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Evelyn Yang, the wife of Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, accused her gynecologist of sexually assaulting her while she was pregnant with her first child in 2012.
She is one of 32 women who came forth to sue Robert Hadden, and Columbia University in New York where he practiced at the time is now also being sued.
When Yang was first assaulted, her immediate reaction wasn’t to tell her husband. What encouraged her to finally speak out was when she experienced a warm reception when she and her husband talked to voters about their son having autism.
“Something about being on the trail and meeting people and seeing the difference that we’ve been making already has moved me to share my own story about it, about sexual assault,” Yang said in an interview with CNN.
She continued, “Everyone has their own Me Too story. It’s far too prevalent. But not everyone can tell their story. Not everyone has the audience or platform to tell their story, and I actually feel like I’m in this very privileged position to be able to do that.”
When Yang first became pregnant with her child, she did what most other new mothers-to-be might, and tried to find a gynecologist with a good reputation. She ended up finding Dr. Robert Hadden, who worked at Columbia University, which is world-renowned for their medical facilities.
She didn’t notice any red flags at first, but as her pregnancy progressed, Dr. Hadden started to get more comfortable and asked her inappropriate sexual questions that were unrelated to her health, or the health of her unborn child.
“There was absolutely no premise for that line of questioning and it seemed like he just wanted to hear me talking about sex. What I kept sticking to was this: ‘OK, so my doctor is pervy. I have a pervy doctor, but I’m going to focus on having a healthy baby,’ and the idea of changing doctors was overwhelming for me.”
Yang continued, “The examinations became longer, more frequent and I learned that they were unnecessary most of the time.” That is when she began to tell herself, “I suppose I just need to trust him.”
However, when Yang was seven months pregnant, her doctor did the unthinkable.
“I was in the exam room and I was dressed and ready to go. Then, at the last minute, he kind of made up an excuse. He said something about, ‘I think you might need a C-section,’ and he proceeded to grab me over to him and undress me and examine me internally, ungloved,” she said.
“I knew it was wrong. I knew I was being assaulted,” she recalled.
Although she thought that if she were ever in a situation like this that she’d try to run away, she found out that it wasn’t that easy. She said she tried to fix her eyes on one spot on the wall and waited, frozen, for it to be over.
Hadden then walked out of the room without bothering to wash his hands.
Thanks to Yang working with prosecutors, Robert Hadden was finally convicted of sexual assault and had to surrender his medical license. Because he accepted a plea deal that admitted to one count of third-degree sexual assault and one count of forcible touching, he did not have to go to prison.
Columbia University is being currently sued because they “actively concealed, conspired and enabled” Hadden to sexually exploit women, according to the lawsuit. A spokeswoman for the university called the allegations “abhorrent” and said that they “deeply apologize to those whose trust was violated.”
