Inventing Reality

given the NYT’s track record

This is the investigation article, so we're on the same page, because I don't necessarily trust you've read it. These interviews are not all anonymous. They name Ana Murguia, Debra Rojas, and – I hope you recognize this one – Dolores Huerta as victims. The investigation additionally states:

The findings are based on interviews with more than 60 people, including his top aides at the time, his relatives and former members of the U.F.W., which he co-founded with Ms. Huerta and Gilbert Padilla. The Times reviewed hundreds of pages of union records, confidential emails and photographs, as well as hours of audio recordings from U.F.W. board meetings.

The accounts of abuse from Ms. Murguia and Ms. Rojas were independently verified through interviews with those they confided in decades ago and in more recent years.

The NYT has a track record for fact-checking in their investigative journalism, but let's even completely set that aside and assume – for absolutely no sane reason but to form a steelman argument for your (what you shy away from calling because you know it's not socially acceptable) disbelief of these women's stories – that their review of records is totally fabricated and can be ignored. Do you seriously think that these three women or the other people they claim to have spoken with haven't seen this article? And that they wouldn't be speaking out and mounting the easiest libel lawsuit in history if the Times were distorting the facts?

They specifically quoted these women, so either you disbelieve their stories or you believe they're too stupid to, if not initiate a slam-dunk libel lawsuit, publicly speak out against the Times' reporting. Instead, Huerta put out a statement actively confirming what she'd said to the Times.