Acknowledging Betrayal: The Rhetorical Power of Victim Impact Statements in the Nassar Hearing

ABSTRACT

This essay features a grounded theory analysis of the 156 Victim Impact Statements delivered by sexual assault survivors of Olympics and Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar. I show how the Victim Impact Statements function as public, collective testimony that highlight the ramifications of unacknowledged betrayal. They narrate how adults and institutions looked away from abuse in order to maintain the status quo, and the athletes learned to trust authorities over themselves. Their testimonies destabilize assault as a crime limited to an assailant and a victim, demand accountability from those who looked away, and reclaim trust in their own witnessing.

Notes

1. I am grateful to RR reviewers Jenny Andrus and Emma Bloomfield for their generative feedback.

2. Freyd and Birrell clarify that betrayal blindness does not refer to physical blindness, as it does not only concern what we “don’t see with our eyes, it can also happen when we do not hear, feel, or know something that should be obvious to us” (22). They underscore that their use of the term is by no means meant to be an able-ist approach, but to serve as a metaphor for looking away (22).

3. Because the statements were published with survivors’ permission on inourwords.org as an educational resource, I have used the survivor’s name if it was released. In cases where it was not, I use the number or symbols that appear on inourwords.org.

4. While it is beyond the scope of this article to address, the parents who unknowingly witnessed their children being sexually abused describe debilitating self-blame and trauma.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shari J. Stenberg

Shari J. Stenberg is professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she teaches courses on feminist rhetorics, pedagogy, and writing. She is the author of three books and the co-editor of Persuasive Acts: Women’s Rhetorics in the Twenty-first Century (2020). Her work has appeared in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, College Composition and Communication, College English.