Domestic Violence & Coercive Control
Physical violence is one tactic in a larger system of control. Coercive control — the pattern of isolation, surveillance, financial abuse, and psychological manipulation that underlies most abusive relationships — is often harder to see, harder to name, and far harder to prosecute. Most survivors leave seven times before leaving permanently, not because they lack courage, but because the system around them was not designed with their safety in mind.
I support policy efforts that treat coercive control as a crime in its own right, fund survivor-centered services, and hold institutions accountable when their inaction enables further harm.
Whistleblower Protection
Institutions depend on silence. The people who break it — reporting fraud, safety violations, retaliation, or abuse of power — frequently lose their jobs, their reputations, and years of their lives fighting back through systems that were designed by and for the institutions they challenged. Federal protections exist on paper; enforcement is another matter.
I support organizations and legislative efforts that extend, strengthen, and actually enforce whistleblower protections — especially for workers in federal contracting, academia, and healthcare, where retaliation is systematic and the stakes are highest.
Mental Health Access & Survivor Support
Trauma is not a character flaw. The mental health consequences of coercive control, institutional betrayal, and prolonged stress are well-documented — and the systems that should address them are chronically underfunded, inaccessible, and often hostile to the populations who need them most. Survivors are disproportionately uninsured, underinsured, or unable to access care that takes their specific experience seriously.
I support efforts to expand access to survivor-informed mental health services, increase Medicaid coverage for trauma treatment, and fund community-based alternatives to crisis response that do not put vulnerable people in further danger.
Academic Freedom & Institutional Accountability
Universities make public commitments to free inquiry, due process, and the protection of researchers who pursue inconvenient findings. In practice, those commitments erode quickly when findings are inconvenient to powerful interests — funders, administrators, or colleagues with institutional capital. Retaliation against researchers, suppression of findings, and the weaponization of HR and Title IX processes against critics are documented patterns, not isolated incidents.
I support organizations that defend academic freedom, document institutional misconduct, and provide legal and advocacy resources to faculty, staff, and students navigating retaliation.