After days of hearing his victims testify against him, Larry Nassar heard the words of Judge Rosemarie Aquilina: “I just signed your death warrant.”

Over the past week, over 150 women have formally testified against Nassar, the former medical doctor for both the US Gymnastics Team and Michigan State University. Survivors include not only Olympic gymnasts Aly Raisman and Jordan Wieber, but softball players, soccer players, and dancers alike— many of whom were just children when the assaults began. The survivors should be commended for their courage, resilience, and eloquence in the face of their monster.

When news of Nassar’s sentencing broke on Wednesday, I spent hours reading and watching the victim impact statements delivered by the survivors. Their testaments were gut-wrenching, tear-jerking: and awe-inspiring. When the stories of their abuse made me feel hopeless, the fact that they were there to tell the tale infused me with their strength. If there’s one takeaway from the story of Nassar and US Gymnastics, it should be the strength of the women who came forward, not the atrocities of the abuse.

Among the women presenting courage last week was the presiding justice. In the US, only a margin of the rape cases brought to trial result in convictions, let alone life sentences. With cases like that of Brock Turner, we’ve seen that the sentence handed down is often the minimum. Judge Aquilina set a precedent; through her invocation of the Confrontation Clause, she turned the trial into an emotional statement. The Confrontation Clause, part of the Sixth Amendment, endows the accused with the right to confront the witnesses against him or her. However, in this case, Aquilina used the provisions of the clause in a different manner; as part of Nassar’s plea deal, he was forced to agree to hear his accusers confront him.

Aquilina showed no mercy in her sentencing of Nassar, quite literally tossing aside the apology letter he wrote her. Her attitude is a departure from that of justices past; in the context of the Women’s March held the past week and the ongoing #MeToo movement, her heavy hand signals a turnaround in the treatment of women under the US legal system.

Although Nassar has been locked away, his victims aren’t done fighting. Pressure has been put on both Michigan State University and the US Gymnastics board for turning a blind eye to Nassar’s abuse. Multiple victims report coming forward to their respective institutions before the scandal broke, only to be turned away. In fact, Joseph Ax of Reuters reports that 140 victims have levied lawsuits against either USA Gymnastics or Michigan State. As of the 25th, four members of the board and the president of Michigan State, Lou Anna Simon, have resigned.

Ultimately, how society chooses to progress in the wake of this Olympic-sized scandal is up to us. Although it’s easy to feel broken after hearing story after story of sexual assault, to relent is to let perpetrators like Nassar win. Instead, allow the strength of the sister survivors be an inspiration to us all; winning one case may seem like a drop in the bucket, but the imposition of the maximum sentence in conjunction with the choice to allow confrontation truly signals a turnaround in the dealings of sexual assault cases. As a society, we are growing; in the words of survivor Kyle Stephens, “little girls don’t stay little forever. They grow into strong women that return to destroy your world.”