The AP reports that a new Defense Department study found that women at military academies have faced 302 incidents of sexual assault since their enrollment.
The good news is that this study was done as a part of a new initiative to provide confidential reporting for victims of sexual assault. The bad news is that the Defense Department responded to the findings by noting that, "We are about where college campuses are, tragically. That's not, frankly, terribly surprising. These young men and women come from civil society." Wow, talk about outrage. (sigh).
In the study, 97% of female cadets and midshipmen at the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Military Academy, and the U.S. Naval Academy were surveyed. Approximately 30% of men at these academies were surveyed.
The overall numbers aren't pretty--16% of the female respondents admitted to having been sexually assaulted, and 50% reported having been sexually harassed. The report also found that 2% of male respondents had been sexually assaulted, and 11% sexually harassed.
In a memo sent by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz yesterday, he told the other service branches that because, "a mandate of complete reporting may represent a barrier for victims to gain access to services when the victim desires no command or law enforcement involvement, there is a need to provide an option for confidential reporting." Finally!!! The AP reports that the schools have until mid-June to implement the policies.
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
I attended one of the academies and my thought on this would be that in this environment, the fact that the military academies are “about where college campuses are” is impressive. Considering the living arrangements and the lifestyle differences involved, which separate an academy from other colleges and universities, this isn’t all bad news. I think the comment "Wow, talk about outrage" is a low-blow, considering the following context: The military is endlessly hypersensitive to criticism because when some type of scandal happens--a sex scandal, an honor code violation scandal, or when students engage in criminal behavior--it finds the national spotlight. This isn’t true of every institution. Now, you can argue that the academies are funded by citizens nationally and that they deserve the spotlight if things go wrong, and I believe that to be true to some extent. I also believe that the academies profess to recruit “the best of the best,” so to speak, so you could say this stuff shouldn’t be happening at the level of the national average.
However, I think what the Defense Department is saying here is that “we’re no worse than anyone else, contrary to what the press reports(which always make the national news) lead you to believe.”
And, if you don’t think they’re trying like hell to make sure they don’t find that spotlight for this reason again, you should reconsider. I attended an academy immediately after the Tailhook Scandal of the early '90s. These issues were such a big deal when I was there and training on the topic is endless. You receive sexual harassment and assault training as part of your indoctrination to the military(several times over the first summer) and then as part of a monthly training regimen, thereafter(for all four years). That does not happen at other schools, at least not that intensely and not in a mandatory way. Also, the authorities at our school were merciless on those found to have violated a harassment or assault rule. Students and faculty quickly got the message that this type of behavior was not to be tolerated and women realized they could report an incident and receive vindication. The academies should not be condemned for the progress they have made in the past decade and I have no doubt that they will continue this progress in pursuit of a better environment for women who serve.