#MeToo defenders after Weinstein’s sentence is revoked

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NEW YORK (AP) — #MeToo founder Tarana Burke has heard it before. Every time there is an unfavorable legal ruling, the movement is declared dead. A legal success and he is alive again.

So Burke, who nearly two decades ago coined the phrase “Me Too” for her work with survivors of sexual abuse, made a statement again after New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned the rape conviction. from Harvey Weinstein of 2020: The reckoning that #MeToo has led to is greater than any court case. It’s still there, and it’s working.

The most obvious proof, Burke said: “Ten years ago we couldn’t put a man like Harvey Weinstein in a courtroom.”

The movement, he said, was responsible for that enormous cultural shift, regardless of the Hollywood mogul’s ultimate legal fate.

She also sought to take a long-term vision, after a legal setback that surprised many survivors and advocates. Anita Hill, who testified against Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 1991, became the face of the fight against sexual harassment more than a quarter-century before the Weinstein revelations sparked the #MeToo movement. in 2017.

In addition to her academic career, Hill now heads the Hollywood Commission, which seeks to combat harassment in the entertainment industry. On Thursday, she tried to reassure survivors that progress is real.

“I want those who are saddened by the New York Court of Appeals decision to know that no legal ruling can match the tremendous progress we have made together in the movement against sexual violence,” Hill told The Associated Press in an email. electronic.

“The movement will persist,” he added, “driven by the truth of our testimonies. And changes will come in our systems and culture.”

It was, of course, a difficult morning for sexual assault survivors across the country, as Burke acknowledged at a hastily arranged news conference in Manhattan after the court ruling with activists like Ashley Judd, one of Weinstein’s first accusers. .

In what Judd called “an act of institutional betrayal,” New York’s highest court, in a 4-3 decision, ordered a new trial, saying the first had harmed Weinstein, 72, with inappropriate rulings. , including allowing some accusers to testify to incidents that were not part of the case. However, Weinstein will remain in prison as he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 for another rape.

Among those who testified in New York was Dawn Dunning, a supporting witness, who testified in court how during a business meeting Weinstein slipped his hand under her skirt and fondled her genitals.

Dunning told the AP through her legal representative, prominent #MeToo lawyer Debra Katz, that she was “shocked” by Thursday’s ruling and was grappling with a range of emotions, including the question: “Was it all for nothing?” ”.

“It took two years of my life,” Dunning said. “I had to live it every day. I had to live the terror of confronting Weinstein. But would he do it again? Yeah”.

She noted that by confronting the film producer, she had faced her worst fear and realized that he had no power over her. And she was proud that her testimony helped other women get some justice.

Katz said she had spoken to Dunning and other accusers, women who felt “devastated,” reminding them of the important role they had played in the broader reckoning against sexual abuse and violence.

“They testified at great personal cost. … It changed their lives,” Katz said. “And to feel like maybe all of this was for nothing is a very, very, bad feeling.”

Still, Katz was certain Weinstein would be convicted in a new trial.

“His testimony was invalidated by the court today due to legal technicalities,” Katz said. But “no one doubted the veracity of what they testified, nor the courage of his testimony. And although this is a setback in this case, I believe that his testimony changed the world.”

The testimony fundamentally altered the way people view and react to issues of sexual assault in the workplace, he said.

“And their courage has grown beyond this case: people continue to report, people continue to support other victims who have reported sexual assault and violence, and I really believe that there is no turning back from that,” Katz noted.

Many advocates saw the moment, while discouraging, as an opportunity to call for renewed efforts to push the #MeToo message.

“Today’s decision does not erase the truth of what happened,” said Fatima Goss Graves, director of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund. It is important to remember, she said, “that one well-known case does not define this movement. “We are a force.”

Graves noted that the fund has provided support to about 9,000 people with sexual harassment complaints since 2018 and has funded 300 lawsuits. The fund is administered by the National Women’s Law Center in Washington; The broader Hollywood-based group, launched in 2017, transferred all of its resources to the fund in January 2023.

Burke emphasized in an interview that, while legal advances are necessary for progress, “the justice system has never been friends of survivors. And that is why we need movements, because movements have historically been the ones that have pushed the legal system to do the right thing.”

Burke said she spent the morning talking to accusers, including actress Annabella Sciorra, who testified at the 2020 trial that Weinstein raped her.

“I can understand how devastating and upset and angry the range of emotions many of them must be feeling,” Burke said. “And I hope they understand that for the survivors who will probably never see justice served, they are still heroes to us.”

Burke, who has spoken out about her own past as an abuse survivor, added that she could never imagine facing her own perpetrator in court.

“So the fact that they were able to do that, to hold a person, a man like Harvey Weinstein accountable for his crimes, is incredible,” he said.

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AP journalist Alexandra Olson contributed to this report.