Transcript

800: Jane Doe

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Prologue: Prologue

Ira Glass

Some things in your life you decide you're never going to talk about. For Jules, it was what her youth pastor did to her long ago when she was a teenager in Texas. She tried to put it aside -- tried to move on. But then #MeToo happened with so many more women reporting men who'd assaulted or harassed them.

Jules

And Matt Lauer had been on the front cover of the USA Today, and I thought, oh my goodness. It inspired me so much that that very day, I wrote to my abuser, who was now a pastor at a megachurch.

Ira Glass

He never responded, so she wrote a blog post about it, thinking, you know, maybe 100 people would see it. That was not the moment we were in. It became international news, and because of #MeToo, there were consequences that would have been unimaginable just a year before. The former youth pastor resigned from his job at the megachurch.

Things changed for Jules, too. All of a sudden, lots of women were calling her for advice on how to handle what they were going through, and she found a lot of meaning in those conversations. She set up a nonprofit that funds therapy for women who've been sexually assaulted, but there were aftershocks from her #MeToo moment that she never could have guessed, like with her three daughters. There's this conversation a year or two after she came forward.

Jules

One of them said, mommy, why do you have to be a survivor? And that just broke my heart.

Ira Glass

And how old was she when she said that?

Jules

Probably about six or seven, and I had to explain, sweetheart, I didn't choose for this to happen. I didn't choose to be a survivor. All my girls have seen me in tears over the years because of all this, and they also know that it takes up a lot of time.

Ira Glass

Right, because she sees you counseling other people and talking to people about it, and

Jules

Right. You know, I'll say, hold on, honey, I'm on the phone with a survivor. I've got an advocacy meeting at 1 o'clock or whatever, and so they see it as taking time away from them. But they also see the emotional toll it can take.

Ira Glass

Five years after the #MeToo explosion, some powerful and well known men lost their jobs. A few went to prison. Over 20 states passed laws to make workplaces safer. Some changed statutes of limitations so people have more time to report sexual harassment and assault. That change, by the way, is why E. Jean Carroll was able to sue former President Trump recently.

Lots of employers adopted new HR policies, introduced more trainings. There was a bump in reporting for a while, but you know what we haven't heard that much about? How this has played out in the lives of the women who stepped forward and went public with their stories. I and a few of my coworkers have been talking to women like that, and one of the things I thought was so striking was the small ways that the aftermath of coming forward continues to pop up in their daily lives. For starters, a few of them told me that any time they meet someone new, even years later, they do this calculation in their head -- what do they know about me? What have they read, if anything? It's stressful.

Take Tanya Selvaratnam. She says she felt tremendous relief when she spoke out in 2018 about her abusive relationship with the New York State Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, and he stepped down hours after her story came out. But in the time since then, she still gets reminded of it in certain kinds of social interactions.

Tanya Selvaratnam

One example is I had gone on a few dates with a man who was wonderful and so kind, and we got together one night and he asked how my day had been, and there was an essay I had written, which had just come out in Elle magazine. And he asked if he could read it, and as I was saying what I had been doing that day, I realized, oh wait, we haven't talked about my story because it's not something that I lead with, and he wanted to read it. And I said, sure, and so then he looked it up and he read it. He sent me a beautiful note, thanking me for sharing my story and he's sorry for what I went through, and then I never heard from him again.

Ira Glass

What did you take from that?

Tanya Selvaratnam

A good guy, but my story made him uncomfortable. Like I hope that people recognize it was a sliver of my life. It was a short sliver of my life, and that there's a whole life before and after that I have forged separate from that sliver.

Ira Glass

Calling around, we heard about women switching careers, falling into debt from legal fees, but we also heard specific things that were so individual to each person. An associate professor at Tufts dental school reported a coworker, and then after, she met with her supervisor about it, and the way that the supervisor responded was so upsetting to her that now, the clothes she wore to those meetings. She says she can't wear those clothes anymore or even look at them. One woman, a wildland firefighter with the US Forest Service, told us that she expected after she reported that her bosses would start training the staff differently. They didn't. So now that's something she does for her co-workers -- kind of DIY.

Another woman, a truck driver in California, Laura Zuniga, came forward with the expectation that something would happen to the man that she reported. When it didn't, when he kept his job, she shut herself in a room for a while, stopped cooking for her three daughters, stopped taking them out, stopped being a mom. They'd come to her door and she'd tell them to go make themselves cereal or a sandwich. She says it especially got to the two older girls.

Laura Zuniga

Now they're very shy. The two older ones are very shy. They don't want to go nowhere. Somebody comes, they ring the doorbell -- they run to the room.

Ira Glass

And they weren't like that before this?

Laura Zuniga

No. Somebody came over, they'll come out like nothing. Now they just wait for the people to leave.

Ira Glass

Yeah.

Laura Zuniga

They stick to themselves. I think they lost maybe some part of their childhood.

Ira Glass

When Chanel Miller reported what happened to her, she wound up in front of a jury. It was a pretty well-known case. She was known as Emily Doe, and then came out with her name after #MeToo happened. A swimmer at Stanford University named Brock Turner sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious. She'd been drinking at a party. She says the experience of telling that story in a courtroom has stayed with her in a bunch of ways, including this one.

Chanel Miller

If it's 10:00 PM in New York, which is pretty early for New York, and I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to take the subway or a taxi home, in order to make that decision, I tell the story of the evening back to myself. So if I went to a book reading and had some champagne, I think, you know, I sound like a reasonable, credible person. I'm going to take a risk and take the subway. The subway is assumed to be riskier than the taxi.

If I went to a friend's birthday party and I was wearing a bear costume and drank Hennessy out of a coconut and won a hula hooping contest, I think, you know, that person sounds a little bit more unhinged. I don't feel like explaining that to a jury, so I'm going to take a taxi.

Ira Glass

Wow. Because you really play out the whole thing in your head as do I want to say this in court someday?

Chanel Miller

Yes.

Ira Glass

Wow.

Chanel Miller

And what's sad about that is that I am not thinking about my own safety. I'm thinking about how to increase my chances of being believed.

Ira Glass

Today on our show, we have the story of somebody who came forward, and what happened to her next has never been told. In fact, she's only been known as Jane Doe, and she's remarkable in a few ways. First of all, she is so young. She's just a teenager, and she spoke out about one of the most powerful people in her state. And in this case, the story that the public knows is very, very different from what actually happened to her. In some ways, the public story is the opposite of her experience of it. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.

Act One: The Intern

Ira Glass

Act One. The Intern.

So the person our show is about today was a 19-year-old intern in the Idaho state legislature, and I should say before I go any further that there is no way to discuss what happened to her without talking about sexual violence. Take that as a heads up for what's to follow.

In 2021, this teenager reported that a state representative twice her age raped her. She came forward with her story, and then so many things went differently than they would have before #MeToo. Idaho's state house had put in place a basic reporting system for complaints like this. The incident was investigated, there were consequences -- all within a month and a half. The house put on a hearing and came to a fast decision.

Sage Dixon

Committee, we have a motion. I will summarize that motion. Our motion is that representative von Ehlinger should be censured with the following restrictions and conditions. One, that he be immediately suspended without pay or benefits. Two, that he must immediately vacate his office in the capitol and not return to capitol grounds for the remainder of the 66th Idaho legislature. And three...

Ira Glass

The committee vote was unanimous. They then called for a vote from the full House to expel the representative. He immediately resigned. So you know, that's change right, post #MeToo? State legislators talked about how proud they were of their ability to do the right thing so quickly. They praised their colleagues around the hearing as masterful. One of our producers, Miki Meek, watched all this happen back then, and she had a question -- namely, what was all this like for Jane Doe? Here's Miki.

Miki Meek

I live just south of Boise, and the story of Jane Doe was all over the news. There was a public ethics hearing in the Idaho House. I watched her answer questions.

Deputy AG

Did you make a report to Boise Police Department that on March 9th, you had been raped by Representative von Ehlinger?

Jane Doe

Yes.

Miki Meek

The first thing I noticed -- Jane Doe was young. Just a teenager. Just out of high school. They had her behind these giant black curtains up on a dais at the very front of the room. These big black curtains that hung off some tall metal frames were supposed to shield her identity, which was weird because nothing was being done to disguise her actual voice. I couldn't stop thinking, what is happening here? It felt very Handmaid's Tale, like she was on trial.

Deputy AG

Did you tell him to stop?

Jane Doe

I said no.

Deputy AG

Did you say other things that indicated no?

Jane Doe

Multiple. Multiple different reiterations. I even tried to just convince him to not, telling him I wasn't on birth control and I hadn't shaved myself or -- things to make me seem unappeasable, you know? And he just continued.

Miki Meek

So that's a pretty intense thing to hear a teenager recounting behind a black curtain. And then here's the part that really made me wonder what this was all like for Jane. Something happened after she finished her testimony.

Sage Dixon

Thank you, Ms. Doe. You are excused.

Miki Meek

After she exited the room, the mics picked up a faint scream.

[SCREAM]

It was hers. Some of the representatives conducting the hearing looked around in confusion for a split second, and then got back to work calling up witnesses. Watching this back in 2021, just four years after the #MeToo movement broke, I assumed Jane Doe was part of a younger generation of women who were reporting sexual violence. But who knows? She was literally invisible at the hearing. What was it like for her back behind that curtain and what was that scream? I wanted to find out more about what exactly happened to Jane Doe.

I reached out to Jane Doe through her lawyers after the hearing to see if she wanted to share more. Five months later, I noticed a couple of missed calls on my phone. I called back. It was Jane. She'd been calling me and not leaving messages, trying to reach me out of the blue because she worried I'd try to record our call without her knowing. She said she was feeling paranoid.

When I finally met Jane in person, she was very direct. She'd been seeing all these people talking about her and finally wanted to give her side of it. She had a lot to say about every part of the process that led her up to the seat behind the black curtain. She just turned 20. She was really funny -- a total goofball. She has a membership at a trampoline gym.

Jane Doe

I go like four times a week.

[LAUGHTER]

I love it there.

Miki Meek

Her favorite? The dodgeball zone.

Jane Doe

And I just love messing up kids.

Miki Meek

You mean like nailing them with a ball?

Jane Doe

I love being a big sister, and I don't get the chance to be a big sister a lot, so when I get a chance to just, like, go annihilate some little, like, nine year olds, I will.

[LAUGHTER]

They're always like, ah, you got me! I love kids, you know?

Miki Meek

Jane's a big sister to many younger siblings. She's always teasing them with fart jokes. But the main thing that really stood out to me about her is just how much she loves nerding out about the state legislature.

Jane Doe

I have pictures and I would love to show you. I always have a bunch of pictures of the state house -- the state house is so pretty.

Miki Meek

She pulled up a photo of the Idaho state flag hanging from the rotunda.

Jane Doe

You got the tree. You got the deer. And I mean, like, I think it's beautiful.

Miki Meek

Her favorite pictures were of her cubicle -- a big wood desk, swivel chair, and her own name plaque.

Jane Doe

And it was really funny, too. Like, the sergeant at arms put my name in all caps on it because she said then that people would find me easier.

Miki Meek

Had you ever had an office before?

Jane Doe

No, I'd never had my own office. I was shook.

Miki Meek

What did you love about that?

Jane Doe

Honestly, if I will just get straight to really what it made me feel, I felt like I was walking on gold. Like, literally my entire family -- I'm the first one to ever work for the government, right? I mean, yeah, I was just proud of myself.

Miki Meek

The capitol had been a surreal place for Jane to find herself in. Just a few years earlier, she was a pregnant high school freshman trying to figure her life out. She started making money by working field jobs on potato and corn farms, and picked up a night shift at Panda Express. As a sophomore, she enrolled herself in a special high school for teen parents and started volunteering in domestic violence shelters. She quickly became the kind of model overachiever who gets voted most likely to become President of the United States.

When Jane was a senior in high school, she signed up to be a page in the Idaho House of Representatives. She ran errands for a special committee and was celebrated on the local news for it.

Newscaster

The first teen mom to serve as a page in the state house. Her work in domestic violence programs brought her here to learn more about the legislative process.

Miki Meek

Jane learned the steps on how to make a bill, and for fun, sat in on meetings of the Judiciary and Rules Committee. She liked tracking all the different drafts of bills that got introduced and seeing what happened to them. She'd grown up with an abusive dad and then had a boyfriend who was violent with her. Seeing firsthand just how badly the criminal process worked for victims, she wondered why it wasn't better. And now that she'd seen the work of a lawmaker up close, she decided that's what she wanted for herself.

So after the page program was over, after she graduated from high school, Jane decided she had to get back to the House. She applied for an internship, and to get it, she needed to find a representative who would sponsor her.

Jane Doe

So I just reached out to everybody I could that I knew, you know, because you could find their contact online. You can find their email and stuff, so I just was, like, sending emails like, hey.

Miki Meek

What did you say?

Jane Doe

I was like, Hi, I don't know if you remember me. I was a page last year. I don't know if you remember on your committee -- blah, blah, blah, depending on who I was talking to. But basically, I'm just like, Hey, you know, I'm really interested in coming back this year and learning more. I think I can benefit you and benefit me at the same time. I have a lot that I want to learn. Like, I wanted to be there, you know? Like, I wanted to learn.

Miki Meek

She got an internship with a Republican representative -- not von Ehlinger, the one she reported for raping her. It was another one. She started at the beginning of 2021 -- a desk of her own on the ground floor of the Idaho State Capitol. She felt like this was the beginning of something much bigger.

Jane remembers running into Representative von Ehlinger pretty soon after the 2021 legislative session started. She wasn't interning for him. He was just another Republican representative -- a very new one. I reached out to von Ehlinger and his lawyer for comment, but didn't get a response. He hasn't been talking to the press. It was his first term in the House. He was a substitute teacher from Northern Idaho.

Jane Doe

There was a few times when I'd walk out of committee and he was, like, there and I'd just -- you know, I smile and wave at everybody. And then he just kind of stared at me, and I was like, I'm just going to keep walking. And then I think the second time -- there was a bunch of people like right where the entrance was to go get to my office. There was a bunch of people there, so I'm just kind of like lingering, and then Ehlinger was like, Oh, how are you? I had my intern badge, and he was just like, Who do you intern for? And I was like, Well, I'm just, I have my own office over here, and --

Miki Meek

He was holding some cookies shaped like Idaho.

Jane Doe

I was like, oh, those are cool-looking cookies. And he was like, oh, do you want them? And I was like, Sure. Like, I'm just going to my office right now. I'll put them there. And he's like, OK, and just like follows me back.

Miki Meek

What did you make of that at the time?

Jane Doe

Well, I mean, I wasn't too weirded out by it. I was just like, OK, like it's just another one of them. Whatever, it's just another sir. There's a lot of sirs in there, OK. There's sirs everywhere.

Miki Meek

S-I-R?

Jane Doe

Yeah, sir. It's just because you've got to say sir.

Miki Meek

How would you define what a sir is?

Jane Doe

Like literally suits -- like men in suits.

Miki Meek

Jane adds that sir is the kind of male representative who would text her late at night about a non-urgent work question, who'd keep her in his office too long, and who she overheard talking with other sirs about whether she looked better in her tan skirt or her striped one. She told me there were a lot of sirs in the House. Sometimes she'd get this creeping feeling that they would look at her and think, wow, how exotic. Jane's Hispanic. Many of the other women working in the capitol were blonde and white.

After von Ehlinger gave her those Idaho-shaped cookies, Jane says he was suddenly walking by her desk multiple times a day to make small talk. He gave her his phone number. Food seemed to be the main currency of flirting for a lot of the sirs. Jane says they were constantly offering her snacks from their mini fridges or dropping off lunch.

At times, all this free food was nice. Jane's internship was unpaid. She was supporting herself and her three-year-old son with a second job. She worked the overnight shift at a domestic violence shelter for $8 an hour. When von Ehlinger eventually asked her out to dinner, Jane says she initially felt reluctant, but talked about it with her friends, who told her to go for the food. Remember, she was 19 -- only a year out of high school. He was 38.

Miki Meek

Did you think of it as like, this is a date? This is a working dinner? This is something in between or who knows?

Jane Doe

I obviously knew that he was interested in me, but I more or less was like, well, he's going to help me out. Like, because I told him all my interests, right? Like, I was like, I want to work on the judiciary system, blah, blah, blah, and he's like, you know, I know these people and I could maybe, you know, connect you with, like, he was, no, he didn't, like, promise anything, but he definitely was like, hey, I could help you out. And that was my goal.

Miki Meek

She wanted to grow her network. Von Ehlinger picked Jane up after she'd finished her internship for the day in a BMW he borrowed from his roommate, then drove her to a steak restaurant downtown.

Jane Doe

And then over dinner, he had made some weird remarks, and I was like, this is kind of weird.

Miki Meek

What kind of remarks struck you as weird?

Jane Doe

Because he was like, I have a dry sense of humor. Like, what are you doing later? And I'm like, I'm going to go pick up my son, I guess. Like, I don't know. Like I'm just going to go home. And he's like, oh, well I'm hoping to do you. And he was just laughing, and then he just, like, ate, and then the waiter guy came up and I was like, OK. I just wanted to ignore it. Like the other things, I'm just like, oh, just pretend I didn't hear that. Because not to egg it on -- I definitely wasn't trying to make it worse. And then we were going to leave and I was like, cool, I'm going to go home.

Miki Meek

Von Ehlinger was supposed to take her straight back to her car at the capitol, but instead, he made a detour to his apartment, supposedly to run a quick errand. This is probably evident, but a heads up that this is where the rape happens, and I'm going to give some of those details. Jane gave me permission and felt it was important to lay out the specifics of what happened to her. After he parked, Jane felt pressured to go in. She says he opened her car door and reached for her arm. She felt anxious knowing that he sometimes carried a handgun. Once inside his apartment, Jane tried to keep some distance. She went and sat on his couch, but he picked her up and carried her to his bedroom.

Jane Doe

I wanted to run out of his -- like I was envisioning myself running out of his room and, like, running down the hall, but it was just in my head. Like I couldn't do it. I don't know. Like my brain was shot, like I couldn't move. You know, when you're paralyzed like, I can't move.

Miki Meek

Jane kept saying no, but von Ehlinger forced his penis into her mouth. She pulled her head away so hard that it snapped back and hit the wall. He then climbed on top of her, pinning one of her arms under his knee, masturbating. Von Ehlinger was over 6 feet, 200 pounds. Jane's 5' 3".

Jane Doe

I just stared at his curtains. They were so dark, like I called them American red in my head, is what I was naming them. Like I was in disbelief. Like I said no. I said no. What was I supposed to do? Hit him? Was I supposed to attack him? Like, he should have just gotten off of me, and he didn't. He just didn't, and I was so shocked.

Miki Meek

Afterward, she says, he told her, when I'm at this point, I just become an out of control man. He then acted like nothing happened and drove her back to her car.

Jane Doe had been assaulted by a state legislator. Now she had to try to figure out what to do next. Like the vast majority of sexual assault survivors, Jane decided she wasn't going to tell anyone. She wanted to get back to work. She tried to convince herself she was fine, but that plan fell apart when she showed up back at the capitol for work just a couple of days later.

Jane Doe

And so I was on the ground floor going towards where my office is, and I seen him at the very end, like, walking out of a committee room, and I was like, I can't do this. I can't, I can't do this.

Miki Meek

When you saw him, did he see you?

Jane Doe

No. I was like, oh my gosh. I just had to hold on to the wall. I was like-

[EXHALES]

Like, you know, right in the middle of a frigging panic attack. I was, like, not functioning. I couldn't function. I was scared. I was so scared, like I went straight to Kim Blackburn.

Miki Meek

Kim Blackburn. That's who she talked to -- the assistant sergeant at arms for the House. When Jane was a high school page the previous year, Kim was her supervisor. It was hard to find a private place to talk, so they walked out to the rotunda and sat on a bench facing that big Idaho state flag. Jane told Kim that von Ehlinger had raped her, then she went to the bathroom and threw up.

Jane Doe

Well initially, to even report, I was like -- to convince myself, I was like, well, I'm a citizen. I'm a constituent. I witnessed a crime brought by one of their legislators and I am giving that to the higher up or whatever, you know what I mean? I'm reporting that because that's what a good Samaritan does. That's what you do. That's what you're supposed to do, and so me being a domestic violence, sexual assault advocate myself, what would I be telling a different 19 year old who got assaulted by a legislator? So I was like, cool. Not cool, but like, cool. Like I will do this.

Miki Meek

Like I don't really want to do this, but I have to do this?

Jane Doe

Oh yeah. Why would you want to do that? Why would anybody want to do that? Why would anybody choose to be like, yeah, take my life, right? My whole life. So at that point, I was like, fuck it. This is my job now.

Miki Meek

This is where things started going differently than they would have in years past at the Idaho Capitol. Jane didn't know this, but when she told the supervisor about von Ehlinger, she became the first person to publicly test out the legislature's brand new process for responding to sexual misconduct allegations. The assistant sergeant at arms was now required to share Jane's report with one of the higher ups.

She went to the top person in the House, the Speaker, who took it very seriously. Within minutes of receiving Jane's report, he notified the Attorney General's office, who then notified the Boise Police. They took her to a victim center, where a nurse gave her a rape kit exam. But Jane waffled about whether she wanted to move forward with a police investigation and decided she didn't want to press charges. She wanted to move on, focus on her work, and let the capitol deal with von Ehlinger so another intern didn't get hurt.

The new protocol at the capitol landed with the Ethics Committee in the Idaho House, but then what? While the legislature had a way to respond to sexual misconduct complaints, it did not have any guidelines for how to conduct this kind of investigation. Representative Sage Dixon, a Republican from Northern Idaho, chaired the Ethics Committee. He was the first one on it to see Jane's report.

Sage Dixon

It shocked me because I wasn't aware of any of that, so it was a lot to absorb. I was disturbed in thinking that this is quite possibly going to be something larger than we'd like it to be, as far as within Idaho.

Miki Meek

Had you ever handled anything like this as a legislator?

Sage Dixon

No.

Miki Meek

Most everything that happened next, Dixon and his committee had to make up. He had no training on how to run an investigation into a sexual misconduct complaint. His job outside of the House is running an electrical contracting business. So one of his first thoughts was we should talk to Jane. Jane was at the capitol when a secretary notified her to appear before the House Ethics Committee. She didn't know what to expect, so when she headed into that interview, she brought a lawyer who's also a sexual assault advocate.

Jane Doe

And right before we walked in there, all we heard from that room -- a burst of laughter, and so that already made me, like, what the heck? Did you hear that? Me and my lawyer were like, are they laughing right now? What are they laughing about?

Miki Meek

How did that make you feel, walking into that room?

Jane Doe

I was more irritated. More like confused, kind of hurt -- kind of felt judged.

Miki Meek

Dixon says he doesn't remember what they were talking about, but was certain they weren't laughing about Jane. Once Jane walked in the room, she saw the Ethics Committee was made up of Representatives she saw all the time at her internship. She felt ashamed. They were seated around a long table -- three men and two women. She took a seat at the end. Dixon asked her to recount the night von Ehlinger raped her, but as soon as she got to the part about him climbing on top of her, Dixon stopped her. He said, quote, "I think maybe the committee's getting uncomfortable, too."

Jane Doe

At first, I was just like, what did you say? Well I didn't say that, but I was like, you are telling me that I'm making you uncomfortable? Like you're telling me -- you're telling me. I was assaulted sexually, but you're uncomfortable with this conversation after you asked me to have this conversation. You asked me. You brought me here. You made this happen, and you're just going to tell me to stop. What? Like this doesn't, it made me so angry.

Miki Meek

I read the transcript of this, and later he said, please don't think that we're, I'm cutting you off because we don't want to hear anything more. And so, did that clarification make a difference to you?

Jane Doe

No. Not in any way. Like, that was a huge insult. You made me relive a horrible experience and just tell me you're uncomfortable by it. I was so hurt. I was so hurt by Dixon because I know his son. I'm friends with his son. He was a page with me. Dang. You hurt me, Dixon. You hurt me. You hurt me.

Miki Meek

There are some well-established practices for interviewing sexual assault victims. Using trained investigators who know how to interview a victim without re-traumatizing them is one, and those investigators should be external and independent, not people who work together every day. I asked Dixon about that moment in the room. He told me after Jane left, a Deputy AG who was there told him you don't interrupt sexual assault victims in the middle of their story.

Sage Dixon

I could tell Jane Doe was getting visibly disturbed and I didn't want her to be that way, so I told her you don't need to answer any more. Just dead stop. We're done. We're fine, trying to protect her the best way as a husband and a father that I would think to protect somebody that's vulnerable and having a hard time. Not knowing that dynamic -- now I know that it was hard at that point, that it was one of the difficult things. So I apologize to her about that. I'm sure that made it tougher.

Miki Meek

The Ethics Committee doesn't investigate crimes. They had no protocol for what to do, but they did have this one thing -- something that was clearly in the purview of the Ethics Committee -- conduct unbecoming. Was Representative von Ehlinger's conduct conduct unbecoming? As they looked into it, reports started surfacing about other women he'd pursued and made uncomfortable in his very short time at the capitol -- a journal clerk, a security guard, and a lobbyist who said he followed her to the bathroom. All of them were younger than him.

The committee also discovered that the top leadership in the House knew about two of these reports. Instead of confronting von Ehlinger, they sent a representative to warn him to stop being, quote, "overly nice." Dixon and the committee brought these allegations to him and gave von Ehlinger the chance to resign quietly and to avoid any public embarrassment.

But he didn't step down. Instead, he told the committee he and Jane Doe had consensual sex. To them, pursuing a sexual relationship of any kind with an intern was not OK. It seemed like a clear violation of the rule -- conduct unbecoming. Since he refused to resign, the only option they had left was to convince two-thirds of the House that von Ehlinger had violated conduct unbecoming. Then they could get him expelled. But to do this, they'd have to hold a public hearing.

Once the hearing was announced, one of von Ehlinger's attorneys did something that shocked Jane and her lawyers -- he released Jane's name to reporters. It ended up on a far right news site with her photo. Jane was no longer anonymous.

Jane Doe

I'm just like, holy shit, my world is ending. Nobody would talk to me. Nobody would even look at me in the eye anymore. I went from smiling and waving to everybody to nobody would look at me. And so then that's when I was really like, dang, they hate me. Like everybody in that state house just hates me.

Miki Meek

An ally of von Ehlinger in the House went after Jane, too -- a then representative named Priscilla Giddings. She posted Jane's photo on Facebook and emailed a newsletter to her constituents calling von Ehlinger Idaho's very own Kavanaugh and Jane a honey trap out on a liberal smear job. The hearing, she said, was part of a national #MeToo witch hunt. I reached out to Giddings, but she didn't respond.

Jane tried to keep going to work, but she hated that every time someone looked at her, they thought about the rape. She couldn't function and needed to get out of the capitol. Back at home, all she could do to get through the day was sleep. She couldn't keep food down and was failing all of her college classes except for one -- a criminal justice course.

Jane Doe

It was victimology.

[LAUGHTER]

I'm not even kidding. I'm not even kidding. It was victimology. I was taking victimology all through that.

Miki Meek

In victimology, one of the things they talk about is how victims are often re-traumatized by the very systems that are supposed to get them justice. If you're a victim of sexual violence, the trauma is about having no power, so any attempt toward justice -- police, court, or HR procedures -- should be designed to make sure the person feels a sense of control. For instance, before a victim even makes a report, they should know what all the possible steps of the process could be. That way, they can decide if they still want to proceed. And if it's a workplace like the state house, you want to give the victim the option to give their testimony in private instead of forcing them to retell and relive their assault in public.

In the Idaho House, the process wasn't designed with the sexual assault victim in mind. Instead, it looked a lot more like a regular criminal trial. Dixon talked a lot about von Ehlinger's right to defend himself, while Jane says she wasn't consulted about whether she even wanted to come to the hearing. They issued a subpoena for her to appear. I asked Dixon why he thought that was necessary.

Sage Dixon

We were subpoenaing other witnesses, and so to maintain that consistency, I think, is why, and just that it didn't look like we were favoring one side or the other.

Miki Meek

Because it is a subpoena, if she hadn't appeared, then arrest is the consequence of that, right?

Sage Dixon

Yes. I don't think it's absolute that arrest is a consequence of that. If we wanted to take it to that end, we could have.

Miki Meek

So if she hadn't come, I mean, what would have --

Sage Dixon

I don't know, Miki. That's tough because I feel she needed to be there for the face-your-accuser portion of it.

Miki Meek

In the days leading up to the hearing, Jane's lawyer said they did everything they could to prevent the hearing from being a disaster for her. They asked if she could testify remotely and with her voice disguised, or even better, in a closed session that wasn't open to the public. They said the answer they always got back from the Attorney General's office was no. No one seems to have a clear answer on why this was.

One of the Deputy AG's running the case declined to comment. Dixon told me he never received her attorney's requests and says he would have been open to Jane testifying remotely. In the end, Jane's lawyer said the only protection that was offered up to her were those black curtains. She would tell her story in public, behind a black curtain.

Ira Glass

Miki Meek. Coming up -- the hearing and the protective power of tennis shoes. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

Act Two: The Witness

Ira Glass

This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program -- Jane Doe. Five years since #MeToo blew up and there are all these systems that are supposed to crank into action now when somebody steps forward, we have the story of Jane Doe, a teenager in Idaho.

Now to be clear, Jane Doe did not come forward because of #MeToo. Actually, when our producer, Miki Meek, asked her about it, Jane said all she knew about #MeToo is that it was something for celebrities. Nonetheless, the response to her was shaped by #MeToo. She was a test case of the legislature's new reporting system that they were making up as they went. We pick up our story with Act Two, The Witness. Heads up, this part of the story contains brief references to suicide. Here's Miki.

Miki Meek

The morning of the hearing, Jane woke up terrified. She had a full blown panic attack and threw up. She jumped in the shower and put on "Beautiful" by Eminem to try and pump herself up. She then put on a black dress. This was an inside joke to herself because she felt like she was about to attend her own funeral. Jane's mom picked her up and they headed to the capitol.

Her lawyers told me that nobody came up with a secure plan to get her into the building without people seeing who she was. So one of her lawyers reached out to a senator who met Jane and her mom at a private entrance outside the capitol, then led them through a series of tunnels and some back hallways until Jane finally got to a door in the hearing room. She looked at the curtains and a random bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln's head. Her chair was right in front of him.

Jane Doe

His eyes wouldn't move, you know? He was just staring at me the whole time, and I was like, OK. It was just weird. It was just flat out weird.

Miki Meek

What did you think when you saw that black curtain?

Jane Doe

Well, I was like, I can see through this. I can see everybody. Like, they can see me, and I was kind of freaking out at first, but they really couldn't see me.

Miki Meek

From her side, the curtain looked more sheer. She looked through it to a room packed with legislators and press. The people who could actually see her, though, included five Ethics Committee members, their counsel, a secretary, two Deputy AG's, von Ehlinger's attorney, and von Ehlinger. Jane had only seen him around the capitol a couple of times since he raped her. Her black curtain was slightly open to give those people line of sight on Jane during the hearing.

Jane Doe

My body was not there. I just held so tight to my chair -- just held on to it just so I had something.

Miki Meek

And you knew they weren't going to protect your voice going into it?

Jane Doe

No.

Miki Meek

Jane's voice was live-streamed. The hearing was broadcast online.

Edward Dindinger

I think we need to be able to cross-examine the accuser here.

Miki Meek

That's von Ehlinger's attorney. Publicly cross-examining witnesses of sexual assault is certainly not best practice for this kind of thing. For instance, other state legislatures that have adopted procedures for handling complaints do not allow victims to be cross-examined in public, certainly not by the perpetrators. But again, they had no process for this in Idaho.

So von Ehlinger's lawyer adopted tactics out of a criminal trial. He predictably turned Jane into the defendant, following the usual playbook that gets used on sexual assault victims. He cast her as mentally unstable and a flirt, which was a thing Jane had felt around the capitol ever since she reported von Ehlinger. That she was being judged and cast, in her words, as a, quote, "gold digging, crazy Mexican pothead." Von Ehlinger's lawyer nitpicked tiny details to insinuate that maybe she was a liar.

Edward Dindinger

I'm just wondering if you can just read that -- just that one sentence.

Jane Doe

On the night of March 10, 2021, she met him in downtown Boise.

Edward Dindinger

Thank you. But it wasn't March 10, 2021, was it?

Jane Doe

No.

Edward Dindinger

It was March 9th. Isn't that correct?

Jane Doe

Yes, I told police that.

Edward Dindinger

OK, why did you tell Miss Blackburn that it was March 10?

Jane Doe

I didn't. I said the other night.

Miki Meek

The supervisor who Jane had reported to is the one who accidentally made a mistake in her written report, not Jane. Meanwhile, von Ehlinger barely spoke. He kept pleading the fifth. When the Ethics Committee kept pointing out that this wasn't a criminal proceeding and it didn't apply, he still refused. What sucked up most of the time, though, was the core of von Ehlinger's defense, which was essentially, this was not rape -- we were dating, which is allowed. There's no anti-fraternization policy in the Idaho state house. Again, here's his attorney.

Edward Dindinger

Does Representative von Ehlinger have any hiring or firing authority over you?

Jane Doe

No.

Edward Dindinger

Does Representative von Ehlinger have any supervisory authority over you?

Jane Doe

No.

Edward Dindinger

OK.

Miki Meek

He asked some version of this question more than 30 times to different witnesses.

Edward Dindinger

Are you aware of any policy that would be violated by a representative having a relationship with an intern of the age of majority?

Representative

I've seen nothing in policy, no.

Edward Dindinger

Thank you.

Miki Meek

He's basically saying, tell me where it says a powerful, middle aged legislator can't date a 19-year-old intern, and always got the same answer.

Representative 1

Written policy, no.

Representative 2

Not that I'm, not that I'm aware of.

Representative 3

Absolutely not.

Edward Dindinger

OK.

Miki Meek

Von Ehlinger's lawyer did the same kind of thing with the other woman who testified about von Ehlinger's troubling behavior. Like a chief clerk who said one of her employees complained when von Ehlinger asked her out. His attorney's response to that was, she wasn't wearing a wedding ring, which of course, has nothing to do with whether von Ehlinger should have asked her out at work. His attorney charged ahead.

Edward Dindinger

Ms. Maulin, in your experience, isn't wearing a wedding ring a generally accepted sign that a woman is unavailable?

Chief Clerk

It can be construed that way, but I don't think that that's a requirement to be unavailable.

Edward Dindinger

I didn't ask if it was a requirement. Is it completely unreasonable, in your opinion, for an individual who is interested in a woman to notice that she is not wearing a wedding ring and assume he's permitted to ask her a question?

Chief Clerk

I don't think a wedding ring is indicative of whether or not you can ask a woman a question.

Miki Meek

This is an absurd thing to argue, but he's also arguing inside an absurd, incoherent set of rules. The Idaho legislature has a process for reporting sexual harassment, but not actually a policy against it in the rules for the Senate and the House. They don't have an anti-fraternization policy, but they have rules about decorum -- rules forbidding smoking, drinking, and eating on the House floor. A rule about conduct unbecoming of a state legislator, but nothing for sexual harassment.

The part of the hearing I'd always wanted to know more about ever since I first saw it was what happened when Jane finally walked away from that black curtain. She sat behind it for 40 minutes, answering questions.

Sage Dixon

Thank you, Ms. Doe, you are excused.

Jane Doe

I freaking lose it. I lose it. And then I was just angry. I was like, I'm going to get the F out of here. I don't want to be here anymore. You think I want to help you?

Miki Meek

Jane told me that when she stood up to leave, she had a panic attack. There was a private exit she was supposed to go out of, but she was so upset that she pushed through the wrong door and landed out in a public hallway. That's when that scream came out of her.

[SCREAM]

Jane Doe

Just start running up the hallway, and that's when I heard people behind me.

Miki Meek

Some of von Ehlinger's supporters -- all women -- followed her out into the hallway. There was a local reporter with them, too. They crowded around her and started filming Jane with their phones.

Jane Doe

I broke. I broke. I screamed. I screamed a lot. Like screaming how much I was going to kill myself. All I wanted to do was get to the top of the building.

Miki Meek

She was trying to get to a balcony in the rotunda to throw herself off. Her lawyers blocked her. Jane collapsed on the ground. Her mom held her while her lawyers pulled out an umbrella and opened it to try and block her face from the people filming her. It took several minutes before security at the capitol finally showed up and escorted Jane out of the building.

The hearing lasted two days. At the end of the second day, the committee recommended to expel him. He resigned just hours later. Representative Dixon, head of the Ethics Committee, saw this as a successful outcome. I told Dixon how traumatizing the whole experience was for Jane, and what happened after she ran out of the hearing room.

Miki Meek

I mean, if that's what the consequences were for her for showing up in public -- for testifying in public, I mean, is it, yeah, was it worth having her be in public like that?

Sage Dixon

Probably not. But again, this was all new to us as a committee. Not being familiar with that trauma and how it expresses itself in people, we had no idea and did everything we thought we were doing correctly to protect her. But I think we could have gone on without that because we did have her previous testimony that we could have brought up and had or showed everybody. We had the transcripts that we were able to show to the body, which again, was important to me so that they knew what we had known. And that probably would have sufficed.

Miki Meek

This, of course, is impossible to know. Another member of the Ethics Committee told me they thought without Jane's testimony in person, von Ehlinger would still be in the legislature.

Miki Meek

I mean, is there anything that you would want her to know or that you...

Sage Dixon

Just I'm very sorry if we increased that trauma or that we did, because it never was our intent. I know each one of those members feels very strongly that she was wronged and wanted to protect her, but just due to our inexperience, things didn't come out maybe as cleanly as they could have.

Miki Meek

So what happened to Jane after all of that? She never finished the internship she loved at the capitol, and after the hearing, never went back to her office with her name in all caps. Five months after the hearing, she was cleaning houses and she was a wreck. She'd lost 20 pounds. She couldn't stop replaying the assault and the hearing in her head. So much of her day-to-day now was a physical battle. She was dealing with severe PTSD.

Jane Doe

Just going on the freeway and you would see the tip of the capitol, like my body would just, like [GASP]. Immediately. Just like when you're falling, can you imagine just that [GASP] moment? Like just staying in that. My body is just in a state of shock, you know? Like, frozen.

Miki Meek

She was still getting harassed by von Ehlinger sympathizers who continued to publish her name online. Random strangers had shown up at her old apartment, asking questions. There was even a man who'd show up at Boise political events, mocking her, dressed as a woman, wearing a sash with Jane's real name on it. There were also people who sympathized with her, too, and that was also hard. When she was out in public, she never knew when someone was going to try and approach her.

Jane Doe

Like people are like, are you Jane Doe?

Miki Meek

Where does this come up when you get recognized?

Jane Doe

So I went to a job fair, OK, and it was just a bunch of booths of people, and you just go to the next one. And this one lady I went up to went, and I was like, you know, my name is [BLEEP]. I worked here and here, blah, blah, blah. I think I'd be, I'd like to take an application. And she's just like, her eyes were already watering. Like she was already, like, crying, and she's like, miss, did you, are you Jane Doe?

Miki Meek

What did you say?

Jane Doe

I was like, fuck. But I was like, yes. Yes, ma'am. Like, yeah. And she's like, oh my gosh. Like, I watched that, blah, blah, blah. And then I was recognized again at the Walmart, and that lady recognized me by my face. You know, and then that's when a lot of people try to share their frickin' rape stories, and you're just like, I really don't want to hear that. Like, I'm still recovering from my own. Like, why would you share that? So not that I don't care, per se, right? But I don't care. I don't want to hear it.

Miki Meek

Jane started talking about herself in the past tense. I was high energy. I was spunky. I was funny. And her plans felt past tense, too. She no longer talked about being a lawmaker. She was sure she could never set foot back in the capitol, and was thinking about moving out of state. The state house had a process to take her seriously when she reported von Ehlinger, but after that, they had nothing. Jane felt like they weren't concerned with what the experience did to her.

Jane Doe

They just needed my testimony. They needed to do this because they needed to do their jobs. Like they didn't really look at me as a human. They were just, oh, well she reported this, so she got to do this. So might as well just fucking make her, right? Like that's what it felt like, that they only needed me to get this process going. Like they didn't consider anything else. And so I mean, that's where it gets me. Like I mean, what would you do, what would you have done if I was your kid? What would you have made sure happen if I was yours?

Miki Meek

All Jane had wanted to do was work at the capitol, but after she got doxxed, she said everyone there who talked to her about job opportunities went silent. To make money, she started helping her stepdad out at his plumbing business and picked up work as a caregiver at a memory care facility. And then one year after the ethics hearing, Jane got a rare sort of do over of the entire ordeal with von Ehlinger. The District Attorney in the County for Boise charged him with felony rape.

This happened because after she got doxxed, Jane told the police she'd cooperate with the criminal case. She was so scared all the time, she felt like she had to for her own protection. This time, things went very differently. The prosecutors handling her case understood that they needed to deal with her with care. They walked her through each step so she always knew what to expect. They did not subpoena her. They intentionally built a whole case where she didn't have to take the stand. They had other witnesses like the nurse who did Jane's rape kit exam.

But Jane decided that she did want to testify against von Ehlinger. A Sheriff picked her up in an unmarked car and drove her to a secret courthouse entrance. She had a therapy dog named Yuko in the courtroom and a victim witness coordinator by her side. I was there, sitting a couple rows behind von Ehlinger, but even with all that support, watching Jane on the stand that day was harrowing. She looked like she was having an out-of-body experience. She stared at him blankly and could barely talk. When she tried to answer questions about how he'd raped her, she suddenly stopped. She pushed her chair away from the mic, stood up, and said, I can't do this. She walked out of the courtroom.

Jane Doe

So I ran out of the room and immediately fell down a flight of stairs. Like that sounds stupid, but I did, and I don't know what, in my mind, like, I just needed to run, and then I ran across Front Street. I ran across Myrtle, which is the big road. Big, busy roads -- downtown Boise. Four lanes. I was trying to go to the bridge, OK. In my brain, that's where I was going, but my ankle was getting to me.

Miki Meek

The bridge, she says, because maybe she could jump. She was having a post-traumatic reaction. Same as at the hearing, Jane's first instinct was to do what she hadn't been able to do the night she was raped: run away. She'd torn a tendon and leaned up against a tree. One of her attorneys named Guy followed her out to try to calm her. Guy says when the police showed up, one of them grabbed her arm and dropped her to the ground. Jane was so distraught, she doesn't remember that.

Jane Doe

So many people. It was like nine different officers on me, and I was just on the floor. I was just screaming and, like, hitting my head over and over. And I looked over, and I'll never forget this, and I seen Guy on his hands and knees.

Miki Meek

He was crying.

Jane Doe

And he was, like, shaking his head. And I don't know what about that hurt me, and I stopped for a second.

Miki Meek

During this brief pause, the police put a full body restraint wrap, a helmet, and handcuffs on Jane. They put her in a squad car and transferred her to a hospital for psychiatric care. She spent three days there. When she was released, her mom picked her up. As soon as they pulled on the freeway, a text showed up on her mom's phone.

Jane Doe

I hear [DING SOUND] and then she, like [GASP]. She's like, do you want to read that? And I'm just like, OK. I have a smoothie in my hand, like...

Miki Meek

It was a text from one of Jane's attorneys. The jury in von Ehlinger's trial had just come to a verdict.

Jane Doe

And she said that he was found guilty.

Miki Meek

And what was, what did that feel like?

Jane Doe

I didn't believe it. I was like, no way. What?

Miki Meek

Why didn't you believe it?

Jane Doe

Nobody thought that he would have, oh, just a slap on the wrist he's going to get because he's a good old boy or, there were so many comments. When do you get to hear about a prosecuted, convicted for what they did. And he got that. You know how lucky I am?

Miki Meek

It's true Jane is the best case scenario for what a rape survivor can get. Von Ehlinger was kicked out of the Idaho Capitol a month and a half after she reported. He was arrested, and a judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Less than 3% of sexual assaults ever result in a conviction or incarceration, but the lived reality of best case scenario for Jane hardly feels like a win.

Von Ehlinger still maintains he did nothing wrong. He's appealing his conviction to the state Supreme Court. His sympathizers continue to harass her, and she regularly sees a psychiatrist and a therapist for PTSD. She takes ice baths a few times a week to shock herself into feeling like she's back in her body.

More than two years after the ethics hearing, nothing is preventing another Jane Doe from going through almost the exact same process she did. This really gets to her. The Idaho House and the Senate still have not adopted a sexual harassment or anti-fraternization policy into their rules. They also haven't adopted a specific process for how to investigate future reports of sexual misconduct.

There are state legislatures that have adopted some best practices. Oregon offers confidential counseling for victims to help them decide what kind of action they want to take, and New York and Oregon use independent external investigators. Neither state requires victims to retell and relive their assault in public. The one improvement Dixon and other Ethics Committee members did make is stronger confidentiality protections for anyone who reports, so anyone who releases a victim's name could face consequences.

But at the same time, the committee also decided they can cover the legal fees of lawmakers accused of sexual harassment or assault. This is where we are more than five years after #MeToo: more awareness there's a problem, a more immediate sense that you should care and respond when someone reports, but nobody's invented new systems where what a victim actually wants and needs is at the center.

The Idaho legislature isn't so different from state houses all over the country, including the very highest levels of the US government. Three of the past five presidents have been accused of inappropriate behavior, from unwanted touching to rape, and more than three decades after Anita Hill first testified about Clarence Thomas, the US Senate and House still do not have a clear independent process for investigations.

I recently listened to a conversation between Hill and Christine Blasey Ford about their experiences testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In it, Hill said that she rejects the idea that things will change if more people come forward and speak up. She says it's the other way around. More people will come forward if the systems are better.

A little while ago, Jane stepped back into the Idaho Capitol for the first time since the hearing, not for a new job. She says a representative called her out of the blue and invited her to a meeting with some other lawmakers. They wanted her input on better processes for sexual harassment and assault victims.

Jane Doe

Part of me was excited. Part of me, like, still admired the state house.

Miki Meek

What was the other part of you?

Jane Doe

Flat just scared -- like confusion, like scared. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to. Very scared. Like, I made sure I had running shoes on. I made sure I had, like, stretchy pants, you know.

Miki Meek

So that you were ready to just...

Jane Doe

In case I need to run, like, just take precautions. I had somebody, you know, on standby in case I needed to get picked up.

Miki Meek

Now, more than two years out from the hearing, Jane's been back at the capitol more than a dozen times. She says sometimes she gets random stares from lobbyists or male representatives who won't look her in the eye, but she doesn't care. In January, she went to the inaugural ball held in the rotunda of the capitol.

Miki Meek

What was it like?

Jane Doe

It was fun. I mean, I didn't wear heels. I did still wear, like, flats just in case.

Miki Meek

Purposely?

Jane Doe

Yeah.

Miki Meek

She pulled up a video on her phone.

Jane Doe

Look, there's the speaker.

Miki Meek

The rotunda's all lit up.

Jane Doe

Yeah, and it was, like, just all fancy. Like, it was just so cool. Then I danced. I danced with some people.

Miki Meek

A representative encouraged her to take a picture back on the House floor.

Jane Doe

Literally I'm in the Speaker's spot in the House, holding the gavel. Just, she's like, pose, pose for me.

Miki Meek

I, like, saw you two years ago and you were just like, I can't go back there. And now you've got a gavel.

Jane Doe

I know, right? And I wish that, like, I wish things turned out differently.

Miki Meek

Jane's thought about how different things might be, the alternate life she'd have if the rape had never happened. She'd still be working at the capitol instead of her stepdad's plumbing company. Maybe she'd be an attache, popping into committee meetings for things she wants to learn more about, like Health and Welfare or State Affairs. Instead, she's here -- somewhere between where she intended to be and the very dark place she's been in for the last couple of years. She's just now returning to her original plans.

Jane Doe

I'm going to be a lawmaker. You know, I'll never be, I will never have shame walking into that building anymore. Going forward, hell no. Hell no. I'm a multi-generation Idahoan. You know, my mother is here. My siblings are here. My son is here. I'm here. No way you're going to oust me from, I pay my taxes. Like, this is our building.

Miki Meek

Jane's mapping out her path back: PTA, city council, and then the state house.

Ira Glass

Miki Meek is a producer on our show. If you've experienced sexual assault and want to talk to somebody, you can reach out to the National Sexual Assault Hotline. 1-800-656-HOPE. If you're having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. You do that by dialing 988 on your phone. That's it. Just 988. Fiona Apple recorded this for us.

["HERE WE HAVE IDAHO" BY FIONA APPLE]

(SINGING) You've heard of the wonders our land does possess, its beautiful valleys and hills. The majestic forests where nature abounds, we love every nook and rill. And here we have Idaho, winning her way to fame. Silver and gold in the sunlight blaze, and romance lies in her name.

Singing, we're singing of you, ah, proudly too, all our lives through we'll go singing, singing of you, singing of Idaho.

There's truly one state in this great land of ours where ideals can be realized. The pioneers made it so for you and me, a legacy we'll always prize. And here we have Idaho, winning her way to fame. Silver and gold in the sunlight blaze, and romance lies in her name. Singing, we're singing of you, ah, proudly too, all our lives through we'll go singing, singing of you, singing of Idaho.

Act Three: Doe Meets Doe (podcast only)

Ira Glass

OK, so I know that we could have ended the show right here with this song, and in fact, we did plan on ending it right here, but then last week, I did this one more interview that just got to those of us who were putting together the show, and it's an interview with somebody who Jane Doe has been thinking about. A woman who, for a while, was known as Emily Doe. And so here is just one more thing before we go today. This is Act Three. Doe Meet Doe.

OK, so while Miki was talking to Jane for this story, Jane was reading this book called Know My Name, and Know My Name was written by a survivor who had been anonymous for several years, and then came out with her name. This is somebody who we had, actually, one quick quote from in the top of the show -- Chanel Miller is her real name.

Stanford swimmer Brock Turner sexually assaulted her in 2015, and then she wrote this victim impact statement as Emily Doe, and this statement went online. Millions of people read it. Eighteen members of the House of Representatives -- Democrats and Republicans -- took turns reading it out loud in Congress. It was a thing. And Jane Doe is thinking these days about whether she wants to come out with her real name, and so I talked to Chanel Miller about how she decided to do that, and also what it was like for her to be anonymous as Emily Doe for so long before she did.

Chanel Miller

In those four years, less than 10 people in my life knew, and at the time, it was cool that I had the power of invisibility. But long term, what's not cool is when you can't turn the invisibility off, because if you're always invisible, then you just start to slowly dissolve, and just to be in the world and leave such a big part of me at home every day led to such a fragmented experience by the end.

Ira Glass

Did Emily Doe seem like a person who is separate from you in some way?

Chanel Miller

Oh, yes.

[LAUGHTER]

Yes.

Ira Glass

Say more about that.

Chanel Miller

Well, she's sort of like a beacon and she's very bold. Emily Doe is just this unshakable, clear headed person who didn't take anything from anybody. And I don't know. I am not confrontational. You have to understand, like, in my book, I talk about how when I'm handed change at the grocery store, I just throw it in my bag because I don't want to hold anybody up.

I get so nervous. If I'm at a cafe and I have to ask the barista the Wi-Fi password -- rather not. I'll figure out a way to work without internet for an hour. And so in my day-to-day life, I'm someone who is very shrunken most of the time, and it takes a lot to be able to assert myself. I think what's incredible about Emily Doe is that she can show up when she needs to.

Ira Glass

Emily Doe takes a stand.

Chanel Miller

Yes.

Ira Glass

Emily Doe asks for the Wi-Fi password.

[LAUGHTER]

Chanel Miller

Yeah. Yes.

Ira Glass

And so you're reading about this Emily Doe, who seems so amazing. And it doesn't feel like you.

Chanel Miller

Emily Doe, I don't think, is allowed to make a lot of jokes. Like, she exists in a space that has that -- that can be sensitive, where you want to be really conscious of what you're saying. You want to take care of people. Even now, when people -- people will sometimes see me on the street and burst into tears, and I don't know what that is, but I just -- anytime somebody gives me a compliment, I imagine Emily Doe as this, like, statue, and they give me a flower, and I walk over and put the flower at her feet, and then I come back to myself.

Ira Glass

So the next thing I want to do is something unusual. Jane Doe from our story has read your book. She read it with interest and she sent these next questions.

Chanel Miller

OK.

Ira Glass

That she would love to hear your answers to.

Chanel Miller

OK.

Ira Glass

OK. First one. When did you know -- you can totally see where she's coming from in this question, too -- when did you know that you were emotionally and mentally ready to put your real name out there? What were the signs that you were seeing in your own life telling you that you were ready?

Chanel Miller

There were so many things I thought were impossible at the beginning that have now become ordinary, and I want her to know that for herself. So I couldn't even verbalize what had happened to me when I was alone in a therapist's office, and I wore a jacket.

Ira Glass

This is at the beginning.

Chanel Miller

This is at the very beginning. I had wore a jacket with sleeves that covered my hands, and now I can walk in in a regular afternoon, make a recording that will go out to millions of people, and afterward, I will move on to something else.

Ira Glass

Recording -- you're talking about this interview we're doing right now.

Chanel Miller

Correct, but this will not sink me, and by the end, I could get back on my feet so quickly, and so I thought, I don't have to be afraid anymore that something is going to blindside me.

Ira Glass

And that's when you knew that you were emotionally and mentally ready to put your name out there?

Chanel Miller

Yes, I can do this.

Ira Glass

Jane Doe's next question for you is, what's the pros and cons list you made before you came out with your own name?

Chanel Miller

OK. Cons -- cons is that any time you are Googled, it is the first thing that comes up. It'll be the first thing everybody sees you as. Pros -- pros, I get to be in rooms with people again.

Ira Glass

What does that mean?

Chanel Miller

Like, I don't have to be lonely anymore. I was so lonely. It's so lonely to be hiding this much. Like it's so isolating.

Ira Glass

Other cons?

Chanel Miller

Feeling exposed. Like it felt like I was in this storm and I had a little tarp covering me, and at any moment, the wind was going to rip the tarp off, and I'm just clenching it down all of the time. And so when it finally rips off, you're like, OK, now I can just give in to it. I can get soaked and see where we go from here.

Ira Glass

Are there any other pros or cons?

Chanel Miller

You know, it is hard -- like every time I'm introduced, there's a trigger warning, and I think that's, there'll probably be one at the top of this episode, and...

Ira Glass

Wait, you mean every time you're introduced, you mean on the radio or something like that?

Chanel Miller

Or at an event.

Ira Glass

At an event?

Chanel Miller

Yeah, this may be really distressing and I'm sitting there like, what am I about to do to these people?

[LAUGHTER]

So I want to be introduced and not have to warn people that I'm about to start speaking, you know?

Ira Glass

OK, this is our last question from Jane Doe.

Chanel Miller

OK.

Ira Glass

Who is Emily Doe to you now? Is she gone?

Chanel Miller

She's there. She'll definitely always be there.

Ira Glass

Be there as a separate person from you? Still?

Chanel Miller

Yes.

Ira Glass

Really?

Chanel Miller

Yeah. She's a statue.

Ira Glass

Oh, I thought you might say that, like, you have now, you've integrated her. She's now part of you.

Chanel Miller

Oh, yeah. I think in the beginning interviews, I said that because it sounds very harmonious.

[LAUGHTER]

Ira Glass

But it's not true.

Chanel Miller

That the experience isn't great...

Ira Glass

OK. All right, noted. That's a lie. Let's move on. She's still out there.

Chanel Miller

Yeah. I can summon her. (SIGH)

Ira Glass

Chanel Miller. Chanel Miller's book, again, is called Know My Name. She's also a visual artist. She did the show art for today's episode that you can see at our website.

Credits

Ira Glass

Well the program was produced today by Miki Meek and Valerie Kipnis and edited by Chana Joffe-Walt. People who put together today's program include Chris Benderev, Phia Bennin, Zoe Chace, Sean Cole, Michael Comite, Aviva DeKornfeld, Alaa Mostafa, Stowe Nelson, Katherine Rae Mondo, Sarah Parrish, Nadia Reiman, Laura Starecheski, Lilly Sullivan, Frances Swanson, Christopher Swetala, Marisa Robertson-Textor, Matt Tierney, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu.

Our Managing Editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our Senior Editor is David Kestenbaum. Our Executive Editor is Emanuele Berry. Special thanks today to Annie Hightower, Erika Birch, Melissa Ing, Lindsay Meyer, Nora Cassidy, Kelly Boyle, Rachel Dissell, Michaela Myers, Maria Patrick from the National Women's Law Center, Rebecca Traister, Rick Rossein, Pilar Melendez, James Dawson, Robyn Semian, Andy Slater, and the DART Center for Journalism and Trauma. The musicians who play with Fiona Apple -- Amy Wood, David Garza, Sabastian Steinberg, and John Would.

Our website, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia. He's been training at a boxing gym, doing some sparring. I keep telling him, stick to your own weight class, but he won't listen.

Jane Doe

So when I get a chance to just, like, go annihilate some little, like, nine year olds, I will.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

["HERE WE HAVE IDAHO" BY FIONA APPLE]

(SINGING) Singing, singing of you, singing of Idaho. Singing, singing of you. Singing of Idaho. Singing, singing of you. Singing of Idaho. Singing, singing of you. Singing of Idaho.