{"id":3009,"date":"2018-04-27T05:16:19","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T12:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=3009"},"modified":"2018-04-27T05:16:19","modified_gmt":"2018-04-27T12:16:19","slug":"a-reckoning-for-cosby-now-for-others-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=3009","title":{"rendered":"“A Reckoning for Cosby \u2014 Now for Others?”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By The Editorial Board, April 26, 2018<\/p>\n

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The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.<\/p>\n

Bill Cosby was convicted of sexual assault on Thursday<\/a>, more than 50 years after Kristina Ruehli says Mr. Cosby sexually assaulted her after giving her drinks that made her pass out; more than 40 years after Judy Huth says Mr. Cosby got her drunk and sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion when she was 15; more than 30 years after the model Janice Dickinson says he sexually assaulted her after giving her wine and a pill.<\/p>\n

About five dozen women have accused the once-beloved comedian in a half-century pattern of violence so routine that a judge let five of them testify against him at trial, where he was found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, an employee at his alma mater, Temple University, in his Pennsylvania home 14 years ago.<\/p>\n

Most of these cases share two things: Women say Mr. Cosby drugged and assaulted them, and they were too intimidated by his fame and power to press charges or make their accusations public. The persistent pathology of Mr. Cosby\u2019s conduct is rare. The fears of his accusers are not.<\/p>\n

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Over the past six months or so, in what has come to be called the #MeToo movement, women \u2014 and some men \u2014 have come forward with long-repressed and long-ignored accusations that powerful men abused and harassed them with impunity. Some of the most famous men in entertainment, journalism and other fields have been defenestrated, often after years of predatory behavior.<\/p>\n

Some people might see cause for hope in the Cosby verdict, since he was the first celebrity convicted in the #MeToo era.<\/p>\n

But since it happened only after scores of women suffered in silence for decades, and only in the midst of a global reckoning with sexual violence, even a \u201cvictory\u201d like this verdict suggests that the abused still face a desperately uphill battle.<\/p>\n

Some men may yet be punished \u2014 in New York, prosecutors are seriously looking at accusations<\/a> that the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein raped one of the many women whose accusations against him set off the #MeToo reckoning. And the punishment Mr. Cosby is facing \u2014 up to 30 years in prison \u2014 would be too severe for much of the misconduct that some other men have been accused of recently.<\/p>\n

But a majority of the men accused of improper, even criminal, actions in recent months are unlikely to be brought to justice and instead seem to be waiting things out, often in their mansions<\/a>, already plotting career comebacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ms. Constand fought for years to get to this day. While she won a $3.38 million settlement from Mr. Cosby in 2006, that came only after prosecutors in Pennsylvania declined to charge him earlier. His first trial ended with a hung jury last year. The conviction was won this time after those five women were allowed to bolster Ms. Constand\u2019s testimony, demonstrating his signature pattern of abuse.<\/p>\n

In a sense, this exception both proves the rule \u2014 power provides protection \u2014 and shows that that shield is not impenetrable. The verdict and the prosecution should make clear that women need to be listened to and their accusations need to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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By The Editorial Board, April 26, 2018 The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section. Bill Cosby was convicted of sexual assault on Thursday, more than 50 years after Kristina Ruehli says Mr. Cosby sexually assaulted her after giving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3009"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3010,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3009\/revisions\/3010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}