Ross E. Cheit
Ross E. Cheit | |
|---|---|
| Citizenship | American |
| Years active | Professor |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Williams College, UC Berkeley School of Law, Goldman School of Public Policy |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Public Policy |
Sub-discipline | Repressed memory, childhood sexual abuse |
| Website | Official website 
Recovered Memory Archive |
Ross E. Cheit is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International and Public Affairs at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.[1]
Since the 1990s, Cheit has cataloged strongly-corroborated cases of recovered memories of child sexual abuse (CSA) at the Recovered Memory Archive.[2][3]
The Witch Hunt Narrative
[edit]Cheit reappraised the evidence, proceedings, and media coverage of widely-publicized CSA cases in the book The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children.[4]
Cheit argues that many of the initial accusations made in the day-care sex-abuse hysteria cases of the 1980s, including the Country Walk case and the McMartin preschool trial,[5][6] were credible.[7][8] Furthermore, Cheit argues that media portrayals of CSA cases as witch hunts have led to undue public skepticism toward well-evidenced cases of abuse.[9][10]
James M. Wood, Debbie Nathan (whose work is directly challenged throughout The Witch Hunt Narrative), Richard Beck, and Keith Hampton criticize that Cheit's work "has omitted or mischaracterized important facts or ignored relevant scientific information" and "is often factually inaccurate and tends to make strong assertions without integrating relevant scholarly and scientific information."[11] KC Johnson writes "Even as [Cheit's] book gives every benefit of the doubt to the investigators and prosecutors ... much of Cheit’s evidence nonetheless portrays the prosecutions as massive miscarriages of justice."[12]
Biography
[edit]Cheit graduated from Williams College (1977, political economy and a coordinate major in environmental studies) before earning a Juris Doctor degree and PhD in public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Before working for Duane, Lyman, and Seltzer, Cheit clerked for Justice Hans Linde of the Oregon Supreme Court. He joined the faculty at Brown in 1987,[1] and retired from Brown following the 2023 academic year.[3]
For fifteen years, Cheit was a member of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission, including eight years as chairman.[1][13]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Cheit, Ross". vivo.brown.edu. Retrieved 2026-05-13.
- ^ Cheit, Ross E. (1998). "Consider This, Skeptics of Recovered Memory". Ethics and Behavior. 8 (2): 141–160. doi:10.1207/s15327019eb0802_4.
- ^ a b "Ross Cheit". Recovered Memory Archive. Retrieved 2026-04-28.
- ^ Bazelon, Emily (June 9, 2014). "Abuse Cases, and a Legacy of Skepticism". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
- ^ Cheit, Ross E. (2014). "The McMartin Preschool Case (1983–1990)". Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931224.001.0001. ISBN 9780199931224 – via oxford.universitypressscholarship.com.
- ^ "The Witch Hunt Narrative: Rebuttal". The National Center for Reason and Justice | fighting false accusations and wrongful convictions. The National Center for Reason and Justice. 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-10-17.
- ^ Cheit, Ross E.; Mervis, David (2007). "Myths About the Country Walk Case". Journal of Child Sexual Abuse. 16 (3): 95–116. doi:10.1300/J070v16n03_06. ISSN 1547-0679. PMID 18032242. S2CID 27645676.
- ^ Cheit, Ross E. (2017). "A Response to Articles and Commentaries on the Witch-Hunt Narrative". Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 32 (6): 1002–1023. doi:10.1177/0886260516688889. ISSN 1552-6518. PMID 30145970. S2CID 52090559.
- ^ "Debunking Frontline's Did Daddy Do It?". April 24, 2002. Archived from the original on 2003-08-18.
- ^ Cheit, Ross (2022). "Hyping Hypnosis: The Myth That Made Capturing The Friedmans Persuasive". Journal of Trauma & Dissociation. 23 (2): 152–64. doi:10.1080/15299732.2022.2028221. PMID 35132946.
- ^ Wood, James M.; Nathan, Debbie; Beck, Richard; Hampton, Keith (2017). "A Critical Evaluation of the Factual Accuracy and Scholarly Foundations of The Witch-Hunt Narrative". Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 32 (6): 897–925. doi:10.1177/0886260516657351. ISSN 1552-6518. PMID 30145966. S2CID 52091302.
- ^ Johnson, KC (September 2014). "Revisionism Gone Wild: The Witch-Hunt Narrative by Ross E. Cheit". Commentary Magazine. Archived from the original on 2020-08-14.
- ^ Fitzpatrick, Edward (December 18, 2019). "R.I.'s top ethics watchdog is stepping down after 15 years. Here's what he learned". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 6 December 2020.