Heitkamp outs sexual assault survivors then apologizes

North Dakota Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp [if you think her name is funny, imagine if she had my last name]  had to apologize last week for outing a number of her constituents as sexual assault victims without asking their permission in an open letter to her Republican challenger, Rep. Kevin Cramer.

That is breathtakingly stupid.

Her campaign included the names and hometowns of 127 women in the open letter and called them "survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, or rape." Apparently, she doesn't really care about them beyond what they can offer her campaign.

Immediately after the ad ran in many North Dakota newspapers, four of the signees posted on Facebook that they never agreed to sign the letter.

Is a simple apology actually all that's required by the Heitkamp campaign? It seems as if these women, however many of the 127 were never asked for permission to use their names, have a legal case against the campaign.

Anyway, Heitkamp's campaign sent out a press release apologizing for the letter:

Sexual assault is a serious crime--and one that too many North Dakota women have experienced. In an attempt to bring awareness to this issue [and especially to win reelection] and push back against dismissive comments toward sexual assault survivors by Kevin Cramer, our campaign worked with victim advocates to identify women who would be willing to sign the letter or share their story. We recently discovered that several of the women's names who were provided to us did not authorize their names to be shared or were not survivors of abuse. I deeply regret this mistake and we are in the process of issuing a retraction, personally apologizing to each of the people impacted by this and taking the necessary steps to ensure this never happens again.

Lexi Zhorela, 24, from Bismark, told National Review that her name was added to the list of victims after her friend tagged her on a Facebook that solicited signatures for the open letter. Zhorela thinks her friend tagged her because she knew of her history as a sexual-assault victim.

"I speak for myself and many of the women whose names were used without our consent. We are very publicly humiliated. Some of us were given a formal apology on this matter, but for me personally the damage is done and my name is now out there forever. A simple 'sorry this happened' isn't going to cut it," Zhorela said.

Can money buy away humiliation?

Eve Lancaster, another North Dakota woman whose name appeared on the list without her permission told National Review that Heitkamp's use of the letter, intended as a show of support for victims, had the opposite effect.

"The ad is about non-consent. Why would they just go ahead and take our names without our consent? It's the same thing, just different case," she said, referring to the notion that the use of her name, like the sexual assault, was perpetrated without her consent, or that of the other women.

The Facebook post asked potential signers to confirm their support for the letter by contacting Dr. Tami DeCoteau, a North Dakota psychologist who worked with Heitkamp in the past.

Zhorela never contacted her nor did Lancaster.

The mutual "friend" of both Lancaster and Zhorela who wrote the Facebook post claims she doesn't know how their names ended up on the open letter and when asked if she wrote the Facebook post at DeCoteau's direction, the post's author told NR to "f**k off."

The friend sounds like she might be a liberal.


Please click the "Follow" button in the margin and be sure to get the latest Brain Flushings at a computer near you. Also, please visit the ads on this page because it helps the economy and me.



Tweet