Military Academies See Spike in Sexual Misconduct Led By Navy's Doubling of Incidents
The U.S. military academies must improve their leadership, stop practices such as hazing and shift behavior training into the classroom, according to a Pentagon study aimed at addressing an alarming spike in sexual assaults and misconduct.
U.S. officials said the academies must train students to better help their classmates. The review calls for additional senior officers and enlisted leaders to work with students at the Army, Navy and Air Force academies and provide the expanded training.
Several U.S. officials described the report on condition of anonymity because it has not yet been publicly released.
They said that too often discussions about stress relief, misconduct, social media and other life issues take place after hours or on the weekends. The report recommends that those topics be addressed in classes and graded to promote their importance.
The study comes on the heels of a report this year that showed a sharp spike in reported sexual assaults at the academies during the 2021-22 school year.
It said that 1 in 5 female students said in an anonymous survey that they had experienced unwanted sexual contact. That was the highest since the Defense Department began collecting that data many years ago.
Student-reported assaults at the academies jumped 18 percent overall compared with the previous year, fueled in part by the Navy, which had nearly double the number in 2022 compared with 2021.
The anonymous survey accompanying the report found increases in all types of unwanted sexual contact — from touching to rape — at all the schools. It cited alcohol as a key factor.
In response to the spike in assaults, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered on-site evaluations at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, the Air Force Academy in Colorado and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York.
The new report, expected to be released Thursday, makes several immediate and long-term recommendations to improve assault and harassment prevention and eliminate toxic climates that fuel the problems.
In a memo, Austin said that the academies “have far more work to do to halt sexual assault and harassment.” He added that the increase in assaults and harassment “is disturbing and unacceptable. It endangers our teammates and degrades our readiness.”
Officials familiar with the study said that while the academies offer a lot of strong programs, unhealthy command climates make them less effective.
When cadets and midshipmen learn one thing about leadership or prevention in the classroom, but they don’t see it reinforced in other settings, it sends mixed messages about what to expect. Such mixed messages, they said, create cynicism and distrust.
They added that a contributing factor to the behavior problems is that — like other college students around the country — many more cadets and midshipmen are arriving at the academies with previous bad experiences, ranging from assaults and harassment to thoughts of or attempts at suicide. On top of that, the report says incoming students face a lot of stress as they grapple with their education and military training.
In many cases, the report says that student leaders aren’t trained or equipped to handle those issues or provide proper support to the students.
Another problem, officials said, is the ever-expanding influence of social media, where bullying and harassment can go on unchecked. The report pointed to Jodel, an anonymous social media app that focuses on a specific location and is in wide use by academy students.
It said training at the academies has not kept pace with change, including the ever-evolving social media platforms and how students today differ from in the past.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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