Aly Raisman and More Than 100 Women Join Onstage at the ESPYs to Accept the Arthur Ashe Courage Award
Seven months after Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sentenced former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar to 175 years in prison, his victims took the stage at the ESPYs to accept the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. It was the first time that survivors of Nassar’s systemic abuse as an athletic doctor, including Olympians Jordyn Wieber and Aly Raisman, had gathered en masse since they testified in front of Nassar one by one in January this year. The 141 women who were in attendance, with many others in absentia, received a standing ovation from the crowd.
The televised victims’ impact statements from the more than 125 women delivered at Nassar’s sentencing in January was one of the most harrowing and moving events that catalyzed the ongoing #MeToo movement, though the women who spoke up about Nassar’s behavior began doing so long before the national outcry. Former gymnast Jamie Dantzscher, who was present onstage, first shared her story to officials in 2016. Earlier in the day, she told Vanity Fair that back then, “Almost nobody believed me—so fast-forward to this year, it’s pretty incredible what’s happened. It’s actually hard to take in, but it’s amazing that people are being so supportive.”
Jennifer Garner presented the award to the women assembled. Instead of trophies, they were given diamond cuffs—something “they could keep with them, and also what we could send to everyone,” according to ESPY executive producer Maura Mandt. Danica Patrick hosted the awards show, the first woman to do so in its 26 years.
Raisman, Sarah Klein, and Tiffany Thomas Lopez spoke while accepting the Arthur Ashe Courage Award after a video introduction. “The abuse of Larry Nassar began 30 years ago with me,” said Klein. “For 30 years, people at the United States Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, and Michigan State University all placed money and medals above the safety of child athletes. Thirty years, until the work of Detective Lieutenant Andrea Munford of the Michigan State Police Department and Angela Povilaitis, the assistant attorney general who prosecuted the case, finally putting our abuser away for life.” Lopez said that “there are a lot of conversations in our society that we tiptoe around as if they’re something to avoid. I know in my life, people have looked that way at two issues extremely personal to me: race and sexual abuse. Sexual abuse claims victims in every race, showing no discrimination. Just like Arthur Ashe, I stand so very proud representing not only minorities but all of us as humans, the human race.”
Raisman began by listing the years since 1997 that victims had been reporting Nassar to officials to no avail, spanning the nearly two decades that Nassar was able to continue to work for USA Gymnastics and the Michigan State University. “The ripple effect of our actions, or inactions, can be enormous, spanning generations. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of this nightmare is that it could have been avoided,” said Raisman, whose blistering victim’s statement delivered directly to Nassar went viral. “Whether you act or do nothing, you are shaping the world that we live in, impacting others. All we needed was one adult to have the integrity [to] stand between us and Larry Nassar.” She also thanked Judge Aquilina, who was sitting in the audience: “Thank you, Judge Aquilina, for honoring our voices. For too long, we were ignored, and you helped us to rediscover the power we each possess,” Raisman said. “You may never meet the hundreds of children you saved, but know they exist.” In closing, she spoke directly to victims: “We may suffer alone, but we survive together.”
