JAG CENTRAL

West Point First Captain Cadet Stephanie Hightower (USMA)
Despite Cadet Hightower's High Ranking Position, Female Cadets Continue To Report Harassment

From the NY Times, Two Academies Faulted on Treatment of Women:

Hostile attitudes and inappropriate treatment of women persist at the United States Military Academy and the Naval Academy, a committee appointed by the Pentagon said in a report issued Thursday.

The panel called on the academies to improve training of prospective officers, saying the value of women in the military should be better emphasized. It said present training regarding sexual harassment and assault was inadequate, resulting in misunderstandings by cadets and midshipmen about how to obtain medical care, counseling and legal assistance.

The report was compiled by the Defense Task Force on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies, which was made up mostly of military officers and experts on sexual harassment and assault. It is the latest to deal with sexual issues and cultural attitudes at the academies since a rape scandal at the Air Force Academy surfaced in January 2003.

From the Washington Post, Military Academies Faulted on Harassment, 5 Chinese Detainees Given More Freedom at Guantanamo:

Officials at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have moved five ethnic Uighurs into a less restrictive area of the prison while the United States tries to find a way to free the Chinese separatists in a third country.

The Uighurs are part of a group of 15 who have been held at Guantanamo Bay for three years but have been found to pose no threat to the United States or its allies. Last week they were transferred from cells to an area known as Camp Iguana, where they have use of an entertainment room, a kitchen and an outdoor recreational area, U.S. lawyers told a federal court judge at a hearing yesterday.


But they are still surrounded by a fence, have minimal contact with the outside world and are uncertain when their legal limbo will end.

Although five have been found not to be enemy combatants and all 15 have been cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay, the United States has found no country to accept the Uighurs (pronounced wee-gurs ), Muslims who are seeking their own homeland on territory that is now part of northwestern China. The United States will not return them to China for fear that the government would persecute or torture them. The Uighurs have fought the Chinese government and are accused of terrorist attacks there.

From USA Today, Pentagon: Academies Set Climate For Abuse, and this editorial entitled, Military Academies and Sex Abuse: 15 Years of Failure:

The ugly bottom line: Nearly 30 years after women were finally admitted to the academies, and when women are being increasingly relied on in combat situations, too many cadets and some officers are lost in the past.

In a survey last year, more than 50% of the women at the three academies reported being sexually harassed.

The task force offered more than four dozen recommendations, ranging from tougher consequences for violators to putting more women in visible positions of leadership. Most should have been obvious long ago. But the record is one of addressing the issue only sporadically and incompletely. It is, in short, a failure of military leadership.

Despite the musings of misogynists, women are in the military to stay. Sexual harassment is, in the words of the task force, not a “fix and forget” problem. “What is needed now is a long-term, sustained effort.”

Categories: Newspapers, Sexual+Harassment, West+Point, Annapolis, Guantanamo