We Never Really Leave Neverland: NDAs make Certain of That
This week I watched Leaving Neverland, the documentary about two boys whom Michael Jackson sexually abused.
I watched as Wade Robson and James Safechuck, now in their 30’s, described the long and painful process of facing what had happened to them, telling their families they had been duped, and accepting the long-term impact of their abuse.
Hard for anyone to watch, and especially difficult for other survivors for whom all this resonates insistently and bleakly.
The difference in power between a professor and a student is less stark than between a 30-something mega star tycoon and a 7 — or 10 — year old boy. But the very same abuse of authority and trust is at the centre of Robson and Safechuck’s abuse, and the serial, predatory, calculated sexual and online harassment of students by a professor that this Huffington Post feature describes today. Sexual harassment and child sexual abuse are both about power and dominance — and the protection of predators by institutions.
Wade Robson and James Safechuck will be vilified just like many others before them who have finally reported their abuse, many years later. The simple truth is that it takes that long to be able to find the strength to do this (it took me 20 years for me to start looking for the minister who sexually abused me, and more than 40 to speak publicly about it). The demons and the barriers faced by Wade and James — and by students who are sexually harassed (and much more) by their own professors when they speak up — are enormous. The fear is everywhere — fear of how people will judge you, what they will say and whether you will be believed, self-blame and loathing for having been abused, rage at broken trust — and it is long-lasting.
And so often, the world brands them liars (as the predator in my case is branding me in a “defamation” suit). Liars? Who wants to be the victim of, or responsible for outing, a sexual predator?
Today support is growing across the country in the campaign to pressure universities to stop protecting sexual predators with non-disclosure agreements that enable them to move on to a new school and group of potential victims. Student activists and university professors are protesting the refusal of the University of Windsor, my employer for the last 25 years, to step in and protect me from a defamation suit by a man they know to be a sexual predator and a liar — because of the non-disclosure agreement they made with him.
I am thinking about all the other Wades and Jimmys.
The ones who will never come out and who will suffer what happened to them in silence. And watch as the world pours scorn and ridicule on those who do, (“why now?”, “gold-digger”, “how dare she/he?”) as they wear their pain stiffly, like a fragile shell, always on the verge of splintering. The students too afraid to step forward, frightened at the prospect of the end of their hopes and dreams for a career, so that important people in institutions bigger than them win out, over and over.
If we are to take away the power of sexual predators, changing the underlying power dynamic that gives them back-to-the-wall protection from churches, universities, and other institutions must be our ultimate goal. But the steps towards this must first break through layers of privilege, lack of accountability, entitlement, and sometimes downright immorality.
I feel honored by the support I have received and continue to receive throughout this experience. It means more than I can say, and is essential for both my spirits and my resolve right now in the face of institutional abandonment. Because believe me, if it’s this hard and this severely punishing to speak up as a Distinguished University Professor, I cannot imagine how it might be at 20 or 25 years old — for “just” a student.
Or for a 7 or a 10 year old boy.
