiring employees to litigate wage and hours claims only one-by-one. Federal labor law does not countenance such isolation of employees.”

But what was this case really all about? Here are four things you should know about the ruling.

1. The Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis Case looked at how federal laws relate to workplace lawsuits.

RBG was all fired up over Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, which consolidated three cases where employees wanted to file group claims against their employers, despite signing contracts that contained arbitration clauses. Arbitration clauses are legal methods used to resolve disputes in private settings through a third-party, instead of in public court or through a collective claim in court. To the disappointment of many, including RBG, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal law gives employers the right to enforce these kinds of legal agreements and that they can use arbitration clauses in contracts to keep workers from banding together as a collective.

According to the New York Times, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling, which is estimated to affect some 25 million employment contracts.

2. Arbitration agreements have come under fire in the wake of #MeToo.

You may have been hearing a lot about arbitration agreements lately—they’ve inspired a lot of controversy in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Critics have pointed out that in cases of sexual harassment, arbitration agreements can force victims into silence by limiting the ways they can pursue and talk about their claims.

The latest headlines about arbitration agreements involved Uber. Several women who accused Uber drivers of sexual misconduct wrote a public letter urging the company’s board to release them of a mandatory arbitration provision found in the Uber app’s user agreement, partially so that they could join a collective claim against the company together. Uber revealed in a post that it would reverse the policy as it pertains to sexual harassment.

3. Critics think the Supreme Court ruling will affect survivors of sexual harassment and assault.

Although Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis was not specifically about sexual harassment, the Supreme Court signaled through their ruling that it would side with employers. The Cut writes that the ruling is a potential blow to the #MeToo movement—women and victims of sexual misconduct who sign arbitration agreements may not be able to fight sexual harassment together in the workplace. If their employer puts one of these clauses in the contract they sign as an employee, they’ll have to file individual claims and challenge their place of work on a one-on-one basis.

Additionally, they might also have to deal with non-disclosure agreements, which could prevent them from speaking publicly about disputes and corralling public support.

4. RBG says the decision has other implications on employee issues.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the court came to their decision through a federal law that favors arbitration and the court’s precedents. But in her dissent, RBG was quick to point out specific employment issues that the majority opinion could lead to, suggesting that individual arbitrations may not offer results that are as impactful as class-action suits.

“By joining hands in litigation, workers can spread the costs of litigation and reduce the risk of employer retaliation,” she wrote.



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