Katherine Watson teaches art history in 1953 at the respectable all-female Wellesley College. She encourages her conservative students to question and disregard the outdated societal mores for women.

In Minnesota, the newlywed Kathy Clifson is happily married with Chief of Police Doug Clifson that wants to adopt her son Brian from her first marriage. When she sees Officer John McCrane near the local high-school, she recognizes him as the man that raped her thirteen years ago when she was seventeen years old. Kathy decides to tell Doug the incident and her friend Carole Bakelin, who was also raped by McCrane, also tells to her husband Todd Bakelin that she was raped by McCrane two weeks before Kathy. Doug seeks out McCrane's chief to request an investigation but the officer is protected by his colleagues. Further Kathy, Carole and Doug learn that their alleged rape case has already expired in accordance with the law. They decide to look for other women that might have been raped by McCrane more recently and they meet the dyslexic waitress Camille Fenton and the Police Officer Lynn Jordan that were forced to do oral sex with McCrane. Further, they find that they need a lawyer to defend them and they hire Scott Miller. Will they win the process against McCrane?