It feels strange to me that we have collectively decided that the #MeToo movement failed. It was never about catching all the bad guys. It was about survivors.
Harvey Weinstein retrial: 15 year sentence for sexual assault
Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced to 15 years behind bars after his retrial in a New York federal court.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers free, confidential, 24/7 support in English and Spanish via chat and at 800-656-4673. If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or text “START” to 88788.
On Sept. 23, a New York federal court sentenced disgraced movie executive Harvey Weinstein to 15 years in prison for the sexual assault of Miriam Haley. Ideally, this would be the conclusion of the nearly decade-long saga that sparked a nationwide reckoning on sexual violence. And in some ways, it is.
Weinstein was already serving a 16-year sentence in California for rape. He may well spend the rest of his life behind bars. But as some move to celebrate, something Haley said in her victim impact statement is ringing through my head.
“Making the decision to speak up will have me looking over my shoulder for years to come,” the former production assistant said. “It’s a life sentence for me.”
A life sentence. That is what Haley, and more than 100 other women who have accused the mogul of sexual misconduct or violence, are now living with. The sentencing may be justice to some survivors, but there is no solution that the legal system can provide that will erase the pain of sexual violence for everyone who accused Weinstein, nor does this sentencing prevent future abuse.
That is why we must move toward a new approach: one that puts survivors first and seeks to prioritize their needs in the wake of sexual assault. We need restorative justice.
Numbers on ‘justice’ for sexual assault victims are horrifying
The first time this case against Weinstein was tried, the ruling was thrown out by an appeals court when they found the judge in the case had allowed testimony from other alleged victims of Weinstein to be used despite not being part of the New York case. This was Haley’s second time testifying.
Of all the women who accused Weinstein, only three cases were brought against him. One case was thrown out in 2018 and another was overturned in 2024. This is not a glitch, but the system working as it does.
According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), four out of five perpetrators of sexual violence will never be charged with a crime, and only 8% of rape and sexual assault cases result in criminal convictions. An NBC News investigation from 2025 produced a more harrowing number: less than 4% of reported acts of sexual violence result in a conviction.
Think about how many times we hear stories of sexual violence and harassment in the media each day. Our own president has been accused of sexual misconduct publicly by around two dozen women. This year alone, we’ve seen allegations of abuse perpetrated by politicians like Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-California, or former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.
Then there are the roadblocks that have occurred in the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Consider the other stories of celebrities, like Johnny Depp and Justin Baldoni, who won the public court of opinion at the expense of the women who accused them.
For many survivors of sexual violence, the choice to pursue legal action – knowing that it will put their pain under a microscope and lead them to be questioned relentlessly, as if they were the one being charged – is one that they’d rather not make.
That’s where restorative justice – the practice of repairing harm versus simply punishing offenders – can provide a framework for how the harm is addressed.
“Being survivor-centered puts the person who was harmed in the driver’s seat,” law professors Alexa Sardina and Alissa R. Ackerman wrote in the City University of New York Law Review. “They have control over the timeline of the process and input on all aspects of the process.”
Sardina and Ackerman stress that these practices can be as simple as choosing the right location for mediation, where the survivor will sit and who gets to speak first. It isn’t an opportunity for survivors to punish those who have harmed them, but a way for them to find healing.
#MeToo didn’t fail
I don’t consider #MeToo a failure. Activist Tarana Burke was not trying to put all sexual abusers behind bars when she coined the phrase. She was thinking about how to help survivors like herself heal.
In 2022, at the height of the Amber Heard trial, Burke advocated for a different perspective on what justice looks like.
“We have been socialized and trained to think about nothing but crime and punishment and law and order when we should be thinking about harm and harm reduction,” she told Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) at the Time100 Summit that year.
Burke is right: we must consider how to keep sexual violence from happening in the first place. We must teach boys and men in particular that sexual harassment and assault are never okay, and it cannot fall on women to be the only ones teaching that lesson. Men must show other men that these behaviors are not permissible, because ultimately men listen to other men.
It feels strange to me that we have collectively decided that the #MeToo movement failed. No, there have not been consequences for alleged abusers in the way that many of us imagined. But people who perceive #MeToo as a failure fundamentally misunderstand what the movement was about. It was not about catching all the bad guys. It was about survivors.
We must remember that #MeToo, a movement that originated as an effort to stop sexual violence against Black women and girls, is not a failure just because it did not result in the outcomes that people assume will bring justice. It ultimately has done part of what it was supposed to do – connect survivors with one another, so that they can heal together.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on Bluesky: @sarapequeno.bsky.social