Americans from coast to coast have witnessed an amazing display of courage and grit. The demonstration came from dozens of young women who stood before a man who violated them and offered their views of the monster and his monstrous behavior.
Larry Nassar, the former team doctor for young American gymnasts, will quite likely now spend the rest of his life behind prison walls. A Michigan judge, Rosemarie Aquilina, handed down a sentence of 40 to 175 years that Nassar will serve.
She declared it her “honor and privilege” to assign the sentence. It was to Nassar’s eternal shame that he took it and now he heads for the next phase of a miserable life. The judge declared that she had “just signed your death warrant.”
And to think that Nassar complained to the judge that hearing the women’s testimony was too “hard” on him emotionally. To her great credit, Judge Aquilina would have none of it.
The rest of the nation is proud of the young athletes who were abused by Nassar while he was on the staff at Michigan State University. Some of those women were members of the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team. Moreover, those young athletes had become household names for their athletic, gold-medal-winning prowess.
Now they are made even more notable for their guts in facing down the man who preyed on them when they were children.
This case has drawn much-needed and most-appropriate attention to the broader issue of sexual abuse committed against women by men in powerful positions.
The women who stood on that courtroom floor to tell Nassar what he needed to hear — that he is a despicable monster who never should walk free again — emerged as the latest entrants to a symbolic hall of heroes.
We should hold them up as profound role models … and pray for their emotional recovery from the torment they endured.
