SEXUAL ASSAULT AND VIOLENCE AGAINST

WOMEN IN THE MILITARY AND AT THE ACADEMIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 27, 2006

Serial No. 109–220

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SEXUAL ASSAULT AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN THE MILITARY AND AT THE

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SEXUAL ASSAULT AND VIOLENCE AGAINST

WOMEN IN THE MILITARY AND AT THE ACADEMIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 27, 2006

Serial No. 109–220

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

DAVID MARIN, Staff Director

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Deputy Staff Director

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

DR. R. NICHOLAS PALARINO, Staff Director and Counsel

KRISTINE FIORENTINO, Professional Staff Member

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

ANDREW SU, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 27, 2006 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Rumburg, Delilah, executive director, Pennsylvania Coalition Against

Rape, National Sexual Violence Resource Center; Christine Hansen,

executive director, the Miles Foundation, Inc.; and Beth Davis, former

U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet .................................................................... 21

Davis, Beth ................................................................................................ 57

Hansen, Christine ..................................................................................... 36

Rumburg, Delilah ...................................................................................... 21

Whitley, Kaye, Acting Director, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response

Office, Department of Defense; Vice Admiral Rodney P. Rempt, Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy; Brigadier General Robert L.

Caslen, Jr., Commandant of the U.S. Military Academy; Brigadier General Susan Y. Desjardins, Commandant of the U.S. Air Force Academy;

and Rear Admiral Paul J. Higgins, Director of Health and Safety,

U.S. Coast Guard .......................................................................................... 89

Caslen, Brigadier General Robert L., Jr. ................................................ 141

Desjardins, Brigadier General Susan Y. ................................................. 154

Higgins, Rear Admiral Paul J. ................................................................. 163

Rempt, Vice Admiral Rodney P. ............................................................... 115

Whitley, Kaye ............................................................................................ 89

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Caslen, Brigadier General Robert L., Jr., Commandant of the U.S. Military Academy, prepared statement of ......................................................... 144

Davis, Beth, former U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 62

Desjardins, Brigadier General Susan Y., Commandant of the U.S. Air

Force Academy, prepared statement of ....................................................... 157

Hansen, Christine, executive director, the Miles Foundation, Inc., prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 39

Higgins, Rear Admiral Paul J., Director of Health and Safety, U.S. Coast

Guard, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 165

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 8

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, various letters ........................................................................ 192

Rempt, Vice Admiral Rodney P., Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, prepared statement of ......................................................................... 119

Rumburg, Delilah, executive director, Pennsylvania Coalition Against

Rape, National Sexual Violence Resource Center ...................................... 24

Ruppersberger, Hon. C.A. Dutch, a Representative in Congress from the

State of Maryland, prepared statement of .................................................. 283

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

Slaughter, Hon. Louise, a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 15

Whitley, Kaye, Acting Director, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response

Office, Department of Defense, prepared statement of .............................. 92

(1)

SEXUAL ASSAULT AND VIOLENCE AGAINST

WOMEN IN THE MILITARY AND AT THE

ACADEMIES

TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Marchant, Platts, Turner, Dent,

Price, Kucinich, Maloney, Van Hollen, and Ruppersberger.

Staff present: Kristine K. Fiorentino, professional staff member;

Robert Briggs, analyst; Dr. R. Nicholas Palerino, staff director; Andrew Su, minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority clerk.

Mr. SHAYS. A quorum being present, I call the subcommittee to

order.

At the 1991 Tailhook Symposium, an annual convention supported by the military and attended by active duty, reserve, and retired aviators, 83 women were assaulted. One of those women,

Lieutenant Paula Coughlin, a helicopter pilot, reported the assault

to her boss. He said, ‘‘that is what you get when you go to a hotel

party with a bunch of drunken aviators.’’

Our military men and women are committed to serving our country. They deserve to be educated, trained, and to operate in an environment that is free of sexual harassment and assault.

After Tailhook, the Department of Defense made changes to their

policy addressing charges of sexual assault. Commanders know

charges of sexual assault must be taken seriously. The question remains whether they take these charges seriously.

This subcommittee has concern about the Department of Defense’s commitment to aggressively prevent and respond to sexual

assault incidents. The 2005 Defense Task Force on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies finds that

sexual assault has been inadequately addressed at the academies.

The task force states ‘‘Sexual harassment typically creates an environment in which sexual assault is more likely to occur.’’ The reports makes several recommendations to prevent and respond to

sexual harassment and violence against women.

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Today we ask what task force recommendations have been put

into effect, including changing service academy culture toward

women, protecting communications made by victims of sexual assault, establishing a plan to implement the Department of Defense’s sexual assault response policy, amending the Uniform Code

of Military Justice to permit closed proceedings to protect the privacy of both sexual assault victims and offenders, incorporating

sexual harassment and assault education classes into the academy

curriculum, developing an institutional sexual harassment and assault prevention plan, and establishing collaborative relationships

with civilian authorities for sexual assault victim support.

Congress recognized sexual assault is more than a service academy problem and directed the Department of Defense establish the

Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services. Although

this directive was part of the fiscal year 2005 Defense Authorization Act, the task force is not yet operational. In fact, its members

have not been appointed. This inaction speaks volumes.

The second major question we ask today is when will the Defense

Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services become operational and when will its recommendations be presented to the

public.

A viable military comprised of men and women requires continuous dedicated efforts to prevent sexual assault and violence and to

respond forcefully once it occurs. But these efforts must begin when

the service member enters the military, not just at our service

academies where we serve some of our future military leaders. But

we should not stop there. We must provide an environment in the

military at large that does not condone hostile attitudes and inappropriate actions toward women.

Our military leaders must ensure our men and women who honorably serve our country are fully aware sexual assault and harassment will not be tolerated and know that victims who come forward will receive support, medical care, and legal protection.

This subcommittee thanks all the witnesses for taking the time

to appear before us today and we look forward to this hearing.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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5

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time the Chair would recognize the ranking

member of this subcommittee, Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Shays, for convening this hearing.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today and I want to

thank Beth Davis, in particular, for her bravery in sharing her

story with us today.

The cause of this hearing necessitates that it be said that each

and every human being is deserving of respect. Color, race, creed,

gender do not change this basic right to respect. This truth, the

truth of the equality and basic dignity afforded every person, has

been fought for throughout our country’s history, has been defended by many, many generations of men and women in uniform.

How sad it is that we are here at a moment where we have to

acknowledge that those women who have served this country and

who continue to serve this country are not being afforded the very

basic respect for their human dignity that their service to this

country is involved in protecting for others. How ironic and sad

that is.

We learned over the past two decades that many women in our

military do not always enjoy the same basic rights. Some are victims of sexual harassment and assault, forced to suffer indignities

in silence.

We are here to discuss and talk about basic principles of human

dignity and to find out whether we are ready to take a stand on

that in our own armed forces.

As we get into this discussion today it needs to be said that the

attitudes of young men when they come into the military, they

don’t learn sexual harassment in the military. They don’t learn the

attitudes that result in sexual assault in the military. When you

look at the arc of violence in our own society apart from the military—domestic violence, spousal abuse—underneath that is a lack

of education in our culture about the basic rights of women. It

starts when children are little. People don’t come to the armed

services and suddenly change.

So, while it is important that we are looking at this today, we

have to remember that this doesn’t occur only in the armed services. This is a problem in our culture. That, Mr. Chairman, is one

of the reasons why 73 Members of Congress have now signed on

to legislation to create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace which

looks at the issues of violence in our own society, of spousal abuse,

child abuse, violence in the schools, racial violence, and the whole

symptomatology of violence in our society, and through education

of our children looks to bring to our children the possibility of

learning the appropriate responses in their relationships with each

other, boys and girls alike.

So when we are speaking about the armed forces today and we

must—we know that this troubling pattern beings before many of

our servicewomen enter our armed forces. In 2005, 4 percent of female Air Force cadets, 5 percent of female Naval Academy midshipmen, and 6 percent of female cadets at West Point reported

being victims of sexual assault in the previous year. Worst still,

fewer than half of these young women reported the incidents to the

academy authorities, often out of fear of harassment from their

peers or placing their career at risk.

7

The scourge of sexual assault is clearly not limited, as I have

mentioned, to the military academies, but many of the positive

changes in responses to sexual assaults in civilian life have failed

to translate easily to the military. The culture of the academies

and strict reporting requirements have often limited options for victims when they are at their most vulnerable.

The initial steps taken by the military to better protect and support victims are a good start. Implementation of the restricted reporting policy allows victims the ability to seek out care and services confidentially when they otherwise might have opted to not

seek help at all, but in order to ensure that all victims are able to

seek help, additional policy changes may be required.

We need a fundamental change in the culture of the academies

to ensure that women are treated with dignity and respect. Over

the last decade efforts to better understand and deal with the problem of sexual assault have slowly increased. There is now a heightened commitment by the service academies and the Pentagon to

take the issue of sexual assault more seriously by improving the response to sexual assaults and preventing assaults before they even

happen. I am encouraged by the initial steps that have been taken

by DOD to improve accountability, and I comment recent efforts to

expand sexual assault education and training in the military and

at the academies. We recognize there is much more work to be

done.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. I also hope the advocates here today will share their concerns and recommendations

for ensuring the basic rights of women in the military are respected.

I will again repeat, Mr. Chairman, that this is not just a matter

that relates to our armed services. This is a challenge to our entire

society, and I think it is a challenge that we are capable of meeting, that we do have the capacity to evolve, to be more than we are

and better than we are, and it may start very well with our children through education.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

At this time the Chair would call on the vice chairman, Mr.

Marchant.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

For the sake of time and in order to get to our witnesses sooner,

I will submit my opening statement for the record. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I appreciate the gentleman.

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Shays and Mr. Kucinich, for

holding this important hearing.

It is very troubling to me, ever since Tailhook, through a series

of scandals to the recent reported scandals at the academies and

Iraq and Afghanistan, that our military cannot seem to get control

of this issue. We have the best military in the world, the best

trained, the bravest, the best led, best equipped, and it does not

seem to move forward, even though requirements are constantly

being placed on the military to set up an accounting system, to set

up procedures, to get a uniform system to provide information.

It is very troubling we don’t seem to be making progress in an

area that is totally unacceptable, that women who selflessly decide

to go to one of the academies are not protected in the academies,

and it is totally unacceptable that women who are risking their

lives for their country are also in danger of being assaulted by colleagues. And then they face the hurdle of reporting the incident in

what I have been told is a very hostile environment.

The military culture traditionally has not encouraged reporting,

has been indifferent to allegations, and has not been responsive to

the needs of victims. As Members of Congress we have a responsibility to provide oversight of DOD’s effort to reduce the numbers

of rape and sexual assault and violence against women that is occurring in the military, or against men.

In the 2005 Defense authorization bill, Congress required the

Pentagon to provide annual reports to Congress about the allegations of sexual violence and assault in the military. In its most recent report to Congress the Pentagon stated that in 2005 the total

number of reported sexual assaults involving a member was at

2,374. Yet, according to the report, ‘‘Fulfilling a Promise to America’s Daughters’’ released by the V.A. Advisory Committee on

Women Veterans last year, approximately 17,000 women, 20 percent of the women in the enlisted military, reported being a victim

of sexual assault in the previous 3 years.

Clearly, women in the military are facing a tremendous threat

when they serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they are also facing

a threat of being assaulted as they serve, by their colleagues. One

in five service women should not face the prospect of being sexually

assaulted.

Not only should the Pentagon ensure that women can come forward to report their assaults; it also must guarantee that qualified

medical personnel are on hand to collect forensic evidence, that the

evidence collected will be stored properly, and that the evidence

will be analyzed in a timely manner.

I successfully attached an amendment to the 2005 Defense authorization bill which directed the Secretary of Defense to eliminate the backlog in rape and sexual assault evidence collection kits,

12

reduce the processing time of those kits, and provide an adequate

supply of the kits at all domestic and overseas U.S. military installations and military academies.

I would like to hear from the witnesses from the Department of

Defense about whether a backlog still exists and if there are

enough kits across the services.

I firmly believe that the only way to tackle a problem effectively

such as this one is to have accurate information, accurate data. The

Department of Defense has made several promises that the Defense incident-based reporting system, which collects statistics

about crimes committed within the military services, would be up

and running by now. Congress first mandated that the Pentagon

collect crime statistics in 1988. Here we are 18 years later and, as

the chairman mentioned, the task force has not even had their

members appointed.

Well, the Defense incident-based reporting system is not slated

for completion until June 2007; 18 years; 19 years if they do it. But

every hearing we have they promised, ‘‘Next year we will have it.

Next year we will have it.’’ This has been going on for 10 years,

the 10-years I have been in Congress. How the greatest military,

most organized, most intelligent military in the world cannot get

a data system up and running on crime statistics to me is beyond

comprehension and it is totally unacceptable.

I, therefore, will be introducing legislation that will direct the

Secretary of Defense to ensure that this system is fully implemented by January 1, 2007, 18 years after it was first promised to

be completed. And if it is not completed, then I believe we should

really place greater enforcement on this. We have mandates that

need to be met, and personally I don’t understand why you can’t

get a data base system up and running in this country.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentlelady. I know, for the record, that

she has been very active on these issues, and we appreciate it a

lot.

I would call on the former vice chairman of the committee, Mr.

Turner.

Welcome, Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, obviously this topic is very saddening, and it is not only the issue of the crime and the prevention

of those crimes but also the injustice that follows that is identified

in the testimony that you have today.

I am a member of the Armed Services Committee and I have participated in hearings on this topic in the Armed Services Committee. I have reviewed the written testimony that was prepared for

this hearing, and it is clear that there is additional action that

must be taken.

Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you because this hearing will

certainly assist in our ability to find accountability and for identifying recommendations on manners in which to address this issue.

I want to thank you for your continued efforts to make certain that

our men and women in uniform receive what they are entitled to

in respect.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. At this time the Chair would recognize Mr. Platts.

13

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to add my words of thanks to you and the ranking member for hosting this hearing on a very important issue, that

through this hearing we can help to send a message on behalf of

our Nation in an unwavering fashion that sexual violence, sexual

assault against women in all settings is criminal and will be treated as such and will not be tolerated by our Nation, especially by

our Government when it comes to women attending our military

academies and serving in our military.

I certainly appreciate the witnesses who are here today and our

panel that we are about to begin with, and am especially grateful

for a resident of the 19th District being with us today and her expertise in this area and her devotion to women in Pennsylvania

and throughout our Nation who are victims of these heinous

crimes. I appreciate all of your testimonies.

Again, my thanks to you, Mr. Chairman, in holding this hearing.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

I would like to ask unanimous consent to allow David Price from

North Carolina and Representative Elijah Cummings, if he does

come here from Maryland, to participate in our hearings. Without

objection, so ordered.

By right, Mr. Van Hollen, you would go next, but I am going to,

at your request, go to Mr. Price and then come to you.

Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do appreciate the generosity of you and the subcommittee in inviting us to participate in

this hearing today. I am here to hear the testimony as a member

of the Military Quality of Life Appropriation Subcommittee, but I

am particularly here to extend a warm welcome to Ms. Beth Davis,

who is from Durham, NC, the District I represent, and who has

courageously testified in ways that will, I believe, be of great benefit to her counterparts in the future. So I commend you for that

and I wait with great interest what you will have to say, and that

of your fellow witnesses, as well.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

At this time the chair would recognize Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for

holding a hearing on this and welcome the witnesses.

One of the greatest privileges we have as Members of Congress

is to be able to recommend some of the young men and women

from our Congressional Districts to various service academies, and

we really have an opportunity to meet the best and the brightest

in our communities who are dedicated to serving their country at

those academies.

Therefore, I think it is essential that we and the American people have confidence that those academies that we are sending them

off to have the highest standards when it comes to issues like sexual harassment policies and policies that deal with the very important issues that are the subject of this hearing.

We all, I think, understand that leadership begins at the top. We

need to hold people accountable for the highest standards in our

military academies. I know that is the goal that we all share, and

the key is to find ways to make sure that we implement those goals

in a way that achieves the result we all want, which is that when

14

we send our men and women off to the military academies that

they are upholding the highest standards of honor and integrity,

and that especially the young women that are going into our academies can be confident that they will be treated with respect and

dignity.

I want to thank all of you here for your testimony.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the hearing.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous consent for the testimony of our colleague, the Honorable Louise

Slaughter of New York, be submitted for the record.

Mr. SHAYS. Without objection, so ordered.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Louise Slaughter follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Before recognizing our witnesses, I would like to say

that I said hello to our first panel and our second panel, and when

I came to Jeanette McMann she informed me that her husband,

Lieutenant Colonel Michael McMann, was from West Harford. I

said, ‘‘Was? Ma’am, he is.’’ And then she informed me that Lieutenant Michael McMann, commander of Third Squadron, Fourth Calvary Regimen of the 25th Infantry Division, was killed in action

November 27, 2004, in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

I just want to say to you, Colonel McMann, you both served in

the military. We appreciate the service of your husband. We appreciate your service. We appreciate your three sons, Michael, Thomas, and Ricky, who are without their dad, and just want to thank

you for continuing to serve. Thank you. There are lots of different

relationships between men and women, and that is the highest relationship.

At this time the chair would recognize Ms. Delilah Rumburg, executive director of Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, National

Sexual Violence Resource Center; Ms. Christine Hansen, executive

director of the Miles Foundation located in Connecticut; and Ms.

Beth Davis, former U.S. Air Force Academy cadet, located in—

South Carolina?

Ms. DAVIS. Durham, NC.

Mr. SHAYS. Durham, NC. How could I have ever said South

Carolina? I apologize.

Welcome each and every one of you.

Let me just take care of some business. I ask unanimous consent

that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an

opening statement in the record and that the record remain open

for 3 days for that purpose. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

to include their written statements in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

I will just say that, as you may know, we do swear in all our witnesses, so we would ask you to rise and we will swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record all of our three witnesses have

responded in the affirmative.

Just judging, I think, from the Members’ statements, this is

somewhat of a solemn hearing because the issue is quite significant. We have such respect for the men and women who serve in

our military and we want to lick this problem. We want it licked.

We want it dealt with. We want it resolved. There is no reason why

that can’t be resolved.

At this time I call on Ms. Delilah Rumburg.

What we do is we do the 5-minute rule. We will roll it over another 5 minutes, but we would like you to be as close to that 5 minutes as you can, but we don’t want you to rush and we want your

testimony to be thoughtfully presented.

Welcome.

21

STATEMENTS OF DELILAH RUMBURG, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

PENNSYLVANIA COALITION AGAINST RAPE, NATIONAL SEXUAL VIOLENCE RESOURCE CENTER; CHRISTINE HANSEN,

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE MILES FOUNDATION, INC.; AND

BETH DAVIS, FORMER U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY CADET

STATEMENT OF DELILAH RUMBERG

Ms. RUMBURG. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for

holding these hearings to draw attention, national attention, to

sexual assault and violence not only in the military but, as Congressman Kucinich said, it is a greater societal problem. The military is just a microcosm of what is going on throughout this country.

I am very hopeful that these hearings and what we learn and do

within the Department of Defense will be a guideline for greater

society and our response to the prevention of sexual assault and

the treatment of victims.

We want to thank you for this opportunity and also state our

frustration. It seems like things take a long time, but the anti rape

movement is over 30 years old, and so we are feeling as frustrated

as Congressman Maloney about how long it takes things to happen,

but we have been doing this work for over 30 years. Although we

have had some progress, there is still a long way to go.

Again, thank you. I am pleased to be here representing the Defense Task Force on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies. As you know, the task force completed our

work last fall, and that has been made available to you, but I

should remind everyone else that those materials, as well as that

report, are available on the Web site of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office at WWW.SAPR.MIL.

I appreciate this opportunity to express my personal views on

these issues, but I do wish to assure you that I was in full agreement with the findings and recommendations of our task force. It

is the best source for the results of a highly professional effort that

took nearly a year, so I will devote the time allotted to me to highlight some of those key results, and I will read them or otherwise

I know I won’t finish, so bear with me as I read those.

The findings and recommendations contained in our report were

reached unanimously by a highly diverse group of 12 individuals,

half of whom came from outside the Department of Defense. At the

outset, I would like to acknowledge the outstanding rapport that

existed between our civilian members and the career military personnel with whom we served. I would also like to recognize Dr.

Chu, the Defense Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, for

his commitment to change and his willingness to look outside the

Department of Defense for solutions to a series of intractable problems.

Let me turn now to the substantive aspects of our report.

We believe strongly that the provisions of the Uniform Code of

Military Justice that dealt with sexual assault needed to modernized. Our reasons for taking this position were twofold: first, we believed modernization was essential to improved accountability for

offenders; second, we concluded that the provisions of the Uniform

Code of Military Justice needed to be better understood by the men

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and women who are required to live by these standards established

by this code. Modernization was essential to ensuring that the

troops, as well as the lawyers, understand the meaning of key provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

While the Department of Defense did not share our view, the

Congress in its wisdom was not as reluctant. Accordingly, the Congress made a major stride forward and implemented our recommendation in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2006.

While these provisions will not be effective until next year, I take

real satisfaction in knowing that our recommendations with respect

to keeping military criminal law in step with the civilian world

have been accomplished. To me these reforms are an excellent example of combining Government expertise with fresh, outside

ideas, leading to congressional action.

Our task force also believes strongly that the victim’s advocate

should be able to communicate with the victims of sexual assault

in such a manner that the courts will protect the confidentiality of

those communications. Several States have extended a legal privilege to those communications, and a need for such a privilege is

even greater in the military. Why is this so? The reason is simply

that the family or community support that is available in the civilian community is not present within military society. For the

young enlisted victim, the chain of command does not provide the

safe, confidential support that would be available to that same victim in civilian society.

The restricted reporting option established by the Department of

Defense is a step in the right direction, but it is not a complete answer. I am also aware that the Department of Defense is studying

whether to establish the privilege our task force sought by Executive order in the Manual for Courts Martial, but neither our task

force nor I believe that such a measure will be as effective as a

privilege established by law. Accordingly, I encourage you to support such a provision through the legislative process.

As you are aware, our task force was committed to improving the

rate at which offenders were held accountable for sexual acts of

misconduct. We saw real improvement in the manner in which the

academies were approaching this issue, but we noted that the

record in years prior to the tenure of Admiral Rempt or General

Lennox, the superintendents at the time of our assessment, reflected that offenders were neither consistently nor effectively held

accountable for their crimes. This is an issue about which all concerned about the health of the academies must maintain continued

vigilance. The surveys and reports that Congress required from the

academies are effective tools for exercising this vigilance and measuring progress, and I encourage your support for maintaining these

tools.

Our task force was also in strong agreement that education and

training were key to progress in reducing the threat of sexual misconduct. The academies have programs that were structured to attack the problem, but they were not well coordinated and they were

not treated as an integral part of a core curriculum. We were well

aware that the demands on the time available for instructing cadets and midshipmen are almost overwhelming; nevertheless,

knowledge of the basic human values that are embodied in sexual

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assault education is fundamental to effective officer education.

While the academies are in agreement on this truism, the difficulty

lies in developing a coordinated approach to teaching these lessons

that is integrated throughout the 4-years of cadet and midshipman

education.

Nearly a year has passed since our report was made available to

the academies, and I look forward to hearing how they have addressed this issue.

I would also like to highlight the issue of community collaboration. Within the larger American community, those of us who have

devoted substantial portions of our lives to eliminating the scourge

of sexual assault understand that getting the whole community involved in attacking the problem is essential.

In Annapolis there is a longstanding tradition of military cooperation with community health and law enforcement officials. We

endorse that cooperation and encouraged the academy to formalize

much of what was an informal relationship.

At West Point, the establishment of community collaboration is

much more difficult due to geography; nevertheless, there is much

to be gained by reaching out to engage civilian expertise when it

is available.

The principle of community collaboration is true within the larger military community, as well as at the academies, and I encourage you to support cooperative activities among military and civilian communities throughout the armed forces.

In conclusion, I would like to express my appreciation to the

members of the Department of Defense, uniformed and civilian,

who aided and assisted our task force and me during the year of

our efforts. We were truly committed to a common goal of eliminating sexual assault in our society. I would also like to thank my fellow task force members who worked so diligently to assist the Department of Defense to reach the same goal.

As we noted in our report, eliminating sexual harassment and

assault is not a fix-and-forget problem. Vigorous, thoughtful, sustained effort is essential to success.

As you can see, there was a part two to my testimony. That is

actually information that, in my work with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, that I have observed and talked to many

of my peers throughout the country about not only successes but

some still concerns that we hope that you would address.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rumburg follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Ms. Rumburg. I erred in not acknowledging your service on the task force, particularly as co-chairperson.

We do thank you for your work, but my staff told me that you

wanted to be recognized as the executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, National Sexual Violence Resource

Center, and that is how we recognized you.

Ms. RUMBURG. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Hansen.

STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE HANSEN

Ms. HANSEN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the

subcommittee.

Mr. SHAYS. Good afternoon.

Ms. HANSEN. I am Christine Hansen, the executive director of

the Miles Foundation. The Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization that works with victims and survivors of interpersonal violence associated with the armed forces, provides direct and support

services to professionals in the field of criminal justice, as well as

human services. We serve as a resource center for policymakers,

scholars, journalists, and students; conduct an enormous amount of

research in this field; as well as initiate public education campaigns; and serve to ensure that public policy is well informed and

constructive.

Since 1996, the Foundation has provided services to over 25,000

survivors of interpersonal violence associated with the U.S. armed

forces. This includes 14,000 survivors of intimate partner violence,

7,500 survivors of sexual violence, 3,500 victims of child abuse, 47

former or current cadets from the service academies, and 50 victims of human trafficking.

In the calendar year report that Congresswoman Maloney alluded to, in 2005 the military criminal investigative units acknowledged 2,374 reports of sexual assaults that occurred in the services.

Our office has actually received reports of exactly 518 reports of

sexual assault occurring in Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Bahrain,

Cutter, otherwise CENTCOM AOR. Regrettably, as Congresswoman Maloney mentioned, not a centralized data base that would

accurately reflect all of these reports.

Some of the common threads among the cases of sexual assault

in the armed forces include prior victimization of the victim, particularly that of female service members due to child abuse, sexual

abuse, or sexual assault as teenagers, and exposure to domestic violence.

Also in regards to the availability and accessibility of services remains an issue, revictimization as victims attempt to navigate

through the system once they make a report, again, that lack of

privilege or privacy of confidentiality. Justice, regrettably, within

the military criminal justice system is illusive for many victims of

sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse.

Congress took strong action in the year 2004 through its authorization of the Ronald Reagan National Defense Authorization Act.

It mandated that the Department of Defense establish and implement certain policies, programs, and protocols to address sexual violence among the ranks. To date, the Department has issued 14 directive type memorandums, included restricted reporting and nonVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:13 Apr 04, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\33682.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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restricted reporting, a commander’s checklist, numerous training

protocols, victim support. To date, approximately a million military

service personnel have received sexual assault prevention training,

and hundreds of military personnel have volunteered to serve as

unit victim advocates.

The directives, however, have numerous limitations, including a

predominant focus on training without a foundation of law and policy that was only recently passed by Congress in the 2005 fiscal

year Defense authorization bill and will be enacted in 2007.

Some of the other limitations include the lack of applicability to

survivors of other forms of interpersonal violence, such as those

who are victimized by domestic violence, spouse abuse. This piecemeal approach doesn’t quite address the entire cycle of violence

that Representative Kucinich alluded to in his commentary.

Finally, the failure to educate, inform, and analyze sex offender

behavior is missing from the policy directives issued by the Department of Defense, as well as penalties for those who would choose

to commit such crimes.

One last note in regards to limitations is the focus upon prevention and victim support without specific guidelines as to intervention which often can inform prevention. A number of the directives

or policy matters outlined in the Defense authorization, in fact,

have not been completed to date, including protocols for military

law enforcement, criminal investigators, and health care protocols.

Further examination of the training conducted to date within the

military departments is required. The training was conducted prior

to any changes in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which I

mentioned previously goes into effect in 2007. Research also indicates that training does not necessarily correlate to a reduction in

incidence or prevalence level.

Also, quarterly training rather than the current mandated annual training is much more effective in regards to retention of material and influence upon prevention rates. Questions should be

raised relative to the qualifications of the trainers, their certification, the curriculum, and ongoing continuing education for both

military personnel as well as those who choose to serve in certain

first responder capacities.

The training, for example, of unit victim advocates is woefully inadequate. Numerous States require specific hours of education and

continuing education for victim advocates, such as in the State of

Connecticut which requires 40 hours. However, unit victim advocates are currently provided approximately 2 days of training and

sent back to units, squadrons, and ships to voluntarily serve. Protections for victim advocates and unit victim advocates are still

lacking following public disclosure of disbarments, firings, the pulling of contracts, as well as the limited resources afforded to these

professionals.

Two other issues that I’d like to focus upon relative to the restricted and non-restricted reporting policy as serious implications

as the rights of privacy for those who are victims and survivors. In

fact, we have received numerous anecdotal reports concerning the

fact that victims are either being encouraged, coerced, or threatened, depending upon the terminology used by the victim, to choose

non-restricted reporting, and in some instances commanders are

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making the choice for the victim or overriding the victim’s choice

prior to them receiving medical care and treatment.

One final note relative to collaborative partnerships, which is

part of the Department of Defense protocols. The memorandums of

understanding which are being promoted between military installations and service providers, in particular, require additional review,

in particular concerning the issues of privacy and the right of privacy. Delilah and many of our colleagues work under grant programs within the Department of Justice, the Department of Health

and Human Services, that require confidential reporting and only

the reporting of numbers, per se. Regrettable, some of the issues

within Violence Against Women Act, as well as HIPAA, may come

into play and preclude those type of partnerships, and need to be

addressed immediately.

A strategic plan has been established within the first comprehensive legislative initiative which was introduced in 2004. It is being

reintroduced this year and is H.R. 5212. The bill provides that

foundation of law and policy that is required, the infrastructure for

services, support, and treatment. It addresses victims’ rights and

restitution. It establishes a health care system response. It establishes a military criminal justice response. And it adopts the best

professional practices that, over the 30-plus years in the battered

women and rape crisis movement, we have come to acknowledge

and utilize in our society. It addresses community safety and establishes a coordinated community response that addresses those

issues within confidential reporting, as well as establishes additional research and evaluation protocols.

It is ultimately unacceptable to us and we must address the fact

that women who choose to serve and those who dream of service

deserve a foundation of law and policy, an infrastructure, and offender and system accountability. The loss of the education, the experience, and the expertise of these women who are victimized by

sexual harassment, sexual assault, domestic violence, trafficking

while serving on active duty is a sacrifice our country can no longer

afford.

The initiatives outlined also accede the re-establishment of zero

tolerance policy and training as implemented by the Department of

Defense to date. The policies are intended to create a policy and social change which ensures both the safety and justice for those who

choose to wear the uniform of the United States.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hansen follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Ms. Hansen.

Ms. Davis, we appreciate your being here. You had an inquiry.

We have a 5-minute rule, but we roll over for another 5 minutes.

It is important, in particular, for you to give your statement as you

choose to, so you can feel comfortable that we are eager to hear

your statement and appreciate your being here.

STATEMENT OF BETH DAVIS

Ms. DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate

the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the thousands of rape victims, victims of sexual assault and violence at the

academies and in the military. I cannot imagine a more courageous

group of individuals, and it is an honor to be chosen to aid in making the changes necessary to address the issue of sexual assault

and violence against women in our prestigious military institutions

and to help arrest the grave constitutional crisis that has arisen

within its ranks.

Before beginning my statement, however, I would like to state

that, although I am grateful for this opportunity, the allocation of

only 5 minutes to the victims is a woefully inadequate amount of

time for the victims to give the subcommittee members an idea of

the magnitude of these crimes that have been committed against

us. These crimes were first committed by our attackers and second

by our own officers and a military system that turned against us,

rather than protected us, thus destroying our lives, our careers,

and our families, while our attackers were allowed to go on with

their careers, free from punishment or responsibility for their reprehensible crimes.

Over the past few years the military has had many opportunities

to appear before Congress and advocate its position, largely unchallenged, as it will again today, while the victims have not, and while

the crime spree against women in our military continues, seemingly unabated.

Accordingly, we urge this subcommittee to hold additional hearings so that the victims will finally be able to be heard and to shine

the light of truth on this vast, dark stain on our military and on

our Nation. We ask that Congress initiate its own non-military,

independent investigation of the problem of rape and assault at the

Air Force Academy, the other academies, and in the military at

large, including an investigation into the culpability of the officers

and officials in charge. Nothing short of this will suffice.

As the media took hold, a widespread culture of misogyny and

abuse was revealed to Congress and to the American people, despite the Air Force General Counsel, Mary Walker’s, disingenuous

Working Group Report of June 2003, which unbelievably stated

that there were no systemic problems with sexual assault at the

Academy.

The independent Fowler Commission found something much different. In its report, the Commission recognized that a grave scandal had befallen the Academy. It revealed that the Air Force Working Group’s Report was rife with conflicts of interest and failed to

disclose evidence that the Air Force leadership had known about

the problem for years but had not taken adequate steps to address

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it, and it revealed a paper trail of evidence which incriminated the

officers and whitewashed the injustices at the Academy. The

Fowler Commission identified culpable officers and recommended

action be taken to hold them accountable.

The Inspector General of the Department of Defense produced

the next military-prepared report on the situation at U.S. AFA on

December 3, 2004. Rather than following the directives of the

Fowler Commission, though, this report shockingly exonerated the

very officers that the Fowler Commission found at fault. Representative Tillie Fowler’s comment on the DOD report, given shortly before her death, was that the DOD report was shameful.

Around the same time it was revealed in the media that the Air

Force’s top military leader and Judge Advocate General had resigned amidst scandalous allegations that he had committed sexual

misconduct with 13 female subordinates over the past 10 years. It

became clear that a deep problem of character, attitude, and example existed throughout the highest ranks of the Air Force leadership.

Yet another shocking example of the Air Force’s blatant disregard for congressional mandates and the victims was only weeks

away. In a memo delivered to the Secretary of Defense on Good

Friday, 2005, the new acting Secretary of the Air Force, Peter

Teets, officially exonerated all the Air Force officers implicated in

the sexual assault scandal at U.S. SAFA and then promptly resigned. It became clear to us that military establishment was now

free to act on its own as an autonomous body and would protect

its officers and officials at the expense of the victims, unaccountable to and in blatant disregard of Congress and the public, unchecked by the laws of the United States and the Constitution.

We commend this subcommittee for taking steps that may help

us understand the military culture that allows this problem to continue, and we commend the Defense Task Force on its efforts; however, they are inadequate and devoid of leadership accountability.

Please refer to my statement for our recommendations in addressing this problem.

In over 3 very long years of pursuing justice, our constitutionally

guaranteed first amendment rights to a redress of grievances

against our former commanding officers have been repeatedly denied to us by the U.S. military and the continued inaction of our

elected officials.

The Air Force, Department of Defense, and Congress have still

done nothing about the accusations we made against the Academy

officers who created false, misleading, and incomplete original

crime reports and who deliberately disposed of crime scene evidence, and who also persecuted, libeled, slandered, and ruined our

careers in the Air Force just for reporting these crimes. No government of the people, by the people, and for the people that truly values justice should allow alleged criminals to investigate themselves, much less grant blanket exonerations to themselves, while

their victims and their witnesses are not allowed to testify or

present evidence in court or officially before Congress.

The effective result of the last few years of activity has been the

denial of justice to the victims and the prevention of the attackers

and accused officers from ever being held legally responsible and

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accountable. Despite this supposed attention given to this problem

and the many millions of taxpayer dollars spent on military reports, studies, and training, the problem persists unabated, while

the number of convictions and punishments of attackers and criminal officers at U.S. AFA remains at zero.

I ask how can you, our elected Members of Congress, send U.S.

women Soldiers off to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan with the intent

of giving citizens of those countries democratic rights and legal justice when, at the same time, those rights are being denied to the

women of our own military. We urge you and the other Members

of Congress to, at long last, take decisive action to bind the rising

tide of injustice and the unchecked wave of rape and sexual assault

that washes through our military and continues to flood our Nation’s shore with the drowned bodies of our individual liberty.

We ask for the grant of public hearings so that the victims of

rape, sexual assault, and reprisal in the military may be clearly

heard so that the problem may be properly addressed. We ask for

an independent congressional investigation into these matters and

the military’s response, and that appropriate steps be taken

against those found culpable so that an example will be rendered

to all Americans that these crimes will not be tolerated by our Nation.

And we ask for the restoration of our honor, reputation, educational and medical benefits, and the financial well-beings of the

victims of these crimes so that they may attempt to begin their

lives again. Nothing short of this will suffice.

I commend my fellow victims for their courage in coming forward

and I urge other victims to do so, as well.

On behalf of all the victims and their families, I thank you so

much for this opportunity, and if time permits I would like to go

into my story. Would that be OK?

Mr. SHAYS. Time does permit. We would like to hear you tell

your story.

Ms. DAVIS. OK.

Mr. SHAYS. We will turn the clock off. Just turn it off.

Ms. DAVIS. I was raped and assaulted repeatedly my freshman

year by a superior cadet in my squadron. In earlier——

Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me, Ms. Davis?

Ms. DAVIS. Yes?

Ms. DAVIS. You have no rush, and you can speak slowly and we

appreciate your testimony. We have turned the clock off.

Ms. DAVIS. Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate it.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Ms. DAVIS. I was raped and assaulted repeatedly my freshman

year by a superior cadet in my squadron. In earlier sexual assault

briefings during my basic cadet training, upperclass women cadets

informed us that it was very likely that we would be raped or sexually assaulted during our time at the Academy, and they instructed

us that, if we were attacked, to not report it to the authorities because it would effectively destroy our career.

Images of those women flashed through my mind and deterred

me from immediately reporting my crimes to the commanding officers. I remembered my pride in getting accepted to the Academy,

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and I dreamt of the day I would graduate and fly my jet in defense

of my country.

I thought that was all I needed to survive the grueling physical

military and academic tests and challenges I endured every day,

but these dreams couldn’t carry me through the pain I was suffering at the hands of my superior. I began to get sick frequently and

developed inhibitions and phobias that made the work demand at

the Academy unbearable.

Finally, after realizing that nothing could possibly hurt more

than the pain I was enduring then, I broke down and went to the

Office of Special Investigations with my story. The OSI commander

sat engrossed as I sopped tears from my eyes reciting every wretched detail for the first time only months after the last incident. He

began to weep with me, declaring, ‘‘Don’t worry, Beth. This SOB

is going to jail.’’

Upon leaving his office I felt I had done the right thing, after all,

but it wasn’t long before that feeling diminished and disbelief set

in. About 6 months into the investigation I was called into OSI and

the commander informed me that the legal office had shut my case

down. Having been integrally involved in the information throughout those 6 months and seeing the many coinciding testimonies

from the other cadets in my squadron, this seemed suspicious to

me.

I went directly to the legal office to inquire why they had closed

my case and was adamantly told that every case on the base

crosses their desk, and, contrary to the statements of my OSI commander, they had never seen my case.

I immediately realized that something was going on and I started

to worry that the warnings of the upperclass women in basic training were becoming a reality for me. After questioning the OSI commander again, he apologized for misleading me and told me that,

in fact, my training group commander had shut my case down for

‘‘my own good,’’ even though he didn’t have the authority to do so.

Utterly discouraged, I marched into the training group commander’s office and blatantly asked why. As he stumbled for words,

he claimed that there was nothing more he could do for me and ordered me to see the base psychologist within the half hour. As I

arrived at the psychologist’s office, the doctor hung his phone up

and declared, ‘‘That was your commander, and he says we need to

diagnose you with something that gets you sent off base.’’ Not fully

understanding what was happening, I sat down as he scribbled on

my medical records.

Immediately after leaving, I called a mentor officer of mine and

informed him of what had happened and the diagnosis given. He

frantically responded, ‘‘Beth, he not just only took your pilot qualification, he took your commissioning. Go back into his office and

get all his information.’’

[Crying.] I apologize.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Davis, you do not need to apologize. We just are

very grateful you are here. Your statement is long overdue. I apologize to you that you have not had this opportunity sooner.

Ms. DAVIS. Thank you. I appreciate it.

He told me, ‘‘Go back into his office and get all his information.’’

As I walked back in, the psychologist crumbled before me, claiming

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that he was under a direct order and pleading with me not to turn

him in.

In the meantime, my training group commander had already

scheduled a medical review board to assess the psychologist’s diagnosis of me and determine whether or not I would be disenrolled

as a result. He was also in the process of officially serving me with

three of the Academy’s most detrimental punishments, each of

which was grounds for disenrollment.

To my shock and dismay, the demerits were for sex in the dorms,

because my rapes took place in the dormitories; fraternization, because my rapist was an upperclassman; and alcohol, because I had

included in my written statement that he was buying alcohol for

my classmates, my under-age classmates. As my world and everything I believed in crumbled before me, I realized I was being castigated and thrown out of the Academy for reporting the heinous

crimes that had been committed against me.

As an additional strike against me, I later learned that certain

undisclosed codes on my discharge papers effectively prohibited me

from ever holding another military job again, and also coded for me

accepting my discharge in lieu of receiving those violations that

were grounds for my disenrollment.

I returned home and began to hear the stories of many other

women cadets that had endured the same mistreatment and retaliation by the Academy after reporting their crimes, one victim

raped by a class president at the Academy; another victim raped

by a senior cadet and then called a liar by Academy officials after

reporting, with her family including her mother, an Air Force colonel at the Academy being affirmatively disparaged by the Academy;

another victim being verbally berated and humiliated by the Academy commander, General Taco Gilbert, with his now-infamous

$100 billion comments; and another victim raped by a serial rapist

whose crimes, including the forcible rape of a young civilian in a

wheelchair, were known to the Academy officials, who let him roam

free at the Academy.

Other shocking stories were revealed of past gang rapes and violence assaults of women cadets by organized groups of male cadets.

Although the details of these stories were a little bit different, they

all had the same common thread that after reporting these crimes,

the women victims were investigated and persecuted, with their

reputation and careers destroyed, while the male attackers went

free, oftentimes to go on and continue to rape and assault other

women cadets.

Shortly after my dismissal from the Academy, I sent out an email to fellow cadets detailing what they should do in the case of

rape and which was eventually brought to the attention of the Secretary of the Air Force. Around the same time, another cadet sent

an e-mail to the media and Members of Congress, which helped

bring this terrible problem into the light of day and before the eyes

of an angry American public and Congress, which later mandated

an independent panel be established to assess the problem.

Sir, I would like to stop there. The rest is in my statement. I believe I have covered every main point.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Davis follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I was just talking to the ranking member about the

need to make sure that you are not the only one who has this opportunity.

Ms. DAVIS. Thank you so much.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to ask Mrs. Maloney if she wants to start

the questions.

Mrs. MALONEY. My first question is why are we forcing our

women in the Academies and the military to report in the chain

of command when the chain of command repeatedly makes them

the victim, ruins their careers, and then they turn around and get

promotions. So my first question is why don’t we have the victims

report, as every other person in our society does, to the closest police department? Now, granted, in Iraq and Afghanistan you cannot

do that, but in the academies you can get in a car, you could go

to the police department, you could have the DNA taken, you could

have your case listened to.

What is so disturbing is this is not the first report. Several years

ago Vanity Fair ran a large article. There was Tailhook. There

were all these various incidents where the great American military

says we are going to end this, and it never seems to end.

So my first question is why don’t we change this. I can see that

if we are in a battlefield the chain of command is absolutely essential, but why in the world is the chain of command essential when

a victim is being raped, then told to go to a psychologist and have

them say you are insane so that they can have you thrown out of

the military. It is absolutely beyond belief and unfair, obnoxious,

unfair, and should be changed. So why, at the academies, at the

very least, and bases that are on American soil, have the cases reported to the police department? I’d ask the panel to respond.

Ms. DAVIS. I would like to say that freshmen at the military

academies, their lives are restricted in every way, shape, and form.

They aren’t privy to phone use, to cars. They really don’t have

those resources available. They aren’t even allowed to walk in certain areas of the academies. Most of the time they have to be escorted if they are out on their own.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, possibly we could set up a program where

a police station could send a car to pick up someone so that they

could report their crime. Would that have been helpful?

Ms. DAVIS. That may have been helpful. I really feel like my

main deterrent was that I knew I was going to be ostracized. The

Academy is a very small school and, in turn, a very tight rumor

mill, and your reputation at the Academy follows you throughout

your career. The feeling there is that women aren’t wanted, and everyone is looking for the first reason to get you out. You will sacrifice anything, including your mental health, your well-being, just

to survive the Academy.

Ms. RUMBURG. Congresswoman Maloney, I think we have to also

recognize in many cases the women that are sexually assaulted do

not want to report to the police, and so now they do have two options, restricted and unrestricted reporting. I think the main thing

is that they know what their options are. No. 1, Beth should have

been believed.

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Mrs. MALONEY. But if you have unrestricted reporting—in other

words, it is confidential, no one knows what happened—but what

happens is the rapist goes free. The rapist goes free.

Ms. RUMBURG. I think that is something we have to deal with,

but I think——

Mrs. MALONEY. The rapist goes free, and the culture that says,

if you report your career is finished, is basically what you are saying, right, Beth?

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

Mrs. MALONEY. Then——

Ms. RUMBURG. I still believe the victim should have the option

to determine whether or not they go forward, and I think what we

are going to find, when those young women have the option and

get the emotional support, the medical care that they need in the

beginning, we are hopeful that they will go forward with an unrestricted report so that the offender can be held accountable. But I

think the first thing we need to make sure is that those resources

are available for the victim, whether she chooses to have a restricted report or an unrestricted report. I think it is important for

them to know that they have that option and that they will be believed. Once they have the response and the care in place, then I

think many of them will go forward.

Mrs. MALONEY. Beth, what would that have meant for your case?

Ms. DAVIS. Well, I am just thinking to myself, one of my recommendations is that rape victims at the academies are provided

with civilian legal counsel. It is a very big deterrent that you have

to turn to anybody within the Academy. I am not sure if I can convey the importance of that. You don’t want to turn to people that

are within the Academy because you feel like they are all against

you.

I include in my statement there is a feeling, a widespread feeling

of a cynicism there because there is a perceived war between the

cadets and the leadership because the leadership doesn’t adhere to

the academy’s standards, yet they are trying to enforce the academy standards on the cadets, so the cadets, in turn, resent them

for it.

Mrs. MALONEY. Ms. Hansen wanted to make a comment. My

time is up, but I——

Ms. HANSEN. Congresswoman Maloney, it actually goes beyond

the restricted and non-restricted reporting policies. It gets into the

collaborative agreements that we have talked about, the memorandum of understanding. There is currently, with the Air Force Academy, the El Paso County Sheriff’s office and District Attorney’s office has a memorandum of understanding where any incidents of

domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual misconduct, etc., will be

handled by Air Force officials. Regrettably, that is counter to the

jurisdiction on the Air Force Academy, which is called concurrent

jurisdiction. Essentially, the local police department could come

onto the Academy with lights and sirens blaring and could respond

to a sexual assault that occurred on academy grounds. At this time

that memorandum of understanding only permits civilian authorities to have control over criminal cases that occur involving cadets

off post. That is one of the serious barriers, let us say, for them

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reporting to civilian authorities, because oftentimes then military

authorities assume jurisdiction in those cases.

Mrs. MALONEY. You can always change the law.

Ms. HANSEN. Yes.

Mrs. MALONEY. You can always change the law, and if women

are raped and the hierarchy and the chain of command does nothing about it except send them to a psychologist and have them

thrown out, then change the system.

Ms. HANSEN. Exactly, Congresswoman Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. We have a system that works pretty well now in

the civilian community.

Ms. HANSEN. Yes.

Mrs. MALONEY. You can go to the police, you can go to the District Attorney, you can go to victim’s assistance. If the system is

in place, why don’t we access that.

Ms. HANSEN. Yes. I concur with you. I think it also gets to some

constitutional issues, as well, for young women like Beth and others who have been victimized by these type of crimes and their

rights of equal protection under our Constitution and its amendments.

Mrs. MALONEY. My time is up.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Price, we’d like to go to you next.

Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, my appreciation for

being able to join the subcommittee today.

I think I will focus my questions on Ms. Davis, who is a constituent and who obviously has touched us all here with her courage in

coming forward with the story she has told. There are so many

questions that the testimony raises.

I suppose at the very beginning you stressed the kind of informal

orientation you received from senior female cadets, and you imply

that, whatever you were told about your legal rights or anything

else, that informal advice was what you remembered and what, unfortunately, is what turned out to be accurate.

What were you told officially about sexual assault and harassment and the policies of the Academy and your legal rights and

that sort of thing? Were you told anything at all?

Ms. DAVIS. Yes. There actually were briefings on it, and they

would tell us that the resources were there, that there was a victim

advocate on base, and we could go to the Cadet Counseling Center,

we could also turn to OSI, but they would also feature upperclass

women cadets. These were briefings that they had actually separated us women from the men going through basic training, so it

was only the females in the room, and upperclass female cadets

would stand up and give their testimony of what they had been

through or what they had known to happen, and they would say

that, you know, this will happen. Your career will be ruined if you

decide to report. I will never forget it.

And then, when you enter a squadron in the beginning of your

freshman year, we had the informal addresses of the upperclassmen. They would come to our rooms and they would say, ‘‘If anything ever happens to you, you can come tell us, but don’t tell the

authorities.’’ They would say, ‘‘You’d regret it. It will lead to the

end of your career.’’ Believe it or not, being raped my freshman

year, my sophomore year, when my sophomore year came I actually

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went to the female freshman rooms and did the exact same thing

because I could tell what was going on with my case and I didn’t

want it to happen to them.

Dreams are literally crushed by reported. You work so hard to

get into the military academy, and I just didn’t want them to suffer

what I was going through.

Mr. PRICE. Well, what you say about the culture and the ostracism and the attitudes of fellow cadets is terrible, if maybe understandable, given its apparent pervasiveness, but it is even more

striking to me, though, about your story is not just the acquiescence in this but the promotion of it in many ways by the leadership, by the psychiatrist or the psychologist and the various leaders

who were involved in your case where, far from an attempt to

counter this or to somehow come to your defense or to bolster your

efforts, you were essentially being given the same message by those

officials that you were given by those female cadets.

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. PRICE. And you stress throughout the importance of leadership. What would you like to, apart from some changes in policy

and the kinds of things Mrs. Maloney has been addressing in terms

of the kind of recourse you might have, but in terms of leadership

attitudes and practices what needs to happen?

Ms. DAVIS. I really do believe it starts with leadership accountability. I believe that, while it was conveyed to us that officers see

an assignment to a military institution as a respite in their career,

and when I was at the Academy they wouldn’t show up until 11

a.m., noon, for their work day. Our officer, in particular, was gone

by 4 p.m. every day and would actually take off weeks at a time

to go hunting in Canada. We all knew about it. He was never there

to oversee the squadron. The squadron was running amuck 24

hours a day and it was because of his absence.

So I just can’t stress leadership accountability enough. There is

an example being made at the academies that is not a healthy one

for the cadets, and the cadets end up leaving the Academy with a

hate for the institution, for the military, really. They are constantly

trying to find the loopholes in the rules.

The cynicism is just pervasive there. Everyone does see it as a

war, and especially when you reach your senior year, if you are

lucky enough, the phrase is Operation Graduation. That doesn’t

mean work hard at your grades. That means, you know, cover up

anything possible because you don’t want to be found out. You are

at war with the leadership in the absolute highest sense of that

phrase.

Mr. PRICE. Finally, you say something about people’s dreams,

your own dreams, and the way this situation has brought those to

naught in too many cases. There have been some steps taken. The

have been commissions, there have been reports, there have been

some efforts at improvement. Let me just ask you, bottom line,

with the situation as it is now as compared to what you went

through, would you now personally feel comfortable recommending

to a young woman that she pursue education at a service academy?

Ms. DAVIS. Absolutely not. We are still hearing cases of women

coming out of the academies absolutely distraught and having been

through the exact same thing that I went through. I specifically

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know of one that left just recently, having contracted herpes from

her rapist, and there is actually a paper trail between the doctors

denying her treatment, the herpes actually in rare form became

meningitis, and the meningitis became encephalitis because they

wouldn’t treat her, and she now has brain damage and vomits

daily. She has damage to a nerve. She deals with level eight migraines and has been through morphine addictions because they

just pump her full of drugs to deal with it. It is devastating. These

cases come out of the military academies all the time, but the

media doesn’t seem to get a hold of them. I am sure it is because

the coverup is just too fine tuned. It is really a shame. It is such

an injustice.

Mr. PRICE. Mr. Chairman, again thank you. I would hope that

in the course of this inquiry we could get such information as is

available from the academies. I know there are reports about the

incidents. The Defense Department apparently has given a mixed

accounting of that, saying that reporting a 40 percent spike in reported incidents actually shows improvement because incidents are

now being reported. It also certainly shows there are lots of incidents. But, to the extent there are records available, not just about

the incidents but also about the disposal of cases, disciplinary actions taken, that sort of base of information coming right up to the

present I think would be very useful for all of us.

But in the meantime, Ms. Davis, thank you and thanks to your

co-witnesses, as well, for some very enlightening testimony.

Ms. DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Price.

Mr. Marchant.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you.

For each of the panelists, have any of you been asked to testify

before the Armed Services Committee or any of their subcommittees before?

Ms. HANSEN. Yes, Congressman Marchant, I have testified before

the Senate Armed Services Committee and presented written testimony to the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee.

Mr. MARCHANT. And how long ago was that?

Ms. HANSEN. February 2004 relative to the public information

concerning sexual assaults in CENTCOM AOR, Military Personnel

Subcommittee, Senate Armed Services, and in June 2004, House

Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee relative to a report from the Department of Defense Task Force on Care of Sexual

Assault Victims.

Mr. MARCHANT. How about before the House?

Ms. HANSEN. Only that one occurrence, and that was actually a

written statement.

Mr. MARCHANT. Ms. Rumburg.

Ms. RUMBURG. The task force had the opportunity to submit certainly our report to the Secretary and the staff of the House and

Senate Armed Services Committee and to each of the secretaries of

the Armed Services in the fall.

Mr. MARCHANT. But as far as a formal House hearing——

Ms. RUMBURG. No, sir.

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Mr. MARCHANT [continuing]. There has never been one conducted?

Ms. RUMBURG. No, sir.

Mr. MARCHANT. Ms. Davis.

Ms. DAVIS. Sir, in the winter of 2003 a few victims and I actually

came here to Capitol Hill and met with 17 of the Senate Armed

Services Committee members, including Warner and Levin, and

Senator Warner promised us hearings, on top of holding impromptu hearings that day for the cause, and we have yet to see

those hearings. We are hoping that eventually we will have those

hearings.

Mr. MARCHANT. But as far as the House goes, the House Armed

Services Committee here, any of those committees?

Ms. DAVIS. Congressman, the only public hearing that they’ve

held to date was on June 3, 2004, relative to sexual assault within

the Armed Forces.

Mr. MARCHANT. Ms. Davis, were you ever at any time during the

process offered any kind of independent counsel?

Ms. DAVIS. No.

Mr. MARCHANT. I know it was a very traumatic period for you,

but were you ever counseled that you could have a lawyer if you

needed a lawyer?

Ms. DAVIS. No. And I really was too young to understand my

rights at that time. I thought I was turning to the authorities and

that was the best thing I could do.

Mr. MARCHANT. Would you feel like, after you have been through

all this, would you feel like there is such a thing as independent

counsel in the service?

Ms. DAVIS. In the service?

Mr. MARCHANT. In the services. I mean, that you could receive

independent counsel from someone that was connected to the Academy?

Ms. DAVIS. I just wouldn’t have trusted them. I would much

rather, as a recommendation for the effort, I would much rather

say a civilian, independent attorney should be appointed.

Mr. MARCHANT. Do you think that the environment in itself, the

senior cadets, the senior male cadets have to be aware that the female cadets are being told not to report and that it will ruin their

career? Does this become common knowledge among the senior cadets and the male cadets that this is something that, maybe even

in outside society, you couldn’t get away with, but in this society

that you are living in you might be able to get away with it because the female has much more to lose? And I suppose that there

are male-to-male contact rapes.

Ms. DAVIS. Yes. Absolutely.

Mr. MARCHANT. We have not heard about that.

Ms. DAVIS. Absolutely. Rape is an issue of power, not of sex. The

male cadets I am sure are aware of the briefings. It is just too tight

of a rumor mill. There are only 4,000 cadets there, and you practically know everyone by name. I’d have to imagine they do. I

would like to say, though, that I believe that the situation of rape

may be worse in the military because of the power granted to certain individuals over others, and especially in the military academies where you have literally kids training kids. That just can’t

76

be good. Like I said, the officials show up late to work and they

leave early.

Mr. MARCHANT. Were you ever aware of faculty or superior officers other than the cadets involved in this kind of activity?

Ms. DAVIS. Yes. Absolutely. It happened a couple of times while

I was there, and it was brought to our eyes. I don’t ever remember

it hitting the media, but it was absolutely disgusting. I don’t believe it is as high, you know.

Mr. MARCHANT. Any higher than any institution of higher education?

Ms. DAVIS. Maybe not. The cases I remember were actually civilian professors on the cadets.

Mr. MARCHANT. OK. Well, thank you very much for your testimony today.

Ms. DAVIS. Absolutely. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me start out by asking Ms. Hansen and Ms.

Rumburg how you reacted to Ms. Davis’ testimony, and, Ms.

Rumburg, given her testimony, do you feel that this report adequately describes the problem? Do you accept everything that Ms.

Davis says? And if you do, tell me why I should feel that this report rises to the level of concern that Ms. Davis described.

Ms. RUMBURG. I think we heard many stories. We actually heard

Ms. Davis when we were compiling our report and we had many

opportunities to talk to the victims and survivors of sexual assault,

and that actually informed the recommendations that we made.

Mr. SHAYS. Is her statement any different than you recall it

being when she came before your committee?

Ms. RUMBURG. No, sir. That has been consistent with what we

heard. Absolutely. And that reflects our recommendations.

Mr. SHAYS. This would be a typical statement before your committee?

Ms. RUMBURG. It was very similar to some of the things that we

heard. We heard, yes, that the cadets and midshipmen didn’t want

to report because they knew they would be ostracized. There was

a culture where there was an understanding that their career may

be hurt if they came forward with the sexual assaults. That is why

I said the counseling component is so important there.

Mr. SHAYS. Tell me where in this report would most capture the

statement that Ms. Davis had. You can look at it. I will ask Ms.

Hansen to respond to your reaction to Ms. Davis’ testimony.

Ms. HANSEN. Regrettably, Beth’s testimony mirrors many of the

experiences of our clients, both victims and survivors, whether they

are in the military academies or whether they are in active duty

services or they might be veterans who were sexually assaulted

while on active duty any number of years ago. Predominantly the

revictimization we see quite frequently, and we also see issues with

violation of their rights as a victim, abuse of power type of sexual

assaults, in particular with upperclassmen or those who are superior in rank.

We also notice a significant amount of lack of justice for those

who have been victimized. Predominantly court martials are about

2 to 3 percent at this point in time, and the predominant response

is an administrative response, non-judicial punishment or an article 15 or resignation in lieu of court martial, forfeiture of pay and

77

allowances. So, regrettably, Beth’s testimony mirrors that of far too

many who have been victimized by sexual violence within the

armed forces.

Mr. SHAYS. Before I go any further, Ms. Rumburg, Ms. Davis, did

you have an opportunity to look at this report?

Ms. DAVIS. I did.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you think this captures the problem? Do you

think it captures what you were trying to convey to the task force?

Ms. DAVIS. I don’t. There are things in it that I definitely agree

with. I think they were right on——

Mr. SHAYS. You said you don’t but there are things you agree on?

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Ms. DAVIS. I would like to state that there are things that I

agree with, specifically the confidentiality. It has taken us a long

time to get to the point where confidentiality can be granted. We

actually put in our statement that recommendation 9A we do agree

with. It is Congress should create a statutory privilege—this is regarding the confidentiality—protecting communications made by

victims of sexual assault to health care providers and victims’ advocates. That is huge, and I think that will——

Mr. SHAYS. We are talking about the recommendations. But let

me ask you, do you think this report captured——

Ms. DAVIS. No.

Mr. SHAYS. See, I am not even sure it came close.

Ms. DAVIS. It really didn’t. It really didn’t.

Mr. SHAYS. I was not prepared for your testimony. Let me ask

you this. You almost had so much to testify, is there any part that

maybe was a bit overstated? And I say this for a variety of reasons.

One, I want to hope that it is not as bad as you portray it, but

when you started to talk about the woman with herpes and now

is impacted in a very serious physical way beyond that, that is almost beyond my comprehension. In other words, you don’t need to

make your testimony stronger than it was when you started. Is

there anything in your testimony that you may feel would give us

a false impression? You started to speculate about what you think

exists in the military, which is speculation not personal, so you

mixed personal experience with speculation, and so I am just asking you is there anything that you would qualify or want to make

sure that we don’t over-interpret?

Ms. DAVIS. Honestly, I feel like I have cut a lot out of my story

to try to fit it in to the time and the statement. It really is that

bad. The young lady that got the herpes and it has become encephalitis, she wanted to prepare a statement for this but it was too

overwhelming for her. I know that she would be so happy to talk

to you. Her story is devastating, and she and I have cried over it.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, we only have a staff of five in this subcommittee, and we had marked out what we would do to the end of the

year, but we are going to revise our hearing schedules. We are

going to understand your case personally and directly from start to

finish, and then we are going to ask you of other people you would

recommend to come testify.

I don’t like to think of you as a victim, but we would have you

and other victims make sure that what needs to be said is on the

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record. When I apologized to you for not being aware and not getting you before this subcommittee sooner, you should not have had

to have waited so long.

You were the class of 2003?

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. So you started the fall of 2000 or when?

Ms. DAVIS. I started in the summer of 1999.

Mr. SHAYS. The summer of 1999. And you left when?

Ms. DAVIS. I left the first time on a medical term back in 2001,

and then for good in the fall of 2002.

Mr. SHAYS. Now, was that, given what you said, your choice?

Ms. DAVIS. No. Absolutely not.

Mr. SHAYS. So you would have been willing to endure all this and

stay and graduate, etc?

Ms. DAVIS. Absolutely.

Mr. SHAYS. I will say to you the thing—and it may sound silly

to you, given the horrible things you said, but the thing that I

think I find the most outrageous is, as you were talking, you were

describing how excited you were to be commissioned and to be a

pilot, and later on you said, in spite of all this, you said your

dreams are literally crushed. I can’t think of anything that you

could have said that would be more horrific for me. I hope you have

lots of dreams, young lady, and I hope they all come true.

Ms. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Rumburg, I want to say to you that I almost

have the feeling that this report was trying to be overly sensitive

and delicate, given what we just heard, so tell me how I would feel

the same kind of passion of Ms. Davis in this report.

Ms. RUMBURG. Well, I need to tell you that we all felt greatly impacted by the statements of the victims. Sometimes we were horrified by what we heard, but I think our challenge——

Mr. SHAYS. But not surprised?

Ms. RUMBURG. We heard the stories not only from the civilian

advocates that had been working with the individuals, as well as

the media coverage, so we knew what to expect, but I don’t know

how this report could have conveyed the pain and the horror. That

informed our work, but I don’t know how we could have conveyed

that. We certainly let that inform our work.

I really think the issues, the way we divided the report address

the issues that, if we take these recommendations seriously, I think

it is a huge step in the right direction. We talked about, No. 1, the

culture, and if you notice in the report we did a whole chapter on

the culture, recognizing that is the biggest issue of all.

If we could change the culture not only in the military but in our

society we could stop sexual violence. So we were clearly aware

that imbalance of power in a culture that supports the rape culture

in this country and in our military was the biggest issue. And we

knew also that we couldn’t change that overnight.

But we looked at the other things like confidentiality. As Beth

said, that is important to give victims that option in the beginning.

Mr. SHAYS. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but what I am wrestling is you are talking about your recommendations. Tell me

where in this report you would feel the outrage that you must have

felt when you heard Ms. Davis speak. I am not putting pressure

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on you, I don’t mean to be putting pressure on you, but this is the

report that we in Congress get and look at and the military gets.

I am just not sure it begins to capture. I mean, you basically had

brutality take place. You basically had testimony that all the

women or almost all were saying, ‘‘You will be raped and you have

to just deal with it,’’ which is an incredibly unbelievable statement.

It is kind of like your rite of passage. You then basically have the

testimony that says the people who raped are alive and well and

in our military prospering. Tell me how that report captures that.

Ms. RUMBURG. Again, I don’t think it can capture that.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Ms. RUMBURG. And I don’t think that is what we tried to do.

What we spent months and months doing was coming up with recommendations that we felt, if they were addressed, that it could

begin to address this issue. Again, we made recommendations

around the culture, things that we could do. No. 1, holding midshipmen and other cadets responsible for their behavior, to look at

bystander behavior, how that allowed this culture of rape to exist.

We thought that was one of the key pieces under the culture.

We addressed the things that Beth talked about, how an academy is young people training young people, how that is part of the

problem. There were many, many recommendations on the kind of

training that we need to put in place, and it started at the top,

from the command all the way down to the civilians that were volunteers at the academies. So I think we did address and made recommendations.

You are right. It does not cover the outrage. But we tried to take

everything that we heard and put it into a document that the academies could take and use as a guideline to start moving forward.

We spent a lot of time under offender accountability and the kinds

of changes that we thought should be made in the justice system,

and then, again, training and education being a key component.

There is a prevention piece there. What can we do to prevent

this? There needs to be more money to look at this issue of prevention because as civilians we are struggling with this. How do we

stop this kind of behavior in our culture?

Mr. SHAYS. If I was running the academies, if I was in a power

of authority in the military, I think one easy way to deal with it

is to send your best experts to determine what the hell is happening and then throw these people out of the service and send them

to jail. I think that would be the healthiest thing around.

Ms. Davis should be viewed as a hero.

Ms. RUMBURG. And, sir, she is seen as a hero in the eyes of

many, many people. She is.

Mr. SHAYS. I am not sure——

Ms. RUMBURG. And if it wasn’t for brave women like Beth coming

forward these hearings wouldn’t be happening. And it is going to

take more and more women like Beth to come forward. I don’t want

to diminish their stories. I have been an advocate for 30 years, so

I took this task very, very seriously. We wanted to create a document that, again, as a road map—it is not going to solve the problem overnight. As Mrs. Maloney said, there is frustration why it

has taken so long. We are all frustrated that we have been doing

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this work for over 30 years and none of us have seen any real

change, not only in the military but in the culture at large.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes, Ms. Hansen?

Ms. HANSEN. Mr. Shays, I think your assessment of Beth’s testimony and her presentation to the public as to what has been transpiring at the Air Force Academy as a hero is correct. We see oftentimes within the victims and survivors that we work with an enormous amount of courage, particularly when many of them actually

choose to then turn around and to serve those who are in the middle of a crisis following their own victimization. It not only honors

us, but the work that they do on behalf of those who are being victimized is quite incredible.

Just one other note. In using the terminology ‘‘victim,’’ in our

field we use the term ‘‘victim’’ to relate to the fact that this person

has been victimized by a crime and has not received justice. We use

the term ‘‘survivor’’ when they are in the process of—I hesitate to

use the term ‘‘healing,’’ but when they are in the process of treatment, care, etc.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. One of my staff said, use survivor instead of

victim.

Let me recognize Mr. Van Hollen. I don’t think, Ms. Davis, that

we have done justice to your testimony in this subcommittee, but

I am happy we have it. I, frankly, was not prepared for the extent

of your testimony. Is there any point you’d like to make before I

go to Mr. Van Hollen?

Ms. DAVIS. I am just thinking we came up with some of our own

recommendations.

Mr. SHAYS. Can you just tell me who ‘‘we’’ is?

Ms. DAVIS. Well, my lawyer and a couple of the other victims

that were in my class.

Mr. SHAYS. So you do not mind being referred to as a victim?

Ms. DAVIS. No. I just see it as a word, I guess.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Fair enough.

Ms. DAVIS. If I may, I’d like to go over a couple of them.

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

Ms. DAVIS. The second one that we outline, a congressionally

mandated statutory exception to the Farris Doctrine, the Farris

Doctrine is pretty much prohibiting rape victims from being able to

sue for civil rights when these injustices occur. We have in here

that military victims who report crimes of sexual assault within

the military and/or who are later persecuted by military officers or

officials for doing so can seek redress against the military, the

attackers, and/or the officers in question in civilian courts. I think

that the Farris Doctrine is pretty much granting immunity to rapists as it is now.

Third, we have granting congressional hearings for these rape

victims. I think for the main reason that hearing the testimonies,

I just don’t know how a report really can convey how this problem

is just absolutely devastating lives. I feel like that is an understatement.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, the significance of the 9/11 Commission was

they had basically finding of facts before they did recommendations, and maybe this report would have been helped by just having some real reality in this document before the recommendations.

81

Maybe that is what I was looking for. So I think the recommendations are probably quite good, and maybe, Ms. Rumburg, because

you have dealt with this for 30 years it almost seems like that is

not necessary, but I think it is.

Ms. RUMBURG. No, and I didn’t mean to convey that it is not necessary.

Mr. SHAYS. No, you didn’t convey that.

Ms. RUMBURG. I think every story is——

Mr. SHAYS. I think, though, the fact that you don’t find much of

it in the report says that to me.

Ms. RUMBURG. And that was the decision, I think, that we decided to keep it in a format that it would be easy to read and the

recommendations would be easy to find. But I must tell you we all

felt the outrage and a lot of compassion, much compassion for the

victims that came before us.

Mr. SHAYS. I know you did. You have answered my question. To

have this report have more impact, we need to have a little more

finding of fact, I think.

I thank the gentleman for his patience.

I’d like Mrs. Maloney to be able to ask a question, too, again, as

well, and Mr. Marchant. We thought we were going to go to the

next panel.

I will say to the next panel it is important that this first panel’s

comments be addressed, and I would imagine that one of the parts

of the testimony is, Ms. Davis, you left 4 years ago?

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. I would think that what we will be told is that things

have changed, and I think your comment is, based on your communication with others, it hasn’t.

Mr. SHAYS. No.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of

you for your very powerful testimony. I am sorry I had to step out

during some of the questioning.

I’d like to ask you, Ms. Davis, in your statement you pointed to

so many failures in the system, in the chain of command. You

started out going through the OSI, and then you went to the training group commander, and then, of course, there was the psychiatrist or the psychologist. In each step of the way the system failed

you.

My question is: what has happened to those individuals who

failed you? Because in order, it seems to me, to really fix this problem we have to hold people accountable. And until that signal is

sent to other young people in the services, men and women, you

are not going to be able to change that culture. You are not going

to make people any less afraid to come forward because they are

not going to see that anybody is penalized for wrongful behavior.

Let me just start by asking you, the individuals in your chain of

command, can you tell us whether they have been held accountable

in any way?

Ms. DAVIS. Not at all, no. There is one that I know of that has

discharged. I know that he had done other things to other cadets,

and there were so many complaints against him that he was pretty

much forced to retire early. But no, nothing has happened to them.

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It just became very apparent to me that it was a very fine-tuned

effort to get me out, and they were all working together. There was

actually even one—it was the vice commandant—whose sole job

was to pretty much quell the concerns of my parents. He would call

my home and make my parents—he actually even tried to make it

sound like I had done something to warrant them punishing me.

My parents called, concerned. But I had a very clean report. I was

actually on my class council, the student government. I didn’t have

any disciplinary actions against me prior to this. It was a very,

very cohesive effort against me.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. What kind of signal does that send to others,

in your opinion, if people who are responsible for failing to take action see no consequences? What kind of message does that send, or

did it send?

Ms. DAVIS. You hit it point blank. Yes. Leadership accountability

is paramount in this case. It is sending the signal to cadets that

as long as you are suave you can get away with it, as long as you

cover your bases. It is absolutely sickening to me.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me just read, if I might, Mr. Chairman.

In March of this year there was a Washington Post story regarding

sexual assault charges against students at the U.S. Naval Academy, concluding that they are routinely dismissed without trial, according to analysis of Navy documents. A review of 56 midshipmen

accused of sexual assault since 1998 found that only 2 were convicted, 1 in a civilian court, according to a review by the Washington Post of Navy incident reports, case summaries, and data released by the school. In virtually every other case deals were

struck, forcing the accused student to leave the Academy without

facing trial and without a criminal record.

It seems to me that report and those statistics kind of tell the

story here. I look forward to the testimony of panels that come

after you, but it sounds from this that these sexual assaults are

being treated more like someone who cheated on a test——

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN [continuing]. Than someone who committed a

crime. If you cheat on a test you are thrown out, but if you are

committing a crime you should be thrown in jail. And if there is

a question as to whether or not you committed the crime, it seems

to me you should go through the normal process that any other individual who is accused of a crime should have to go through, the

normal court procedure, establishing your guilt or innocence.

I would be interested in all of your sort of sense about that. I

don’t know if you saw the analysis done by the Washington Post.

I assume you did. I know some of you have done your own analyses. But why is it that so many of these cases are essentially dealt

with in a way where, ‘‘You can leave the Academy, but the criminal

charges are not going to be pursued?’’

Ms. HANSEN. In regard to the academies, we predominantly see

that resignation in lieu of court martial, Congressman. Regrettably,

that doesn’t address what we know as sex offender behavior, in

that oftentimes sex offender behavior begins early, and if there is

not significant intervention it can escalate along the way.

So you have to also contemplate the fact that these individuals

were not penalized, shall we say. There was no significant interVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:13 Apr 04, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\33682.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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vention. There was no change in behavior so that when they are

out in our communities they may offend again. Regrettably, we

have a large population of veterans within our State and Federal

prisons for sex offenses in that regard who have demonstrated

prior histories, shall we say, that were not significantly addressed

at the time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. All right.

Ms. Davis, I asked you about those in the chain of command who

sort of failed you in terms of pursuing your grievances and the

complaint and the fact that you were raped. Let me ask you, what

has happened to the people who actually perpetrated the crime?

Ms. DAVIS. In the midst of my investigation they actually flew

what they considered the best psychologist—I could give her name,

but I am not sure I should—the best psychologist in the Air Force

in from Germany and out for Turkey the very next day just to

evaluate the two of us, and she evaluated my perpetrator first, and

then she met with me, and her first words were, ‘‘I just want to

tell you you don’t have to say a thing. I have already diagnosed

him as a sociopath.’’ In my squadron it was known that he was an

alcoholic. He was actually discharged for dishonorable purposes.

They wouldn’t tell me what for, but it had nothing to do with me.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. It had nothing to do with you?

Ms. DAVIS. Nothing to do. And if I could just comment, my commandant was actually instructed to brief the Secretary of the Air

Force on my case weekly because the Secretary at the time had

branded it the worst that the Air Force Academy had seen, and so

there was a very cohesive effort against me all the way back to the

Pentagon.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. But the individual who perpetrated the crime

against you was discharged, but beyond that we don’t know if any

criminal charges have ever been brought against him?

Ms. DAVIS. No. No criminal charges. When they were handing

me the three class D hits, the worst hits that the Academy gives,

they were telling me, ‘‘Don’t worry, he’s going to be getting them,

too,’’ and he never received anything.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I just have one more question, Mr. Chairman.

Again, thank you for this hearing.

After the Tailhook scandal, because of all the attention I believe

that was sort of focused on the military at that point, there were

certain individuals who were involved in that who were punished,

but the true test of whether or not we have accountability is

whether the system does it on its own when there are not the big

lights shining on what is going on, whether they have sort of institutionalized a process for holding people accountable.

Outside of the Tailhook situation, do we know of any people in

any of the academies who have been punished for failing to do their

job in terms of failing to hold perpetrators accountable, people who

have failed others as the system failed you, Ms. Davis? Do we know

of cases where the military has held those people accountable? I

can’t think of any better way to send a message to the system than

holding those who are in positions of responsibility and trust in the

chain of command accountable when they fail in that trust. Do you

know of any instances where that has happened?

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Ms. HANSEN. Regrettably, Congressman, I do not. And that

doesn’t mirror our work just relative to the academies but the services, generally.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. So nobody knows of any case where that has

happened?

Ms. RUMBURG. No. No, sir.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that is part of

the problem that we have here. Lots of very important reports documenting the problem, but it doesn’t seem like a lot of followthrough in terms of actions taken to punish people who are negligent in terms of fulfilling their duties.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

We are almost done. Mrs. Maloney I think has a followup question or two, and I have one or two questions, and then we will get

to our next panel.

Mrs. MALONEY. After listening to the testimony I would suggest

that the best way to improve this report is to include a tally of

what happened to the victims, the cadets, the women that were

raped, and what happened to the rapist. That would tell us more

than all of these words.

From the testimony I have heard today, if you are raped, you are

sent to a psychologist and thrown out of the military with charges

against you so you cannot get a job in the military or Government

again, yet if you are the rapist you just might get a promotion, or

if you are discharged you are quietly discharged. There is something very, very wrong with that equation, and I would request

that the next report have a tally of what happened to the victims

and what happened to the rapists.

If we want to stop this, the best way to stop it is the way we

stop it in the civilian community. We take the rapist to court, we

have a proceeding, and we convict those that are guilty. This will

continue unless we sincerely go after this in a sincere way.

This is a crime. People who rape are criminals, yet the women

are sent to psychologists and thrown out and the men continue

with their careers or, in extreme cases where they are psychopaths

you said they are quietly dismissed. So I would just suggest we just

follow the laws of this country that apply to everyone unless you

are in the military.

I would like to better understand how the confidentiality proposal helps. I don’t see how it helps. I would like to know, Ms.

Davis, if you had the 9A provision, if you could have claimed confidentiality, how would that have helped your case? I would assume

when you are talking to the chain of command it is a confidential

situation. How does this change the case?

Ms. DAVIS. It wouldn’t have changed the case so much; it would

have given me the opportunity to turn for mental health help for

some coping skills. As far as actually helping with the prosecution,

it wouldn’t have helped with that really.

Mrs. MALONEY. So it would not have helped with the problem,

which, in my belief, the way to crack down on a crime is to crack

down on a crime.

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

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Mrs. MALONEY. But if people are abused and hurt and violated,

the new reform is to allow them to be quiet about it and go to a

psychologist? That is the reform?

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

Mrs. MALONEY. I don’t consider that much of a reform, quite

frankly.

Ms. DAVIS. Yes. I agree.

Mrs. MALONEY. I feel like it is a ‘‘speak no evil, say no evil, pretend there is not a problem.’’ If that occurred, how would that have

helped your case? Your rapist would still probably be in the military and you would be talking to a psychologist. How does that

help?

Ms. DAVIS. I guess it would have prevented the ostracization to

some extent.

Mrs. MALONEY. But who ostracized you? Your fellow cadets did

not?

Ms. DAVIS. Well, they did to some extent.

Mrs. MALONEY. The women ostracized you?

Ms. DAVIS. The military teaches you to cut the weakest link out.

Unfortunately, in the military the women are the weakest link in

many respects. Academically they usually excel, but physically they

absolutely don’t. The physicality of things is held to a very high—

that is valued there, how physical you are.

So if you cut the weakest link out, the women are at the bottom

of the chain trying to fight to not be cut out, and a lot of them just

don’t talk to each other. They can’t confide in each other. There is

a lot of competition there. It is like a bunch of hungry dogs biting

for meat. It is not a healthy situation. So a lot of my friends, as

soon as I left the Academy we started talking candidly about our

experience, and every single one of them had been raped or assaulted. I am ashamed to say it, but we had no idea.

Mr. SHAYS. Could I just ask you, when you say ‘‘every one,’’ could

you just be sure it is every one or almost every one? I don’t want

to put you in a setting where you say something and then people

come back later.

Ms. DAVIS. I really appreciate that. I feel free to say that because

the percentage of females at the Academy is so low. I really didn’t

know that many females. There were only five in my class, in my

squadron, so——

Mr. SHAYS. So that statement you are comfortable making?

Ms. DAVIS. Yes, I absolutely am.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Ms. DAVIS. I know for a fact that the women that I was——

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I just——

Ms. DAVIS. Unfortunately, it is true.

Mr. SHAYS. It is, and it is very unfortunate.

I do want to ask one question of you, Ms. Rumburg and Ms. Hansen and then Ms. Davis. I will just read it, but I would like to put

it on the record.

Why do you believe it has taken over 25 task forces, commissions, panels, and reports to address the issue of sexual violence in

the U.S. armed forces? Why so many? In other words, are we getting anywhere?

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Ms. RUMBURG. I think, again, it is the bigger problem that nobody takes this as seriously as they need to. I know what we tried

to do—and I think Beth has been able to convey it today—is create

an outrage at every level of our society of what we feel every time

we see a victim, and for some reason or another we have not been

able to convey that outrage that everyone should feel that it could

be my daughter, it could be my son, my grandchild. That is our biggest struggle. How do we make every one of the people that are in

positions to make these decisions feel the same outrage that each

one of us feels day in and day out.

Can I give you an example of what I just did in Pennsylvania

trying to create an awareness in my legislature, because there is

no money to provide services or it is dwindling? I took a pair of

baby shoes to everybody on the Appropriations Committee to say

this is a child that is on a waiting list in Pennsylvania. This represents a child who cannot get services. I think it takes that kind

of action, you know, with people like Beth going out and saying,

‘‘You have to hear my story.’’

I think that is the best thing that we can do is allow victims an

opportunity to tell their stories so that everyone else that is making those decisions is going to feel the same outrage that you and

the rest of the panel feels. It is critical that they are heard and

that they begin to realize how serious this problem is, in any way

that we can convey it. That is our struggle.

Ms. HANSEN. Mr. Chairman, I don’t think there is an excuse that

is acceptable. Women have always volunteered to serve. We currently have an all-volunteer force. This has been an ongoing problem for decades. There are reports of women who were sexually assaulted in the Vietnam era that are one of the more significant

influxes to the Veterans Administration at this time, that 30 to 35

years later they have not received appropriate care and treatment,

and the issues in their lives have escalated tremendously. I don’t

think there is an excuse.

I think also, in regards to what Mrs. Maloney said, we have an

enormous amount of information within our case files relative to

mental health evaluations of those who filed complaints of sexual

harassment and sexual assaults, particularly women who are serving in the intelligence community, at this point in time. I think

that it is important for us to do the tally that has been suggested

as to what you see, what the response is, what transpires for the

victim/survivor and what transpires for an alleged offender. Within

our case files there is a significant disparity and a lack of justice

for those who have been victimized.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Davis.

Ms. DAVIS. I just feel like the efforts are somewhat spinning

wheels. It is hard. I just have to go back to the leadership accountability. I just don’t feel like anything of substance has ever been

done. There is a lot of protocol in regards to dealing with an issue

that we can implement these ideas and the civilian counsel. It will

all help to some degree, but unless people are actually held accountable it is just sabotaging the effort.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, is there anything that you would like to have

as a last word? I am going to have the very last word, but is there

anything, Ms. Davis, that you would like to say, wish we had asked

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you, wish you put on the record, Ms. Hansen or Ms. Rumburg,

something that we just need to put on the record that we didn’t?

Ms. RUMBURG. I don’t think so. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Ms. Hansen.

Ms. HANSEN. I’d just like to expand the conversation beyond sexual assault into domestic violence, as well, within our forces, particularly spousal abuse when you are talking about violence against

women. Also, human trafficking and sexual exploitation, regrettably we are seeing some issues in that regard of an ongoing nature.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mrs. MALONEY. What are you seeing in sexual trafficking in an

ongoing basis?

Ms. HANSEN. Regrettably, we are actually seeing in some of the

combattant commands it has become an issue, and within some of

our coalition partners, as well. We have also seen Beth’s terminology, ‘‘sham marriages,’’ ‘‘sham engagements,’’ in which women are

brought here into the United States for purposes other than a

happy marriage and family life, essentially for prostitution purposes.

Mrs. MALONEY. And who are you reporting this to?

Ms. HANSEN. We have spoken to numerous Members of Congress

and we have also spoken to various individuals within the services

in that regard.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. I’d like to know more about it. Thank

you.

Ms. HANSEN. We will get you more information.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. If you would direct that to the subcommittee, we will

also make sure that Mrs. Maloney gets that information at the

same time we get it.

Ms. Rumburg, anything we need to put on the record?

Ms. RUMBURG. Yes, sir. Again I want to thank you, because, as

I said in the beginning, this light that you are shining on this problem within the military and the Department of Defense is only

going to open a broader conversation about our responsibilities as

citizens to continue to address this problem until we no longer have

to deal with sexual violence, not only in the military but in the society, as a whole.

And I just want to make one observation, getting back to what

Beth said. One of our recommendations was that we really pay attention to the screening as it relates to the individuals that are admitted into the academy. If there had been appropriate screening

of the individuals that come into the academy, we could eliminate

some of the men, particularly someone that is a sociopath, so we

did address that in our recommendations. We really need to pay attention to the way we screen individuals before they go to the academy.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

What I would like all of you to know is that when we started

chairing these hearings in 1995 we used to have the Government

officials come first and then the victims/survivors of any particular

issue, like Gulf war illness, come second. Then what happened is

sometimes the Government officials would say there is no problem

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and then some would leave and then we would have the victims describe the problem, so we reversed that, and we appreciate the

Government officials recognizing it is important to hear from the

experts in this field and the victims/survivors.

To you, Ms. Rumburg and Ms. Hansen, you are, in fact, experts

on this issue, have dealt with it for a long time, and you probably

had more patience than you would like to have. I’d like to think

that you would see this committee have some impact. That is fully

my pledge to you.

To you, Ms. Davis, you are a remarkable young woman. You

were very candid from the moment you spoke. I was a little taken

aback because I thought, my goodness, you are getting a chance to

speak, but you were right on target. You should have been heard

sooner by Congress.

I will say you are one of the most articulate witnesses I have

ever had come before any committee that I have ever served. You

are a good teacher. You are articulate. You are a remarkable person. I was thinking how proud I would be to have you as my

daughter, and to think of the contribution you have made.

I would like to ask you to say what you would like to come from

these hearings. In other words, what would you like to see happen

as a result of your testifying? What would be your hope? What

would be your dream about the result of your testimony, not just

in the short run, in the long run.

Ms. DAVIS. I guess it is more or less the impression that the victims make on Congress. I feel like Congress just hasn’t been influenced enough to really take hold of this. The DOD is running wild

with it. They are kind of running their own show. There is just no

oversight. I feel like these hearings would impress upon the Members of Congress the dire need for an oversight, for the congressional influence on their efforts. I just don’t feel like the DOD is

running an honest show and it is really disheartening.

Mr. SHAYS. You would like to see your testimony result in Congress doing more oversight, questioning the so-called ‘‘internal efforts’’ of DOD, and you would obviously like to be able, I would

think, in the future be able to recommend to another young

woman, ‘‘You know, the best thing in the world would be to join

the academy and to pursue your dream, and I would be advocating

your doing that,’’ and right now your testimony is you wouldn’t.

Ms. DAVIS. No.

Mr. SHAYS. But would that be a fair thing to say, that you would

hope that some day real soon you could say what?

Ms. DAVIS. I hope that I could say that the Academy is living up

to its prestigious title. All of the military academies are acclaimed

as some of the best institutions in this country, and to hear of

someone that is admitted, is nominated, just the grueling process

that you have to go through to get admitted, it should be that wondrous thing and it is just not right now.

It is not a place that I would wish anybody of any substance, of

any great intelligence, that is a wonderful, great person with great

dreams, I wouldn’t wish them to go there at all. I just feel like

you’d be throwing them into the wolf pit. I really do hope some day

that the Academy can become that prestigious thing. They have a

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lot of values and standards that are great if they could follow them,

if they could live up to them, but they fall very short.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you all very much. I think what we will

do is—does anybody know how many votes we have? I am going

to say to our next panel that we will probably not be back until

at least 10 of or 5, so if you want to just take a short break from

here I think we will just empanel the second panel when we get

back.

Thank you all very much. We stand at recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. SHAYS. I’d like to call this hearing back to order. We thank

our second panel, No. 1, for understanding why we wanted you to

be second and not first, and I am sure that some of the testimony

was a little difficult to listen to.

We have before us Dr. Kaye Whitley, Acting Director, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, Department of Defense; Vice

Admiral Rodney P. Rempt, Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy; Brigadier General Robert L. Caslen, Jr., Commandant of the

U.S. Military Academy; Brigadier General Susan Y. Desjardins,

Commandant of the U.S. Air Force Academy; and Rear Admiral

Paul J. Higgins, Director of Health and Safety, U.S. Coast Guard.

As you know, we swear our witnesses. We’d request that you

rise, raise your right hands, and we will swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record our witnesses have responded in

the affirmative.

I want to say at the outset that we appreciate your service to our

country. We are grateful for your service to our country. Ultimately, we have the same goal, and that is to just have this country be a blessing to everyone and to make sure, particularly in your

tasks in the military, that the highest standards are upheld. I

know that is your goal and your desire.

I would like to just start with Dr. Whitley. We will have you

start off. We do the 5-minute rule, but we do roll over. I don’t want

you to think you have to be done in 5 minutes if you can finish in

7 or 8 or whatever, but you don’t want to go past 10.

Thank you.

STATEMENTS OF KAYE WHITLEY, ACTING DIRECTOR, SEXUAL

ASSAULT PREVENTION AND RESPONSE OFFICE, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; VICE ADMIRAL RODNEY P. REMPT, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY; BRIGADIER

GENERAL ROBERT L. CASLEN, JR., COMMANDANT OF THE

U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY; BRIGADIER GENERAL SUSAN Y.

DESJARDINS, COMMANDANT OF THE U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY; AND REAR ADMIRAL PAUL J. HIGGINS, DIRECTOR OF

HEALTH AND SAFETY, U.S. COAST GUARD

STATEMENT OF KAY WHITLEY

Dr. WHITLEY. Thank you, Chairman Shays, for inviting me to

discuss the Department of Defense’s sexual assault prevention and

response program. I would also like to take this opportunity to

thank Ms. Davis and acknowledge her courage.

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I am the Acting Director of the Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, but I fully understand the devastating impact that sexual assault can have on victims and our society.

When I was a counselor, several of my clients struggled with the

long-term effects of sexual assault, and all of them suffered from

post traumatic stress disorder. They all had to muster incredible

courage just to get through each day. I sometimes think of these

individuals and that reinforces my commitment to ensuring that

DOD’s program truly protects and assists the men and women who

protect our Nation.

As you have heard, sexual assault is a challenge to our society,

and it is the Nation’s most under-reported violent crime. Some

studies indicate that 1 of 6 women and 1 of 33 men will experience

rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. Since the military reflects

the society it serves, this criminal offense confronts the Department, as well. But, moreover, sexual assault is a readiness issue

that strikes the core of our military preparedness.

As Secretary Rumsfeld stressed to senior leadership in a May

2005, memorandum, such acts are an affront to the institutional

values of the armed forces of the United States of America, and

then he charged them with effecting a concerted, successful implementation of the Department’s sexual assault policy. That policy

strikes at sexual assault three different ways. First, it emphasizes

career-long training and education to prevent sexual assault. Second, it ensures that, in the event of an assault, the victim receives

complete and effective services from well-trained responders. And,

third, it provides for system accountability.

This policy applies to active and reserve components, alike, as

well as the three military surveillance academies. In addition, it

provides for consistent programs wherever military units are stationed.

I believe the Department is off to a great start. During the past

year the military services trained more than 1 million service members. They also established sexual assault program offices at every

major installation and every deployable command. They trained

more than 5,000 sexual assault response coordinators and victim

advocates, and 2,500 were deployable SARCs and victim advocates.

In addition to a comprehensive response structure, DOD established a protocol to ensure a consistent level of care and support

for victims and implemented a fundamental change in how the Department responds to sexual assault by instituting confidential reporting. Since June 2005, victims may not elect to make a restricted report and receive care and support without notifying command channels or law enforcement. Restricted reporting also allows

victims the time, care, and empowerment to consider pursuing an

investigation at a later date.

This provision and others designed to eliminate barriers to reporting are succeeding. More victims came forward in 2005 than in

the previous year, and 435 requested restricted reporting. But,

more significantly, 108 of those later changed to unrestricted reporting and pursued criminal investigations.

These accomplishments underscore DOD’s efforts to transform

into action its commitment to sexual assault prevention and response. I am confident that 2006 will show greater progress. I am

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particularly looking forward to the Defense Task Force on Sexual

Assault in the Military Services beginning its examination of the

Department’s program. Their assessment will provide a thorough

and independent assessment of our program, and as we refine each

facet of our prevention response program we will create a climate

of confidence and trust where everyone is afforded respect and dignity.

Thank you again, and I will look forward to answering any of

your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Whitley follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Dr. Whitley.

Vice Admiral Rodney P. Rempt, thank you.

STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL RODNEY REMPT

Admiral REMPT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and other members

of the subcommittee. I am honored to appear before you today on

behalf of the outstanding men and women of the U.S. Naval Academy. The subject that you are addressing is critical and very important to our academies, the services, and our Nation. Sexual harassment, misconduct, and assault should not be tolerated in the

Navy and Marine Corps, and I can assure you that they are not

tolerated at your Naval Academy.

I can report to you good progress with respect to our sexual harassment, misconduct, and assault prevention and response efforts,

but we still have work to do. We expect our midshipmen to live and

uphold the highest standards, just as they will be expected to do

in setting the example as junior officers in the Navy and Marine

Corps.

Many of you have constituents attending the Naval Academy.

Our over 4,300 member brigade of midshipmen is made up of the

best young people from your Districts and States, and our faculty

and staff are also comprised of top-notch academia and military officers. The very idea that anyone in the Academy family could behave in a way that fosters sexual harassment, misconduct, or even

assault is of great concern to me as superintendent. Preventing and

deterring this unacceptable behavior is a leadership issue that I

take to heart.

My goal is to do all in my power to ensure situations like Ms.

Davis never occur. As you know, our mission at the Academy focuses on developing midshipmen morally, mentally, and physically

to become combat leaders of the highest character to lead sailors

and Marines, and it is not by chance that moral development is

listed first in our mission because it is the most important. We

want our graduates to become leaders of strong character, with the

highest ethical standards and unimpeachable values. With this in

mind, we attempt to develop a culture that fosters dignity and respect among everyone at the Naval Academy, while also encouraging personal responsibility and accountability.

Our policy to prevent and deter sexual harassment, misconduct,

and assault within the brigade and at the Academy as a whole is

focused on seven key elements: first, awareness, training, and education to ensure our midshipmen, staff, and faculty know what is

expected of them and what our standards are; 24/7 response and

support to rapidly and compassionately respond to any incidents;

fostering an environment that encourages incident reporting so we

know what is occurring and we can respond appropriately; multiple

paths for reporting, midshipmen, officers, enlisted, chaplains, counselors, medical personnel, and many others; prompt, thorough investigative procedures employing fully trained and sensitive NCIS

investigators; immediate and continuous support for the victim and

all involved; and case resolution and follow-on counseling, holding

perpetrators accountable, and providing long-term support to victims.

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Key to deterring unacceptable behavior is a climate within the

brigade of midshipmen, specifically how men and women treat each

other. We teach our future officers to be inclusive of all, regardless

of race, background, or gender, to value diversity, and to develop

teamwork within their shipmates. The vast majority of midshipmen exceed our standards every day.

Annual climate surveys given to the midshipmen indicate that

the culture in the brigade is improving. Our most recent survey

conducted in 2005 shows a steady downward trend in sexual harassment. While 93 percent of the brigade reported that they did not

experience sexual harassment, the fact is that unwanted comments

and jokes and innuendo among the 18 to 24 year old midshipmen

still occur within the brigade. Acceptance of women within the brigade continues to improve, but young women coming to Annapolis

are still a minority in a predominately male environment.

In August 2005, the Defense Task Force both challenged and applauded the Academy’s efforts at preventing and responding to sexual harassment and violence and recommended improvements and

noted it would take some significant resources to implement all its

recommendations. This report was the latest of seven studies and

assessments addressing gender relations that the Naval Academy

has undergone within the last 15 years. The outcomes of these 7

studies resulted in 243 recommendations for change or improvement, and of those recommendations most have been implemented,

many have ongoing actions, and few have not yet been or will not

be implemented.

The recent Defense Task Force report which was discussed earlier identified 44 findings and 62 accompanying recommendations

within 7 key areas, and they range from the need for external assistance for statutory reform, to internal process changes, and responses detailing actions taken or planned were provided to Academy oversight and guidance bodies, including our Presidentially appointed Naval Academy Board of Visitors and the Secretary of the

Navy appointed Executive Steering Group. The Naval Academy has

the full support and encouragement of the chief of Naval Operations and the Secretary of the Navy, as well as our Board of Visitors and Executive Steering Group to continue the gains we have

made.

We have answered your specific questions with my prepared

statement. I am happy to touch on each area, but I will wait for

questions in that area.

I do want to say that this year marks the 30 year anniversary

of the first admission of women to the academies. At this milestone

of 30 years we show a remarkable trend from the beginning year

when 80 women were admitted in 1976 to 136 admitted in 1990 to

more than 270 women who are projected to report tomorrow as new

members of the Class of 2010.

The key elements of the Naval Academy sexual harassment, misconduct, and assault prevention and response plan includes 68 specific actions that I and my staff are working on, organized into 7

key areas of the Defense Task Force report. They are aimed at improving gender culture, increasing dignity and respect, better preventing and responding to sexual harassment, misconduct, and assault.

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In addition to the findings and recommendations from the Defense Task Force, we continue to gain valuable insight from other

survey and management tools. In April 2005, the Defense Manpower Data Center administered the service academies’ sexual assault survey to 682 female and 1,082 male midshipmen, and as a

result of those findings what they showed us was that sexual assault incident rates are very low, sexual harassment incident rates

are more prevalent than assault, as we would expect, sexist behavior is a lingering concern in Academy culture, alcohol is often a factor in sexual assaults, and the reason most often indicated for not

reporting sexual assaults was that victims thought they could deal

with it themselves.

Nearly all midshipmen acknowledged having had training on

sexual harassment and assault, and the majority of midshipmen

feel that sexual harassment and assault have become less of a

problem.

These results indicate that the Academy is making positive

progress, but we are continually working to improve our prevention

and response efforts. Our own values survey most recently conducted in October 2005, assesses command climate and asked a

number of questions in different areas. In response to this, what

we learned was the most frequent offense regarding sexual harassment, negative comments, remarks, and offensive jokes, about 6

percent, and 93 percent reported they were not harassed, 93 percent of women do not feel that sexual harassment impeded their

development as midshipmen, and 98 percent of both men and

women reported that they did not experience sexual assault. Of the

remaining 2 percent who did, the most common offenses were unwanted touching or kissing.

Resentment against midshipmen who report harassment dropped

to a low of 10 percent among males, down from 24 percent in 2001,

and 5 percent among females, down from 50 percent in 2001. Respect for midshipmen who report harassment grew from 34 percent

to 56 percent amongst males, and from 25 percent in 2001 to 65

percent amongst females. And 97 percent of the women and 98 percent of the men feel safe sleeping in Bancroft Hall. And 97 percent

of women and 98 percent of men rate teamwork and cooperation

between themselves and midshipmen of the opposite gender as favorable.

These are encouraging results. They tell us that we are making

progress in the area of fairness and gender relations.

As you well know, sexual assault on the Nation’s college campuses has been receiving more attention lately. In an October 2002,

report to Congress, the National Institute of Justice provided a

comprehensive benchmark of sexual assault policy on the Nation’s

campuses and delineated promising practices in the area of sexual

assault prevention policy, reporting, investigation, adjudication,

and victim support.

I am pleased to report that the Naval Academy has in place

through its sexual assault/victim intervention program each of the

promising practices of that research report. We are continuing to

expand those.

In the interest of time I will skip our recurring and new initiatives. They are contained in my statement.

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I will conclude. I have consistently made clear to all of our staff

and midshipmen that the Navy does not tolerate sexual harassment, misconduct, or assault. These actions have no place in the

Navy or Marine Corps and are contrary to the values of the Naval

Academy and what we are striving to develop in our future officers.

Public trust that the academies will adhere to the highest standards and that we will serve as a beacon for the Nation that exemplifies character and dignity and respect, and we will continue our

efforts to meet that trust.

Destined to be the future leaders of sailors and Marines, we hold

our midshipmen to the highest standards. These high standards

apply equally to each and every midshipmen in the brigade.

I invite each of you and your colleagues to visit us at the Naval

Academy and to talk to your midshipmen, and perhaps that is

something I’d suggest for this subcommittee, to have a chance to

actually talk to midshipmen to get information on these and other

subjects firsthand. Preventing and deterring sexual harassment,

misconduct, and assault is a critically important issue that needs

to be continuously emphasized. We are on the right track and this

serious issue has our fully focused attention.

As superintendent, I ensure you that we will continue to do the

right thing and uphold the Academy’s standards when dealing with

these cases. The Naval Academy will continue to focus on improving gender relations toward the goal of greater dignity and respect

among midshipmen and eliminating sexual harassment, misconduct, and assault.

Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Admiral Rempt follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Admiral.

The statistics that you were providing, were those statistics done

by——

Admiral REMPT. They are contained in my statement, yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Are they statistics that were done by an outside firm

or done internally? And if they were done internally, can the

individual——

Admiral REMPT. There have been three separate surveys——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just finish. If they were done internally, can

the cadets be absolutely convinced that, whatever their response,

it was totally and completely confidential?

Admiral REMPT. Yes. There were three separate surveys, and all

of them are done completely anonymously and they are assured of

that.

Mr. SHAYS. Done internally though?

Admiral REMPT. Only one was an internal survey. The other two

were done from the Defense Task Force and from the DOD SASA

survey.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you, Admiral.

General Caslen.

STATEMENT OF BRIGADIER GENERAL ROBERT L. CASLEN, JR.

General CASLEN. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of

the subcommittee, thank you for inviting the U.S. Military Academy to discuss the sexual assault prevention and response program

at West Point. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this

subcommittee to highlight the study recommendations from the Defense Task Force Report and our subsequent efforts to address sexual assault and violence against women at West Point.

We also would like to thank the first panel, and in particular Ms.

Davis, and recognize her courage and acknowledge each of their efforts in changing a culture that will not only affect our service

academies but also our services at large.

Many personnel at the Academy have worked very hard with the

task force during the year it conducted its data collection, its analysis, and published its report. The task force found the academies

have been actively addressing these issues prior to their assessment and applauded our efforts. In addition, a recent Department

of the Army IG inspection on our program applauded the efforts

made thus far in implementing the sexual assault response program, and their final summary highlighted the West Point program

as a model for the Army at large.

The U.S. Military Academy revised policy now states that sexual

assault is a leadership issue and is inconsistent with the concepts

of officership and leadership and contrary to the good order, discipline, and values of the Army. Leaders of good character do not

commit sexual assault. They do not, under any circumstance, tolerate sexual assault by superiors, peers, or subordinates. Academy

leaders will continue to take ownership of this issue and make

every effort to support the Army’s initiative to eliminate sexual assault.

Respect and dignity for all are inherent in the Army’s Warrior

Ethos, where our Soldier’s Creed states, ‘‘I am a member of a team,

mission first, never accept defeat, never quit, and never leave a

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fallen comrade. I am disciplined, I am professional.’’ Sexual harassment, sexual assault, and violence against women have no case in

that non-negotiable contract of who we are and what we stand for

as a profession of arms.

In the 1-year since the release of the DOD Task Force Report we

have developed action plans and, based on the 44 recommendations, we have developed 107 actions to improve our overall program. Of these, 78 are green, 29 are amber, and none are red. Additionally, we have identified 53 actions that, although currently

green, they require continuous or periodic review.

The first question asked us to address are plans for increasing

the number and visibility of female officers in key positions. We

have increased the numbers and visibility of female officers by increasing from 8 to 20 percent the women selected in our advanced

schooling programs. We have increased 14 percent the number of

women in our tactical department. We have selected seven women

for senior faculty positions, to include a department head and a

permanent professor, selected women for cadet leadership details

from 10 to 16 percent. We have assigned two female chaplains,

women in military and civilian counselors, women doctors and

coaches, and two sexual assault response coordinators, one for the

installation staff and one for the corps of cadets, and also two advisors, one for the office of the dean and one for the intercollegiate

athletic office.

In order to increase visibility of women war fighters, women are

included in all lecture series which bring combat veterans with recent tours in Iraq and afghanistan back to the Academy to highlight their experiences.

The subcommittee also requested we address the type of training

we are providing to our cadets regarding sexual harassment. The

cadet leader development system is our process for continuing that

tradition as we develop tough, competent, confident leaders for the

Army. This program develops the attributes needed in future Army

leaders and includes over 70 hours of respect training, which covers

sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination.

This past year we revamped the cadet lecture series, making the

sessions during academic hours, bringing in new speakers, incorporating new material obtained from national sexual assault resource centers. Highlights included outstanding performances by

Veraunda Jackson, a rape survivor, and Tony Porter, head of a

men’s group to stop violence against women, both nationally known

advocates for sexual assault programs.

Academic directors made changes to core curriculum courses

which included course objectives on human sexuality, the impact of

sex roles on behavior, rape myths, communications in sexual relationships, officer counseling to emphasize building strategies to

combat sexual harassment and assault in units, Uniform Code of

Military Justice definitions of sexual harassment and assault and

rape, and why voluntary intoxication fails as a defense to rape and

gender discrimination in the context of equal protection. Course

material is tested during the term and again on the final exam.

I have further details on the third, the fourth, and the fifth questions, sir, but I am going to leave those for the record in order to

keep us on time.

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In my concluding comments I would like to mention a little bit

about where we are on our amber programs quickly.

Our amber actions include our requirement to address cadet responsibilities, accountability, and maturity in the changing Academy culture category. We are doing this with our social maturation

plan and we are integrating it into our cadet leader development

system. The social maturation plan is designated to teach cadets

personal and leader accountability in social settings. We want to

get them through puberty as quickly as we can.

Other key amber items we are working include continuing to increase the number of women on the staff and faculty in the corps,

ensure female representation in all training positions out there at

Camp Buckner where we do our Cadet field training for both the

cadets and cadre, reviewing our Academy policy that establishes

appropriate consequences for harassment and gender discrimination, updating victim/witness liaison training programs, assessing

recently implemented academic course revisions, and obtaining approval in order to publish our recently updated West Point sexual

assault response policy, the West Point Experience Handbook, and

a memorandum of understanding with our Orange County Rape

Crisis Center.

We feel it is important to work with and share our best practices

with our sister academies and we look forward to providing possible assistance to the task force and to the services at large based

on our own experiences.

Our current emphasis has shifted from awareness to prevention,

developing a culture in which sexual assault and sexual harassment are unacceptable. All leaders at the Academy are aggressively

pursuing actions to better educate our community academy ensure

we can eliminate the behaviors that may lead to assault or harassment in our workplace.

The militaries goal remains steadfast: to produce leaders of character for our Nation.

Sir, again the Academy thanks the subcommittee and the Congress for its longstanding commitment to and substantial support

for the U.S. Military Academy.

[The prepared statement of General Caslen follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, General.

General Desjardins.

STATEMENT OF BRIGADIER GENERAL SUSAN Y. DESJARDINS

General DESJARDINS. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of

the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the

progress we have made at the Air Force Academy in preventing

and responding to sexual assault and violence against women. I

would also like to thank the previous panel, in particular Ms. Beth

Davis for her courage and for her articulate and moving testimony.

We have studied the 2005 report of the Defense task force on

Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies

and we believe we are responding to its concerns. The Air Force

Academy has come a long way in addressing sexual assault and violence since the events of 2003 and before. We have changed and

institutionalized processes that makes victim care our first priority.

In 2003 we established the Academy Response Team composed of

victim advocate, the sexual assault response coordinator, OSI, and

the JAG, under the supervision of the training wing vice commander, providing dedicated assistance to victims of sexual assault.

We strongly supported the confidential reporting option to allow

victims to come forward and receive care without automatically

triggering a law enforcement investigation, while maintaining that

option for them.

We made significant progress but we know and understand the

challenge remains to keep the focus on this national problem of

sexual assault as it affects the Air Force Academy and to continue

our journey for long-term cultural change.

America demands its Air Force and its Air Force leaders adhere

to the highest standards of conduct; task force, we have refocused

our efforts on building leaders of character that reach and exceed

these higher standards.

Our efforts to combat sexual assault fall into three broad areas

I will briefly review for the subcommittee: prevention, cultural

change, and victim care. I will also summarize our progress in

these areas and highlight the challenge that remains.

Prevention. In order to prevent sexual assault we first had to understand sexual assault as a continuum of inappropriate behaviors

ranging from sexual harassment to physical sexual violence that

are contrary to the concepts of honor in service that we in the Air

Force have embraced through our core values: integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do.

Through consultations with nationally renowned experts such as

Dr. David Lisak of the University of Massachusetts in Boston, the

Air Force Academy began to understand better the nature of these

crimes and to educate all Academy personnel, cadets and permanent party, on a standard definition of sexual assault, on the

means by which the most egregious sexual assaults occur, and on

insights into the methods for the community to prevent all sexual

assaults. These prevention efforts are some of the steps we have

taken to effect cultural change.

Long-term, institutional change to enhance prevention will be

based on making cultural changes through education and instituVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:13 Apr 04, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00162 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\33682.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tionalizing positive behaviors, including respect. Respect for self

and others is at the core of our cultural change.

Our graduated approach devotes over 150 structured curriculum

hours to character and leadership development. More than 55 of

these hours are devoted to lessons with respect as the baseline on

topics such as substance abuse, accountability, and human relations, including sexual assault and sexual harassment training.

This education supports the basic premise that interpersonal

bonds are not forced in times of war; rather, they are formed according to the strength of the relationship experienced prior to

combat. Our education and training programs focus on helping cadets internalize and respect their identity and that of their fellow

cadets as members of our U.S. Air Force, while also equipping our

permanent party members to mentor cadets throughout their time

at the Academy.

Victim care. If sexual assault does occur, the need for victim care

is our first priority. The Academy’s sexual assault response coordinator, working with the Academy response team, provides immediate and long-term assistance and ensures victims receive appropriate physical and emotional care for as long as needed. We also

initiated small group education and training lessons for cadets and

permanent party on the means to report sexual assault and receive

care. These lessons are largely provided by a small cadre of hand

picked instructors to ensure consistency of our message, explaining

the victim focus of our response is to maximize the care available

to a victim while keeping options open for prosecution of perpetrators.

Through agreements with local helping agencies we provide a

wide range of services to ensure confidentiality and preservation of

evidence so victims will be encouraged to report these crimes so

that perpetrators will be held accountable once the victim has recovered to the point of opening a criminal investigation.

Equipping every cadet in the Academy’s permanent party with

the tools and knowledge regarding our network of integrated professionals who are devoted to preventing and responding to sexual

assaults has enhanced victim trust and confidence, as evidenced by

the willingness of those assaulted to seek medical, legal, and emotional support.

We had a handful of restricted reports filed with our sexual assault response coordinator during the academic year 2005–2006.

This is good news as an indicator of trust and confidence in our reporting system and the treatment of victims as a first priority.

The willingness to report is supported by anonymous survey data

collected by the Defense Manpower Data Center annually in compliance with the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year

2004. Since 2003, we have seen a marked decline in sexual assault

allegations with a cadet/victim reporting rate of almost 36 percent

in 2004, which was nearly double the rate from the 2003 rate of

18.6 percent.

For 2005, the DMDC survey was modified, but 44 percent of

women cadets that identified themselves as having experienced a

sexual assault since 2004 responded that they discussed or reported the assault to some authority, individual, or organization.

These rates point to program success in terms of an increasing willVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:13 Apr 04, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00163 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\33682.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ingness to seek assistance when sexually assaulted. This is both

good news and part of the challenge that remains.

Our sexual assault education and training programs have made

a difference in our impact in the climate and culture of the Air

Force Academy. The incoming class of 2010 has 277 women, the

largest number of women ever entering the Academy in a single

class and the largest percentage of women for any class. Clearly,

the parents of the class of 2010 feel that the Academy is a safe

place to send their sons and daughters.

But we know that more needs to be done so we continue to refine

our lesson plans, processes, and programs, employ the best guest

speakers to discuss sexual assault with our cadets early and often,

train and equip our staff to focus first on victims while preserving

the victims’ options for future action, and continue to educate everyone on sexual assault as a national issue. We will also continue

to stress that your Air Force and your Air Force Academy have

zero tolerance for sexual assault. Sexual assault is a crime, one we

will not condone, enable, or overlook. We will continue our efforts

of cultural change to embed the overarching concept of respect for

each other and to each and every member of the Academy.

America has entrusted its finest sons and daughters to the Air

Force Academy. They are proud to wear the cadet uniform, and

they cannot wait to help defend our Nation by joining the operational Air Force after graduation.

This year we graduated the first class of cadets that volunteered

for the Academy after the terrorist attacks of September 11th.

Each and every member of the Class of 2006 knew when they

sought admission to the Academy that they were volunteering for

military service during wartime. Every class that has entered since

then has knowingly volunteered for the same responsibility. The

Academy will mold these men and women into leaders of character

that America demands, especially during war time. We know we

can count on Congress’ assistance in this important task.

Thank you again for the opportunity to maintain attention on the

sexual assault prevention and response at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

[The prepared statement of General Desjardins follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, General.

Before recognizing you, Rear Admiral Higgins, I just want to say

that the catalyst for this hearing was a briefing I had in which a

former cadet at the Coast Guard Academy, Ms. Katelyn Stopper,

made testimony that certainly caught our interest, and that is why

we are having this hearing today, and we thank her for that.

At this time we would recognize you, Rear Admiral.

STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL PAUL J. HIGGINS

Admiral HIGGINS. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the subcommittee, and thank you to our distinguished witnesses from both panels. I am heartened by this subcommittee’s interest in this important subject and grateful for the

opportunity to appear before you today to discuss what the Coast

Guard and the Coast Guard Academy are doing to thwart sexual

harassment, abuse, and violence.

Today at the Coast Guard Academy 28 percent of the Academy

cadets are women and 28 percent of the staff of over 500 are also

women. The newly reported Commandant of Cadets, Captain Judith Keene, is a 1981 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy

and the first female to hold this esteemed position. Many female

officers and senior enlisted members are currently serving in senior

leadership positions at the Academy, as well.

Despite that critical mass, we have had nine reports of sexual assault or harassment since the year 2000 at the Coast Guard Academy. We are currently holding a court martial of a Coast Guard

cadet for allegations of sexual assault. Since that case is not resolved, it is inappropriate for me to discuss that case further.

The class of 2010, which reports aboard next Monday, will attend

12 value training sessions during Swab Summer. The goal of this

training is to instill the Coast Guard’s core value of honor, respect,

and devotion to duty in each newly reported cadet. Within this

framework are training sessions on sexual harassment prevention,

sexual assault prevention, diversity, human relations, substance

abuse prevention, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and

human relations and civil rights. This training continues throughout the 4-years as a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy and annually thereafter as a Coast Guard active duty member.

The Coast Guard Academy adopted its own distinct sexual assault policy predating the June 2005, Defense Task Force Report

on Sexual Harassment and Violence in the Military Academies.

The policy provided clear guidance and procedures to ensure our

primary goal: that victims receive appropriate mental and physical

health care in a timely manner, in addition to providing crucial victim empowerment by allowing a victim to report sexual assault either confidentially or non-confidentially, a feature subsequently

recommended by the task force and now known as ‘‘restricted reporting.’’ All unrestricted reports initiate an immediate investigation by trained Coast Guard investigative service agents. Our policy has since been upgraded to align with the task force report.

In summary, the Coast Guard strives to employ a diverse work

force by maintaining a workplace that is one of inclusion, free of

violence, discrimination, or harassment of any kind. Through constant monitoring of and improvements to the cadet environment,

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we will enable ourselves to continue to attract America’s best and

brightest young men and women to our Academy, where they will

train to be the future leaders of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today. I ask

that my written statement be admitted to the record, and I will be

happy to answer any questions you may have, Mr. Chairman, and

to the other distinguished subcommittee members.

I would like to say that Ms. Katelyn Stopper and her mom I believe are here in the room. I talked to her earlier this evening.

[The prepared statement of Admiral Higgins follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.

I am going to go to Mr. Marchant, who is the vice chairman of

the subcommittee. I am just going to say what I will be looking for

is connecting what is, for me, a theory of how it works to the reality of what we heard earlier. And I am going to be asking you

to relate what you heard, particularly from Ms. Davis, as to why

that could have happened in the past and why it wouldn’t happen

today. And if you tell me it couldn’t happen in the past, then we

are on a total different wave length. And then I have to know why

it won’t happen today.

Then I will want to know—I am just giving you a chance to think

about this—I will want to know what does a person like her have

as any recourse in terms of potentially coming back, of potentially

making sure that she has no financial liabilities, and so on. I need

you to connect your statements to what I think is the real world.

I want to acknowledge that you put your lives on the line for our

country, and I have tremendous respect for your service. General

Caslen, I have a sense that you probably served in Iraq and Afghanistan, one or both?

General CASLEN. Afghanistan, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, thank you for your service.

General CASLEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. I know this is not necessarily a comfortable experience for all of you to deal with this issue, but it is very important.

I am taking the liberty of the subcommittee a bit, but I just know

the Code of Conduct that has had some cadets I am aware of be

kicked out because they left campus without having the right or

permission to leave. Lying has sent them packing. So when I hear

about these other events dealing with sexual harassment it just

strikes me that somehow the code just disappears, and I need

someone to explain to me why that is the case. But that will happen when my turn comes.

Mr. Marchant, you have the floor.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

If you would please, for your respective academies, just answer

the two questions for me, and we will just go down the line. First

of all, would you explain how a victim’s accusations would be investigated and processed through your Academy today. How would it

go from start to finish? And then, to the best of your knowledge,

how many court martials and/or ejections from the Academy have

there been since let’s say 2000 as a result of an investigation of a

sexual assault?

Admiral REMPT. Yes, sir, I would be happy to answer that.

Clearly, any accusation involving a sexual assault is, in fact, immediately investigated, given that the victim desires to proceed. We

will initiate investigations at the NCIS. We have three trained people at the Academy that are well trained in how to do this in a very

sensitive manner. The victim, of course, is assigned an advocate to

proceed with them through the whole process—medical, legal,

counseling, etc. So in every case that we can we will open an investigation and get to the bottom of the facts that are involved.

With respect to the numbers of cases and what occurred, I think

it is very important that the subcommittee understand the different ramifications and things that can occur here. In the past 5

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years, if I take that timeframe, we have had 60 accusations of sexual assault at the Naval Academy.

Now, if we go through these, of those 60, 41 involved midshipmen accused of assault, which means there were another 19

where midshipmen were not accused but were, in fact, victims, so

a potential perpetrator or alleged perpetrator from outside the

Academy. So we then have 41 cases of concern for discipline, 60

cases of concern for counseling and care.

Out of these accusations, only nine were substantiated as sexual

assaults. That may seem like an astonishing number when you

look at the number of accusations, but, in fact, 31 were investigated by either NCIS or a civilian agency with NCIS assistance.

Ten of them were not investigated because the victim either declined to participate or continue the case further.

There are many reasons for this. It can be it is a friend of theirs

and they don’t want to proceed, they are embarrassed by the situation. There are many different reasons. We provide them extensive

counseling to help them through that decision and what is right for

them, but it is still a difficult one for them.

Out of these 31 investigations, 2 are still ongoing, 15 investigations yielded evidence of a range of misconduct other than assault.

So, in looking at the evidence it turned out it was not an assault,

it was something else violating Academy rules, participating in

something prohibited, etc. They were handled in the Academy’s administrative conduct system.

Three were sent to an article 32 hearing, which is much like a

grand jury precursor to going to trial, and were determined to have

insufficient evidence to proceed further.

In one case the victim recanted. We know that victims recant because they just don’t want to deal with the situation, so again

counseling is appropriate to try to help a victim think through

what are the circumstances.

In one investigation the victim declined to participate any further. We don’t know the reason why they elected to do that.

Of the nine cases in which the evidence supported sexual assault,

six midshipmen referred to court martial or civilian trial and the

remaining three midshipmen referred to the Academy’s administrative conduct system. There are specific reasons for that in each

case. Eight of these nine midshipmen were separated from the

Academy. We still have two cases ongoing.

We strive to establish a climate to encourage reporting of sexual

harassment and misconduct and assault so we can support the victim and we can, in fact, respond to the allegations fairly and appropriately. Very important here is protecting the confidentiality of

the victim, ensuring the rights of the accused, and some degree of

privacy for both of them.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you.

General CASLEN. Sir, for the U.S. Military Academy, obviously

we work on each investigation on whether or not it is a restricted

investigation, restricted reporting or non-restricted reporting, and

if it is restricted reporting—first, let me just say in either case the

primary concern is the victim and the necessary care that the victim gets. We have the whole plethora of support for the entire installation, whether it is the chaplain or the health clinic to the hosVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:13 Apr 04, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00178 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\33682.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pital to the emergency room and to all the different psychologists

to support for the victim. That is in both cases. That is, I think,

the primary concern as we enter into this.

As we go to unrestricted reporting, in an unrestricted case we assign a victim assistant who accompanies a victim to CID for the investigation, so that person accompanies the victim through the entire investigation process and stays with her and provides the necessary psychological counseling and other type of counseling that

she may need or that the victim may need.

Mr. MARCHANT. I feel maybe that I didn’t state my question

clearly enough. You have all done a good job of explaining what

you are doing for the victims. At this point I would like to know

what the process is for the accused, what process the accused goes

through other than I know they are investigated, but how timely

is it. Is it immediate? Is there a set process? And do both victim

and accused stay in the system?

General CASLEN. I can get you specific dates and timelines for

the record and a follow-on report.

Mr. MARCHANT. That would be fine.

General CASLEN. Being I am kind of new in this sort of thing I

don’t have personal experience at the U.S. Military Academy with

each one of these, but I do know it follows the Uniform Code of

Military Justice. The criminal investigation division does the investigation and they go through the investigation, and then they refer

it, as necessary, to the commander. And then the commander will

then make a decision if it requires an article 32 investigation or

whether or not, you know, whatever disposition he makes, because

the gravity of some of these article 32 is often the case is followed.

Then it would go to a court martial or not.

I do have, though, the statistics from last year. I can offer those

to you, as well. But I do know that at the U.S. Military Academy

they follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice in the criminal investigation procedures that are normally done with CID and article

32 investigations when directed by the convening authority.

Of the 18 cases that the U.S. Military Academy had last year,

15 of them went to criminal charges. The three that didn’t did not

go to criminal charges. The 15 that did went through the complete

process. Of those 15, 3 were unfounded because of evidence, which

means 12 were disposed of to completion. Two ended with court

martial, and the other were with separation or resignation, all with

the agreement of the victim, but they went through the entirety of

the process, itself.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you.

General DESJARDINS. As far as the Academy’s response, when a

victim is sexually assaulted there is one number that we tell the

cadets to call and notify, and that is 333-SARC, a sexual assault

response coordinator. That energizes then the Academy response

team. That is the one number to call and that energizes the Academy response team, which is which is composed of the OSI, JAG,

the victim advocate, as well as a SARC in the first tier, and then

the next tier involves the chaplain and other counselors.

But then an investigation is open and a cadet is allowed to determine whether she or he wants to keep the report restricted. In

other words, just get the medical care and the physical care that

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they need first, until they get to the point where they might want

to go unrestricted and have an investigation, a law enforcement

type investigation completed.

So that is the initial response. The SARC is notified. And we also

have other avenues for cadets. This 18 to 22 year old group, they

are going to talk to their peers before they talk to anyone, and so

we do have cadets assigned to each squadron on a voluntary basis

that understand. In fact, they are called PEERS, professional education and ethics representatives, that understand intimately the

process of reporting, and they actually encourage and they are

available to encourage cadets within their squadron of about 100

cadets to the proper reporting, what help is available.

That is what happens on a sexual assault report and that is how

the Academy response team is energized.

As far as Academy response team cases, since academic year

2003 we have had 49, and each of those cases was thoroughly investigated. None of them went to a court martial, but all of them

were investigated fully, and some of them—I don’t have the exact

number—were criminally charged on lesser accounts that could be

proven. Those are numbers there.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you.

Admiral HIGGINS. We have very similar processes to the other

academies. We have a group of about 125 cadets called the ‘‘cadets

against sexual assault,’’ CASA, who do have specialized training to

counsel folks. The cadets at the Coast Guard Academy can go

through the chaplains, medical, through CASA, to employee assistance program, or can still use their chain of command.

I can quickly give you the results of the nine. We have one ongoing court martial right now that is unresolved, although it is my

understanding is that this morning at 11 the Defense rested. It is

now with the panel. We had five sexual assaults, most of which

were inappropriate touching, and with agreement of the victims we

had five disenrollments from the Coast Guard Academy.

We had three sexual harassment cases. All received administrative punishment, and that is done through the commandant of cadets and a group of cadet officers who do that. That is since the

year 2000, the nine cases that we had. The one ongoing court martial, that went to an article 32 and may be resolved within a week

or so.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for

your responses.

I know that I am out of time, but I would like just one followup

comment.

Mr. SHAYS. You may have that followup comment.

Mr. MARCHANT. I would just like to know, and no response necessary, if there is a tracking system in place where you track the

victims that have reported the assaults and tracked whether they

have stayed in school or they have left.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. He certainly had the time to

make that comment.

I am going to call on Mr. Kucinich, but I still feel a disconnect

from this panel and the previous panel. I just feel like we are in

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two different worlds. To hear, for instance, that there is no court

martial since 2003 at the Air Force Academy is surprising to me.

Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank the Chair for causing this hearing to happen and, once again, you have caused this committee to

be an important committee for public policy and, in particular, on

this issue of how the women who serve this country in the military

academies are treated when it comes to being assaulted.

Now, Brigadier General, I read your testimony very carefully

and, in light of what my chairman just said, I have to tell you it

is somewhat surprising to see the extent of Former Cadet Davis’

testimony and to see the rather discursive response to this general

issue. Would you like to take a moment on behalf of the U.S. Air

Force to respond definitively to charges that the entire chain of

command or a good part of your chain of command was involved

in trying to discourage this woman’s rights from being defended?

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir.

In 1999 Cadet Davis said the sexual assault started and then

continued on to 2000, 2001, and then when she left for the second

time, I believe, in 2002. This was brought to light very clearly, all

of this, in absolute crisis at our Air Force Academy in 2003. That

is how we all looked at it. I was out in the operational Air Force

by then, and those of us who are graduates—I graduated in 1980

in the first class of women at the Air Force Academy—it was total

dismay. It was just awful to see.

So in 2003, when this was all brought to light, the Academy and

the Air Force, the Secretary of the Air Force, responded aggressively and, in fact, the Secretary of the Air Force lost confidence

in the leadership at the Air Force Academy and replaced the leadership team with an entire new team from the commandant to the

training group commander and ultimately a new superintendent

came in.

Since that time, which was 2003, in 2005 when the Defense Task

Force did its report——

Mr. KUCINICH. Were those people replaced or did they resign?

You mentioned some replacements. Were people replaced or did

they quit?

General DESJARDINS. Sir, I think the superintendent actually retired and then they were replaced, the other two were replaced.

But then there was a full court press on what do we do now and

how do we respond and how do we change, because this absolutely

can’t continue to happen. This identified a problem not only at the

Air Force Academy but in the Air Force and ultimately in the Department of Defense.

The crisis turned into an opportunity to make change, and I can’t

overstate how important it is to make this change and continue to

shine this light. This is not one of these problems that will go

away. We have to always keep our focus on it. I am optimistic that

we are making good changes, but we have a long way to go. We

have a very long way to go.

Mr. KUCINICH. One of the things I thought was very telling in

the former cadet’s testimony was she went to the base psychologist,

‘‘As I arrived at the psychologist’s office, the doctor hung up his

phone and declared, ‘That was your commander and he says we

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need to diagnose you with something that gets you sent off base.’ ’’

How long have you been in the chain of command over at the U.S.

Air Force Academy?

General DESJARDINS. Sir, I took command as the commandant in

December 2005; 6 months.

Mr. KUCINICH. And do you have an entire new chain of command?

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. And are you confident that your chain of command would respond appropriately in case of a sexual assault on

one of your cadets?

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir, I absolutely am. In fact, our superintendent, his daughter was in the class of 2003, and so he takes

it as an absolute personal commitment that every sexual assault is

thoroughly investigated and the victim care is utmost in our minds.

I will tell you, sir, I also have a lot of confidence in the chain of

command below me. All of our tactical officers or air officers commanding in charge of each one of the squadrons, majors or 04s, are

hand selected to be good role models for our cadets. They are 20

percent women and they come from all specialties across the Air

Force. It is a very select panel. They have to have a record of success.

And so above and below me I have the utmost confidence in the

chain of command at the Air Force Academy to handle aggressively

and with vigilance the issue of sexual assault.

Mr. KUCINICH. How many psychologists do you have on staff?

General DESJARDINS. Sir, we have in the Academy Counseling

Center four psychologists.

Mr. KUCINICH. And are those individuals free to make their own

assessment absent the requirements of the higher command?

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir, they are.

Mr. KUCINICH. They are not dictated as far as assessments——

General DESJARDINS. No, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH [continuing]. To be made?

General DESJARDINS. No, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. I notice in your testimony you pointed with pride

to the incoming class of 2010, the largest number of women ever

entering the Academy.

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. So you have taken even greater responsibility

now.

General DESJARDINS. Absolutely. I do, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. I would like to thank you.

I’d like to ask Brigadier General a question, if I may.

General CASLEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. This question relates to the extent of your engagement with local law enforcement. I see that on December 5, 2005,

your testimony was that you had a civilian law enforcement working lunch and talking to some local people, and that you also provided a briefing for civilian law enforcement officers. What is the

position of West Point with respect to if a rape occurs do you handle it in-house first at this point or do you share it with the local

law enforcement authorities? And is that dependent on your restricted or unrestricted rule?

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General CASLEN. Well, sir, as necessary, when local law enforcement agencies get involved in a particular case, whether it is

through reporting or through a service that is provided, we are in

the process of developing that relationship and refining it through

a memorandum of understanding on exactly how that would be

played out and who would do what and how you would respect confidentiality when that occurs and so forth and so on. The good news

is that, as a result of the task force’s recommendation, it was the

impetus for us to gain contact with the local authorities and to establish that relationship, teach them on what our Army policies

are, what our West Point policies are, and then establish the lines

of communication and the procedures for reporting and care as necessary, so——

Mr. KUCINICH. How many women are at West Point now, General?

General CASLEN. About 600 or so.

Mr. KUCINICH. That is 600 out of how many cadets?

General CASLEN. I believe 4,400, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK, 4,400. And how long have you been in the

chain of command?

General CASLEN. Since last week, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Welcome.

General CASLEN. Sir, I will tell you, sir, I just went through Rday yesterday where our cadets reported, but it was really my sixth

R-day. I went there, of course, as a plebe, but then as an upperclassman in the cadre, twice as a tactical officer, the title 10 commander. Last year was No. 5 as a parent because my son was a

cadet at West Point. He’s now an upperclass yearling, third

classman. And yesterday was No. 6.

I think last year as a parent gave me the best preparation to be

the commandant of cadets over any other preparation I had because, you know, I have seen my son, who really experienced everything of a fourth class year that you could experience, whether it

is walking on the area or struggling through academics or whatever, and it was really helpful to me. It brought into my mind’s eye

the whole relationships that he has, because I think he is developing a relationship with a cadet girl, as a matter of fact, and we

have been around some of these girls in some of the social settings,

as well, so it has been very helpful for me the last year in that regard.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, you know, Mr. Chairman, I had to step

away for business on the floor of the House earlier, but during the

testimony, particularly by former Cadet Davis, I was watching you

in the back row, General. I was watching your face. When you just

told me that you took the command a week ago, I could see—Mr.

Chairman, I could see the concern on the General’s face. I could see

how you responded to what she was saying, and your response was

not just as a General but you seemed to be responding as a parent,

as well.

It was really interesting. I was watching you. I hope what that

means is that, as you take responsibility for West Point in your

new responsibilities there as a Commandant, that all of the information that we have here and all the testimony that has been

given and your sense of what is really going on—and any of us who

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have ever had sons or daughters, we understand when they get to

that age all the complexities that occur. But you know now.

General CASLEN. Oh, yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. You know the whole range of things that can happen, so what we need here in this House, as my colleague Chris

Van Hollen said earlier, we need your assurance that wherever this

sexual harassment or sexual assault exists that you are going to

make sure that all the way through the ranks this is not just pursued but that a culture of respect is developed, that cadets will see

respect for one another as part of their duty, and that young men

will see respect for young women as part of their duty, and vice

versa. I really appreciate hearing your personal story there.

General CASLEN. Yes, sir. I firmly believe strategically that our

military academies embody everything that is right with America,

and particularly the values, the ethics, and our traditions, and as

the average American citizen looks at the military academies, it is

inherent on us, the senior leaders, to maintain that responsibility,

to maintain those values, and in so doing it is our responsibility to

pass those values down to this next generation to the point where

they assume ownership of it. When they assume ownership of it,

I mean the whole line of it, then the culture will begin to change.

What does it take to change a culture, not only in the service

academies but even in our services, even in our country, itself, and

our college campuses? What does it take to change that culture?

We are going to start at the service academies and I think these

plans and programs that are now in place are the beginning of

that. That is why I give credit to the courageousness of Ms. Davis

and her testimony and what she is doing, because a lot of that is

the impetus of this change that is going to take place.

Mr. KUCINICH. I think the academies would do well to, on occasion, invite her in as a speaker to remind people how serious this

is. I mean, she gave something up. She gave something up.

General CASLEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. I think that we need to find ways of recognizing

her service.

I also want to say that, as someone who recommends for consideration by the Academy young women in my District, I want their

parents to know that myself and other Members of Congress are

vitally concerned about how the young women who are their pride

and joy——

General CASLEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH [continuing]. Are going to have their safety and security assured.

General CASLEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, General.

General CASLEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Before calling on Mr. Platts, I would like to say that

in my many trips to Iraq I will interact with men and women in

the service, and you can’t help but be impressed with both the men

and women who serve. But I remember one dialog, and I feel very

badly that I don’t remember her name. She was an enlistee, and

I asked her if this was her first tour, and she said, ‘‘No, sir, it is

my second tour.’’ And I asked her if she had any children, and she

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ond tour. And I said, ‘‘You have to return safe to your kids.’’ She

said, ‘‘Sir, I am not concerned about returning safely home to my

children; I am only concerned that they forgive me for leaving

them.’’ She responded by saying but she knew she needed to be

here. That was the nature. She was in the Army. You don’t forget

comments like that.

Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to first thank each of the witnesses for their testimony

and add my words of thanks for each of your personal service to

our Nation. We certainly are a blessed Nation because of all who

wear the uniform.

I apologize. I am running late for another commitment but I

wanted to stay because the disconnect that the chairman referenced a number of times, the way it came across to me in each

of your written testimonies is I believe—and I may have missed

one here or there—but in the four academy testimonies I only find

the words ‘‘crime’’ or ‘‘criminal conduct’’ referenced in one of the

four. ‘‘Inappropriate behavior,’’ ‘‘irresponsible behavior,’’ lots of

words about wrongful behavior, but only in the Air Force, General

Desjardins, I believe only in your testimony do I see an open acknowledgement for what we are talking about.

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. PLATTS. Criminal conduct. I think that is the disconnect that

we are missing here is, whether it is at a military academy or on

the streets of America, sexual assault, rape is criminal.

General Caslen, I appreciate you are in this job 1 week and

clearly you have a belief in doing right by the cadets, but in referencing your opening statement you are referencing the policy of

the institution and you say, ‘‘In general, our policy states that sexual assault is a leadership issue.’’ I would start by changing the

way we talk about this and say it is a criminal issue. The cadets

need to know that it is a sign of weakness as a leader to engage

in this conduct, but first and foremost it is a criminal issue which

we will pursue to its fullest and throw the book at you. I see that

as the disconnect here. Let’s call it what it is, a crime.

I think until America began to treat violence against women in

the home or any place for what it is, a crime, we didn’t really get

serious about it. I would encourage you. I believe I am accurate

that in three of your four testimonies the word ‘‘crime’’ does not appear. It is about unacceptable behavior. I think that is part of the

challenge we have.

I don’t doubt and I appreciate the efforts that each of your academies are making. I look at this hearing in several fashions. One

is as a member of this subcommittee in our oversight responsibilities, as one who has the privilege of nominating courageous and

dedicated men and women to the academies, and, probably most

importantly, as the parent of a 10-year old and 7 year old. My

thoughts as Ms. Davis testified were if I was her father I don’t

know I would have been very restrained. I would have been at the

Academy door seeking justice one way or another, which clearly

has not been achieved.

I hope that we can go forward. General Desjardins, your statement here referencing the increase of women attending the Air

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Force Academy, which is great to see, but you say clearly the parents of the Class of 2010 feel that the Academy is a safe place to

send their sons and daughters. I would imagine that Ms. Davis’

parents thought that they were sending their daughter to a safe

place, as well.

All of our institutions have a responsibility, and especially our

military academies. I think we need to be careful how we talk

about this issue and be frank about it. The more frank, the better,

especially to those midshipmen and to those cadets. They need to

know that we are not just talking about inappropriate behavior; we

are talking about criminal conduct.

I do thank each of you for your efforts. I do come away from this

hearing with the efforts being made that the experiences that Ms.

Davis, the horrific experiences that she experienced will not be repeated. That, in the end, will be up to you and those within your

chain of command to ensure it never is repeated.

I believe that we are on the right track, but call it what it is,

a crime, and treat it for what it is, a crime, and throw the book

at those individuals who truly are not leaders and not deserving to

wear the uniform of this Nation.

I thank each of you.

I do apologize. I need to run. It is so important. We are so grateful for those who are serving, and when we make our nominations

as an office I just cannot express my gratitude enough to the sons

and daughters and the parents who are sending their loved ones

to our academies and knowing what they will be going into, especially as I think was referenced in one of the testimonies, in a postSeptember 11th environment where we are a Nation at war.

Again, I thank each of you for your individual service throughout

your careers. Distinguished careers they are, and we are fortunate

to now have you in place of authority at these academies so we do

right by all of our men and women attending your academies.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank the gentleman very much.

We are going to go to Mrs. Maloney, and then we are going to

go to Mr. Van Hollen.

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to thank everyone for their testimony and for your service to our country, and I would like to focus

on the Defense Incident Based Reporting System, which I understand has been under development for 18 years; that is correct?

Dr. WHITLEY. We are developing a Defense case record management system which has only been in development for about a year.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, the DIBRS program that was around for a

long time, the Defense Incident Based Reporting System.

Dr. WHITLEY. I am sorry. I don’t have an answer for that, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, could you get an answer for the committee?

Dr. WHITLEY. I will get back to you and find out.

Mrs. MALONEY. And could you get us a report on where the

DIBRS system stands, what success rate it has had, exactly where

it stands?

Dr. WHITLEY. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. What system are you working on? The sexual assault data management system? Is that what you are working on?

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Dr. WHITLEY. We have created a system for sexual assault response coordinators to help them manage their caseload and track

victim care.

Mrs. MALONEY. OK. Could you explain how that system works?

Dr. WHITLEY. It is a data base. The only person that has access

to the entire data would be the sexual assault response coordinator

in the field. There was nothing in existence——

Mrs. MALONEY. Is the coordinator in what field?

Dr. WHITLEY. The installation. The sexual assault response coordinator. There is one at every installation.

Mrs. MALONEY. At all of the academies, you mean?

Dr. WHITLEY. Yes, by have sexual assault response coordinators,

and also I am talking about the entire Department of Defense.

Mrs. MALONEY. Now, this system will be for all of the academies

and the entire Department of Defense, so every man and woman

in the military, if they are assaulted, would be in this system?

Dr. WHITLEY. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. So it is program wide. What data is collected

about the victims in this system?

Dr. WHITLEY. Certainly the information about the incident, the

care that the victim receives. I don’t think it specifies exactly what

care, but it would account for how many times they went to counseling, if they sought medical care or had a forensic exam. It also

does keep up with what is happening to the offender, and——

Mrs. MALONEY. So it keeps four elements? Could you break it

down? Actually, I would like to see the system. I would like to see

how it is collected. So you have to have the name of the person in

it, right?

Dr. WHITLEY. We do.

Mrs. MALONEY. Can you go exactly through the elements of it for

the victims? So you have the name?

Dr. WHITLEY. And the last four of the Social Security number.

Mrs. MALONEY. OK.

Dr. WHITLEY. We do not have anything in our data base that

isn’t in another data base. In other words, criminal investigative offices have data bases, the medical has their data bases. This is an

attempt to bring all of that together.

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes.

Dr. WHITLEY. And it is a tool so that the SARC can manage their

caseload.

Mrs. MALONEY. I understand it, but I want to know specifically

what elements are in. The name, the last four digits, then the incident. Is that the time, date, and place?

Dr. WHITLEY. Exactly.

Mrs. MALONEY. And then the care that they’ve gotten.

Dr. WHITLEY. Right.

Mrs. MALONEY. And then the counseling they’ve gotten and any

forensic exam. So six elements are in it?

Dr. WHITLEY. There may be more that I have forgotten. But also,

because we require the commander to give the victim an update,

they also keep where they are with the case as far as what has

happened to the offender.

Mrs. MALONEY. So this is the victim. What elements do you keep

in for the offenders?

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Dr. WHITLEY. We do not put anything in the data base such as

the name of the offender unless they have been prosecuted and

found guilty.

Mrs. MALONEY. So the name of the offender is not even in there?

Dr. WHITLEY. Correct. But what we do, because we have to give

reports to the victim, we require that the victim be given reports

and updates on the case. We do keep up with that.

Mrs. MALONEY. So you don’t keep anything on the offender unless the offender is convicted; is that correct?

Dr. WHITLEY. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. So it is zero on the offender. Now, are all of the

academies sending information to this system now?

Dr. WHITLEY. Our system has not gone live yet. We have done

training. I recently came back. Last week we had a conference

where we trained over approximately 400 SARCs. We had set up

computer labs and we gave them hands-on training for the system.

So no, everyone has not been trained yet. That was a train the

trainer. The system will go live hopefully in July.

Mrs. MALONEY. It is going to go live in July. Well, let me tell you

something. Ever since Tailhook, the Women’s Caucus has been

working with the Department of Defense on developing this DIBRS

system. At other prior testimony a member of the Department of

Defense said it had been in process for 18 years. I would like the

background information on DIBRS which we have put in legislation

repeatedly, and for some reason it just never seems to be completed. If you could get back to us, we want to see the system exactly.

Dr. WHITLEY. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. If I could ask one question, Mr. Chairman, my

time is up, but on this to the academies?

Mr. SHAYS. You can have more time.

Dr. WHITLEY. Can I clarify that DIBRS does track criminal activity. The system that I brought up is a system that is a tool for the

sexual assault response coordinator just to help them manage their

caseload. There is two entirely different systems. But I will get you

the background on DIBRS as soon as we get back.

Mrs. MALONEY. What I’d like on DIBRS, which we were told from

the Department of Defense, tracked cases of rape, allegations, and

sexual violence, and I would like to know exactly what the elements are in DIBRS. We have been told by the Department of Defense repeatedly by people in charge of it that it would be completed by 2007. I’d like to ask the rear admiral, is your Academy

coordinated with DIBRS on sexual assaults at the Academy?

Admiral HIGGINS. Ma’am, currently our data is held by the Coast

Guard Investigative Service. We are aware of DIBRS and we are

willing to join once it becomes operational, but at this time, since

we are Department of Homeland Security, not Department of Defense, we are not involved in the creation of the program.

Mrs. MALONEY. But have they told you what elements you have

to collect in order to go into DIBRS? Have they given you a guideline of what elements are supposed to be collected by your Academy

to go into the DIBRS system?

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Admiral HIGGINS. Ma’am, I personally am not familiar with that,

but I can take that question for the record and we can get you an

official response back.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

Brigadier General, are you aware of the DIBRS system, the Defense Incident Based Reporting System?

General DESJARDINS. My lawyer behind me is, but I am not personally aware. I, again, can get you the information that you’d like.

Mrs. MALONEY. Are you processing your information into the

DIBRS system now?

General DESJARDINS. If not the Academy, specifically, it is being

done at the headquarters Air Force level. So we report to the Air

Force our statistics and they input it into the DIBRS system.

Mrs. MALONEY. OK. So the Air Force Academy is connected to

the Air Force that goes into the DIBRS system?

General DESJARDINS. As far as we know. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. The Coast Guard, you don’t even know if you are

connected to the DIBRS system?

Admiral HIGGINS. Ma’am, my understanding is we use our Coast

Guard Investigative Service data and we do send our data to DOD

for inclusion.

Mrs. MALONEY. You send your data, too?

Admiral HIGGINS. We send our data, but it comes from our

source that we collect and hold through our Coast Guard Investigative Service.

Mrs. MALONEY. So if you are sending it to DOD, I have to assume you are part of the DIBRS system, but get back to me.

Can you give me, Brigadier General, what elements—when you

keep a computer system you have specific elements of information

that goes into it. Does your attorney know the exact elements that

are going into DIBRS?

General DESJARDINS. Yes, ma’am. The case identification number, type of report, restricted or unrestricted, victim military affiliation, subject military affiliation, the offense alleged, and the victim’s name. That is masked for restricted cases.

Mrs. MALONEY. What information do you give to the DIBRS system on the—I will call it the rapist, the offender, the alleged rapist?

General DESJARDINS. Ma’am, I don’t know that and I don’t have

that information.

Mrs. MALONEY. Could you get it?

General DESJARDINS. On the accused?

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes, on the accused.

General DESJARDINS. I don’t have that information, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. Could you get that information back to the committee?

General DESJARDINS. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. And exactly how you are connected to this system, which I was told was 18 years.

Brigadier General, you have been busy. I saw you were anti-terrorism. We appreciate that. Does your attorney know if your are

connected to the DIBRS system?

General CASLEN. Here’s what I know right now, ma’am. Yes, we

are connected. It is connected through our criminal investigation

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division [CID]. Those are the ones that do the investigation, so it

is really for the prosecution piece. For the sexual assault response

coordinator, they are going to operate that same information that

goes into DIBRS, the same data base information that was just laid

out for you, but that same sort of information will go into the SATF

system, which is the system——

Mrs. MALONEY. I am interested in the DIBRS system. If you

could get back to me the elements.

Vice Admiral, I know my time is up, but I have to ask. Are you

connected to the DIBRS system?

Admiral REMPT. We are not directly connected. Our Naval criminal Investigative Service [NCIS], collects data on all of its cases

and I believe they submit to it. We also submit personnel incident

reports on all the cases that arise.

Mrs. MALONEY. Can you get back to me? So the Navy has finished your reporting system?

Admiral REMPT. We have several different reporting systems.

Mrs. MALONEY. The DIBRS reporting system.

Admiral REMPT. I don’t know that, ma’am. I will have to get back

to you.

Mrs. MALONEY. I was told that the Naval Academy has not participated and is not participating in the system. Could you get back

to me exactly?

Admiral REMPT. Certainly.

Mrs. MALONEY. Where it stands?

Admiral REMPT. Yes.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. The Chair would recognize Mr. Kucinich. I think he

has a question.

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank Mr. Van Hollen for indulging me

for a second and thank the Chair.

Brigadier General——

Mr. SHAYS. We have two.

Mr. KUCINICH [continuing]. Actually I was out of the building

and the thought occurred to me. Maybe the question has already

been answered, but I just had to come back and ask this.

Mr. SHAYS. Is this Air Force or——

Mr. KUCINICH. The Air Force, Desjardins.

Has Cadet Davis’ record been expunged?

General DESJARDINS. Sir, I don’t know that answer. She resigned

from the Air Force Academy, so——

Mr. KUCINICH. She testified that she had demerits for sex in the

dorms because the rape took place in the dormitory, fraternization

because the rapist was an upperclassman, alcohol because in a

written statement the perpetrator was buying alcohol for her

under-aged peers. Has that record been expunged?

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir. Those things that happen as a

cadet that are those kinds of cadet actions, if you will, fraternization, sex in the dorms, those are cadet incidents, if you will. Those

don’t follow them.

Mr. SHAYS. Can I just say that is really an uncomfortable answer. The implication is the other way. Sometimes they should

count. I mean, that is the whole point of this hearing. I am sorry

to interrupt my colleague, but we have two interests. One, we want

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to move forward, but we do care about Ms. Davis’ record because

she came before this subcommittee and basically has been told that

she reports rape and now she is blamed for having sex in the dorm.

Hello? So I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. KUCINICH. So then, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, so how is this handled then? How is her record handled? If an employer in the future wants to go and inquire of the

Air Force about her time in the Air Force, what are they told?

General DESJARDINS. Sir, there are no records. When a cadet resigns from the Air Force Academy for such cadet incidents, if you

will, not crimes but cadet incidents, then their record is destroyed.

Mr. SHAYS. To be continued, all right? This is unsettling.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, members of

the committee.

Mr. SHAYS. The gentleman has the floor, Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I join my colleagues in thanking all of you for your service to our

country and for your testimony here today.

Let me just start where I think Ms. Davis left off, which is I

think she was clearly of the mind that in her particular case she

has still not seen any justice, and she also seemed in her testimony

to be clear that she’s not convinced that the system has been adequately changed to make sure that those who come through it now

are adequately protected.

If I could just begin with you, General Desjardins, with respect

to Ms. Davis’ case and the particular individuals who, according to

her testimony, clearly failed her and the interest of justice—and

she named a number of individuals in the immediate chain of command—have any of them ever faced any question or disciplinary

action regarding their failure to follow through appropriately with

respect to her allegations?

General DESJARDINS. Sir, as I stated, this was all brought to

light in 2003, and the Secretary of the Air Force indicated and took

action because he had lost confidence in the leadership at the Air

Force Academy.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Right. Do we know whether any of the specific

individuals in her case——

General DESJARDINS. Sir——

Mr. VAN HOLLEN [continuing]. In the chain of command——

General DESJARDINS. I am not aware of any.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. Because I think that the test here, as I

said earlier, with respect to whether the system is changed to respond appropriately is whether it responds when the spotlight is

not on the system. I mean, after Tailhook and the hearings that

were held after Tailhook, yes, people were disciplined. After 2003

and the publicity that surrounded what happened at the Air Force

Academy, yes, there was action. I guess my question—and I ask all

of the members of our panel here—do you know of any case where

someone in the chain of command has been disciplined for their

failure to take appropriate action, for their failure to make sure

that justice was served, because in all these cases clearly the testimony suggests that there are many instances or have, at least in

the past 10 years, been many instances where people have dropped

the ball and been negligent in their duty. And so my question is:

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outside of Tailhook, just as part of the normal day-to-day process,

are you aware of anybody who has been disciplined for failure to

protect the interests of the victims of sexual assaults or sexual harassment? That is a question for each of the members of the panel.

General DESJARDINS. Sir, I know that both the Air Force and the

Department of Defense Investigating General reviewed Cadet

Davis’ case. In no cases but one there were no derelictions found.

So an internal Department of Defense investigating general and

the Air Force investigating general looked at Cadet Davis’ case and

in none of these investigations but one was there any dereliction

of duty found.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. I mean, if I could just enter——

Mr. SHAYS. On the part of whom, if the gentleman would yield,

just so we are clear.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. As to dereliction on the part of the—on the attackers

or——

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. On the leadership, the immediate leadership

of the Air Force Academy at that time.

Mr. SHAYS. So you are speaking code? In other words, the person

who raped her was not found to have raped her?

General DESJARDINS. No, sir. The chain of command—the question was, was there anyone held accountable, was I aware of anyone that was held accountable in the Cadet Davis case, and there

were two investigations, one by the Headquarters Air Force Inspector General, one by the Department of Defense Inspector General,

and only in one case of one leader was any dereliction of duty determined or found.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank you. With respect to the other cases

of sexual harassment and assault—and we have heard back at the

time of the 2005 report, the Task Force Report, that listed the

number of occasions where there have been allegations of sexual

assault and sexual harassment—in any of those other cases, to

your knowledge has anybody been held accountable for dereliction

of duty in failing to prosecute these cases appropriately? I would

just go right down the line if we could begin with you, Rear Admiral.

Admiral HIGGINS. Sir, I am not aware of any cases at the Coast

Guard Academy. In the last several years there has been one case

in the field of a supervising officer who did an inappropriate investigation, but that was not at the Coast Guard Academy.

General DESJARDINS. Sir, for the Air Force Academy, no

derelictions were found except the one mentioned.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

General CASLEN. Sir, I am not aware but that is probably not appropriate since I haven’t been there that long. My folks said that

they are not aware of any incidents that resulted in this, but that

is not to say there weren’t any. But I can clearly state that, not

only because of the events of today but the events of what has transpired and the policies that the institution has now put in place,

that type of command climate is not an acceptable command climate. This is a policy that is clear is a zero tolerance policy with

regard to this, so that type of behavior occurs, you can trust that

I believe I speak for all my colleagues at the table here that our

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leadership will take action as a result of that, and I know we will

at the U.S. Military Academy.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Admiral REMPT. Sir, I have not had to discipline anyone for failure to act responsibly in this area. In fact, my observation is I have

a highly motivated staff who work this issue with great heart and

compassion and determination.

The commandant and I routinely review the judgment of junior

officers to ensure consistency in the maintenance of standards at

the Academy, and certainly in this area where there is misconduct

or harassment occurs.

In the area of harassment, I have, in fact, disciplined a senior

officer, faculty members, others, as well.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. For harassment, itself?

Admiral REMPT. For harassment. That is correct, sir.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you. I think that as I listened to Ms.

Davis and the testimony that others have given in this area, they

are looking for a sort of signal on behalf of the institutions that

dereliction of duty and failure to adequately and appropriately address these issues will be addressed appropriately, beyond just the

individuals who committed the crimes or committed sexual harassment. I appreciate the commitment here everybody has, but I think

the numbers from the past at least suggest that in the past this

has not been dealt with in any really serious fashion, so we look

forward to going forward with a change of attitude. I appreciate

your testimony in that regard.

If I could just ask with respect to the line of questioning that my

colleague Mr. Platts was pursuing, you do get, throughout this

whole area, a sense that this has been treated in the academies

somewhat as a violation of regulations and rules rather than a violation of the criminal law. I guess would you object if we ended up

handling this as a normal criminal procedure? For example, if

somebody in one of your academies calls the local police to report

a sexual assault, do you have an objection to the local police coming

onto one of the service academies and investigating it like they

would any other citizen of the United States in a similar situation?

Admiral REMPT. We certainly have had a number of cases where

we have jointly investigated them with the local police, county

sheriff, D.C. police, etc., so we have MOUs in place. We do a number of joint things together in that regard.

I think what is important here, sir, is that typically the sexual

assault cases that are reported reflect what are really national

characters of alleged sexual assault cases. They are perpetrated

against an acquisition and they involve two people, normally behind closed doors with no witnesses, and they often involve the use

of alcohol. Because of these factors they impact the availability of

evidence that is necessary to prove that an offense occurred when

they are taken to military or civilian court. It is frustrating to us

in that we frequently are unable to develop evidence. But, of

course, that is not our task. Our task is to evaluate the evidence

that is, in fact, developed.

In these courts, the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable

doubt, which is a purposefully very high constitutional standard.

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That is why so few of these accusations result in sufficient evidence

to take the matter to military or civilian court.

What we see at the Naval Academy in the cases that we have

are one-night stands and failed relationships or failing relationships and alcohol-fueled events. Our circumstances are such that

we certainly, in my experience there thus far, I have not seen the

level of cases that we were talking about earlier. So I agree that

we should call crimes crimes and criminal cases criminal cases,

but, as it turns out, in the majority of these cases it is very, very

difficult to come to that conclusion.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I understand that, Admiral, but I think our

normal criminal justice system every day has to address these

same kind of issues——

Admiral REMPT. Right.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN [continuing]. Every day through our criminal

courts, and the question is: why should they be addressed any differently with respect to these kind of allegations that happen with

respect to actions taken on the service academy campus? I’d be interested in the policy with respect to each of the service academies.

If something happens, if someone on campus, if Ms. Davis was to

have picked up the phone and called the police to report a sexual

assault on the service academy campus, are the local police welcome to come on the campus——

Admiral REMPT. Yes, sir.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN [continuing]. Investigate the crime in the normal course and prosecute that individual in the local court system?

Admiral REMPT. They are certainly welcome to do that. We

would probably assist them, work together as a team, but we would

have no problem with that. It is straightforward. We have an

agreement in place to do exactly that.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. They can come right on campus and do that?

Admiral REMPT. Yes. Let me make one other point on this. In a

recent case that was handled by the D.C. Police, ended up going

to the prosecuting attorney in the District of Columbia, they ended

up turning it down for lack of evidence. They didn’t want to proceed with the case. We took the case back to the Academy and that

is one of our court martial cases that we are currently proceeding

with. So what we try to do is find the best way to proceed that we

can in all of these cases, realizing that one of our primary responsibilities is to protect the rights of the accused, and that is very important to us.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I understand.

General CASLEN. Sir, thank you for the question. Actually, I really like Mr. Platts’ suggestion when he told us that sexual assault

is a leadership issue. He challenged that and said that sexual assault was a criminal issue that would be prosecuted to its fullest.

I think that is a fair suggestion and we will take that back and

we will have our lawyers and our policy people review it. I think

there is some goodness in that we should incorporate that and communicate strategically out to our corps.

As I say, we are developing the memorandum of understanding

that we will work with the local authorities and what that looks

like.

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Our cadets are under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and

as such when a criminal offense occurs they should be prosecuted

under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Having said that, we

have worked on a couple of occasions with local authorities or even

not local authorities, for example, the Miami Police, Washington,

DC, Police, and the New York City Police, for crimes that were

committed in their jurisdiction. We work with them.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I understand. I am specifically referring to

crimes committed or allegations made with respect to things that

happened on the facilities and campus of the Academy and whether

or not you would be willing to have the local police investigate and

prosecute those cases in the normal course.

General CASLEN. I think what I should get you is a copy of the

current memorandum of understanding so that it will lay the specifics out so I won’t speak out of turn for what they are, but personally I would say I think that is a fair suggestion, even the one that

you are suggesting, and that we ought to take that into consideration. But let me offer for the record the full MOU and what it

states.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I would appreciate that. Thank you.

General DESJARDINS. Sir, the Air Force would have no objection;

however, in the past the local community often defers to the Air

Force because we can do an investigation a little bit more quickly,

more swiftly, and a more complete investigation. By conducting our

own investigation—and, again, we work on a case-by-case basis

with the circumstances of the particular incident—but by conducting our own investigation in courts it gives a big sign to the victims

that we consider this a crime.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

Admiral HIGGINS. Sir, I would like to take that question for the

record, but I will say that the local authorities in New London, CT,

work with the Coast Guard Investigative Service. I do not believe

that the New London Authorities would come on to the Coast

Guard Academy without discussing with CGIS first. An article 32

is like a grand jury, and that can be the convening authority, could

be a civilian police department or the Coast Guard Investigative

Service. But I would like to give your question an answer for the

record on that.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I appreciate that.

I will just close with this, Mr. Chairman. I think that the testimony we heard from Ms. Davis was clearly indicated that there

was not confidence in the system through the regular chain of command to prosecute and fully investigate these issues. So if the

academies would at least allow as an alternative the local authorities, who are obviously not in the chain of command, who would

be hopefully not part of whatever pressures may or may not exist

within that chain of command, it seems to me that might instill

greater confidence in the process if that was an option available to

people. So I appreciate the responses we have gotten. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the questions of the subcommittee members.

I am pretty convinced that we have a huge problem that is underneath the surface and that the fact that no one really sees the incredible outrage of a young woman who basically was raped and

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testified she’s raped, asks for help, discloses that she was raped in

a dorm where liquor was involved, and she’s out and the person

who raped her is still in and progressing through the system, to

hear all of you congratulate her for her courage, but courage is one

of the things she should be congratulated for, but what she basically said was there was, particularly at the Air Force Academy,

a huge tolerance.

To have been told by her fellow cadet women that you will probably be raped, but you can’t talk about it because you will lose your

commission, and she ends up talking about it finally and loses her

opportunity to have a commission, somehow we are just like ships

passing in the night here.

I was waiting for someone in the Air Force Academy to say, ‘‘You

know what? We want this young lady back. With courage like that,

we want her back.’’ Then give her the opportunity to say no thank

you, but say, ‘‘We want you back. You are the kind of person we

want in the Academy.’’ I would have loved to have seen that.

This subcommittee has two objectives: one, to make a difference

in what happened and to investigate potential cases like Ms. Davis

and make sure that she is made whole. I have religion on that.

I will start with you, Dr. Whitley. I have no confidence in DOD

for the simple fact that we had this, the Defense Task Force on

Sexual Harassment and Violence. They did their job, but Public

Law 108–375, subtitle K, Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces,

made it very clear this would be the first, and then what was to

happen after, Ms. Whitley?

Dr. WHITLEY. There is supposed to be another task force as a

transition from that one to examine sexual assault in the military

services.

Mr. SHAYS. And when did they complete this work?

Dr. WHITLEY. Almost a year ago.

Mr. SHAYS. Almost a year ago. Some time in the fall, correct?

Dr. WHITLEY. Right.

Mr. SHAYS. Almost a year. So why should I have confidence that

the Department of Defense takes this seriously when the law requires you, the Department of Defense, to have a task force on sexual harassment and violence in the military, why should I take seriously any of this dialog when that hasn’t occurred?

Dr. WHITLEY. I can tell you, sir, the infrastructure is in place.

They have a staff. The staff has been doing data calls and collecting data, doing research. I don’t know a lot about how the selection

process is going, because it would be a conflict of interest for me

because——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just tell you, though, the law said that this

had to be completed, but it didn’t say they had to start to find people afterwards. They could have been ready to go as soon as this

report had been submitted if the Department of Defense was serious, but the Department of Defense can’t be serious because if they

were they would have done this. So I believe that DOD is just simply giving us a very real message, ‘‘It ain’t a priority.’’ That is what

I get.

Dr. WHITLEY. Well, if I could take the opportunity to just go over

the chronology of how things have happened since that——

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Mr. SHAYS. No, I don’t want you to. I want you to tell me why

this hasn’t been done.

Dr. WHITLEY. I know the decisions on who will be on that task

force is being considered at the highest levels of my leadership and

they are taking their time to make sure they find the right people

and it is not an easy process.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. That is silly. They’ve have 2

years, because the law was written and passed October 28, 2004.

That is embarrassing to say, you know, they haven’t had time.

They don’t take it seriously.

Dr. WHITLEY. I will take that back to my leadership, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. What this subcommittee is going to do is it is going

to have another hearing fairly soon. We are going to meet with a

number of victims privately. We are going to have them tell us

their story. We are going to have them sign papers that allow us

to get all the information that we need from the academies, and

the academies will be required to provide us how they have dealt

with every case, and there can’t be any argument that this is confidential because we will have a sign-off. That is how we are going

to proceed.

I think everybody’s heart in theory is in the right place, but I

don’t think there is really a sense of how you all came across to

me in telling me that you congratulate Ms. Davis for her courage.

What does that mean? I would like to know, Admiral Higgins, what

does it mean by congratulating her for her courage.

Admiral HIGGINS. Well, I think I am not terribly proud 5 years

ago of the Coast Guard’s policy or our responses. I think recently

we have taken it much more seriously. We have better policies

now. We have better integration with the local system. We have

better training for our people. But it is going to continue to be a

problem if we don’t get reports. I look forward to the day when our

number of reports are identical to the Miles Foundation, because

some of our folks still don’t feel comfortable coming forward, and

until the atmosphere is that good—we still need people to come forward. They need to tell their difficult stories so we can act on that

difficult story and make progress. I hope to see the day when our

numbers are identical to the Miles Foundation, because that means

our folks trust us as much as they trust the Miles Foundation.

I think it is important that we do consider these folks as heroes

and courageous for coming forward. It is very difficult for them to

do that. Without that suffering, unfortunately, we are not going to

make as good a progress.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, there is a huge disincentive for her to come forward. I mean, she’s the one who is out, and the one who raped her

is in. There is a huge irony in that. The fact that you can’t prove

the rape does not mean that the reality is that he’s in and she’s

out.

General Desjardins.

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir, her perpetrator was discharged

from the Air Force Academy.

Mr. SHAYS. Because of that case?

General DESJARDINS. Subsequent cases.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

General DESJARDINS. Subsequent issues.

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Mr. SHAYS. Think about it. Not because of her case.

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. So she stepped forward. When you said to me and to

this subcommittee that there is no record because these kinds of

things are viewed not as significant because they happened—whatever, I am assuming because they are college kids, and, that was

like another disconnect that I had in the testimony. The reason

why it shouldn’t be a record is what? Do you believe her? Do you

congratulate her on her courage but don’t believe her? That is what

I am missing in here.

General DESJARDINS. Sir, I absolutely believe her.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

General DESJARDINS. I absolutely believe her and it was very

painful for me to sit through her testimony, so I absolutely believe

her.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. So the fact is she should have no record

because of why? Because you just get rid of these, or because of

what? Shouldn’t there be a proactive acknowledgement? Has there

been any acknowledgement to her, not publicly but in writing, that

these have been dismissed because the complaints against her were

found the be warrantless?

General DESJARDINS. Sir, in fact, we keep in contact with Cadet

Davis and, in fact, she recently, when we heard about this hearing,

she spoke with our former vice commandant for policy, Colonel Deb

Gray.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand you have stayed in contact. I want to

know does she have any document that she can turn to that says,

‘‘Thank you for your courage, because there is a record.’’ You said

it, but, ‘‘Thank you for your courage. We want you to know that

all charges against you were dropped because they were without

merit, and we apologize that they were ever there.’’ Is there any

kind of letter like that?

General DESJARDINS. Sir, what she went through—and, in fact,

we learned so many lessons from her case. One of the things that

we have done because of her case and the discipline that she was

faced with, the discipline action that she was faced with while we

were investigating the sexual assault is now we have a completely

different process now.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand the impact of her case. I want to know

has anyone provided her a document like what I described, or even,

as you describe it now, congratulated her for helping to change

what takes place at the Air Force Academy? Does she have such

a document?

General DESJARDINS. Sir, I am not aware of any document that

was given to her.

Mr. SHAYS. Maybe you want to think about that.

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just ask, is there anything that any of you

want to put on the record before we adjourn? Excuse me. Let me

do this. Let me turn to Mrs. Maloney. Let me then turn to have

the professional staff ask a question.

I am going to do this. Mrs. Maloney, this is out of protocol. I hope

I don’t pay the penalty, but I am going to ask you to take the chair

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because I don’t want to end this hearing and I have to leave, so

I am going to ask you to sit here and take the Chair.

Mrs. MALONEY [presiding]. Thank you.

First of all I would like to ask unanimous consent to place in the

record press reports and testimonials of other women that have

had experiences similar to Beth Davis. Without objection, so ordered.

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Mrs. MALONEY. I would also like to place in the record an information paper that was given to me by Tom Jones, who is the legislative liaison for the Department of Defense. It is on the DIBRS

system. I keep coming back to it because if you don’t have a record

of what happens, you don’t have an understanding of the extent of

the problem.

Congress passed legislation in 1988 calling upon the Department

of Defense to maintain a centralized data base on crimes throughout the military and the academies. I am focusing in particular on

sexual assault, which was the focus of this, and the elements that

are in the DIBRS system. According to this memorandum, the

Army is now participating in the DIBRS system, and you will be

getting back to us the exact elements that pertain to it in the academies. The Air Force is up to date and participating, and your attorney is going to get back to us the exact elements that you are

sending to the DIBRS system and that are maintained in it. I understand the Navy is converting from another system. There will

be a little bit of time before you get up to it, but you should be up

and reporting by June 2007, according to this information paper

from DOD.

The question that I would ask, I have been told by the Department of Defense through a series of task forces and meetings that

they will have the DIBRS system fully implemented by January 1,

2007. Do you believe that this is possible, that it can be up and

running? I will ask you, Admiral, yes or no.

Admiral HIGGINS. I can’t answer that question, ma’am. I am not

familiar enough with the system to say.

Mrs. MALONEY. Brigadier General, it is wonderful to call a

woman a brigadier general. Congratulations on your career.

General DESJARDINS. Thank you, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. Congratulations to all of you.

General DESJARDINS. Thank you, ma’am, and yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. You will. Do you believe, Brigadier General, that

this will be——

General CASLEN. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. And Vice Admiral.

Admiral REMPT. I don’t know enough about the system to answer

that, ma’am. I will have to give you that for the record.

Mrs. MALONEY. Could you get back to us once you check on this.

Admiral REMPT. Yes.

Mrs. MALONEY. What I find incredibly disturbing, on top of the

personal stories that I have heard, is that a mandate, a directive

of Congress has been totally ignored by one of the most efficient departments in the entire country, maybe the entire world, and it

goes back to the sentiments of my friend here, the chairman, and

the gentleman over there that spoke so passionately about it. It is

a crime and it should be treated as a crime.

We have passed legislation over and over and over again asking

to keep the data, and for some reason it can’t happen. Ultimately

the Department of Defense is headed by the Secretary of Defense.

It is his responsibility to make things happen. I am considering

putting in legislation that if this system is not up and operating

by January 1, 2007, that we begin to dock the pay of the Secretary

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of Defense. There is absolutely no excuse. Congress has written

about this, requested it, legislated it for 18 years.

What I find so disturbing, the military has led this country on

major reforms. I come from a military family. My father served in

World War II. My brother served in the Army in Vietnam. My

brother-in-law is a graduate of your great institution, the Naval

Academy. Some of the finest young people in my District ask for

appointments to your establishments. They turn down some of the

finest universities in the country to go to the Naval Academy, West

Point, the Air Force Academy. Why you can’t get a culture that respects the rights of every individual, that if you are raped your

case is going to be listened to, is just beyond me.

I want to go back to the point that my colleague raised on having

the civilians take more of a roll. As it was explained to me by many

military leaders, our goal is to win a war. Our goal is a line of command. It is very important. But if you are not in a war zone, why

use your resources on this? Why not let the local police department

come in and handle allegations of sexual assault and let that happen, as opposed to really what has turned into a scandal, an absolute recurring scandal?

The stories, many people are disturbed by the story of Ms. Davis

today. I have heard stories for 10 years that have come into my office that are exactly the same photocopy of what she’s saying today,

and yet the change doesn’t happen. Civil rights in this country first

took place in the military. We led the country in civil rights reform.

I keep waiting for the military to lead the country in equality of

rights for men and women and basic respect, and I am incredibly

disappointed.

The one thing I totally agree with Secretary Rumsfeld—and I

don’t usually agree with Secretary Rumsfeld—but he said that sexual assault in the military would not be tolerated. Well, it is hard

for me to believe that he really believes that if you can’t even get

the Secretarial data base system that would track the depth and

challenge of the problem in place. I don’t doubt for a second if the

Department of Defense wanted this to happen it would happen tomorrow, because they can make things happen and I have seen

them make things happen, and I am extremely disturbed by the

lack of seriousness on this.

I just want to ask you, basically, why do you feel we haven’t been

able to get a data base system running? Why do you feel that we

have testimony like we heard today from an outstanding young

woman who probably could have gone to any university in the

United States and chose the Air Force Academy? You report a

crime and you are ostracized? There is something wrong with the

culture in a community for that to happen in the finest institutions

in America.

I would like, starting with you, Brigadier General, you are part

of the system. You were the first woman in a pretty wonderful legacy that your life represents, to be the first class in the Air Force

Academy, to now head the Air Force Academy. Why is this? I am

sure you have read the reports on the Air Force Academy. I assume

that they have never been refused, so I assume that they are accurate. How has this happened?

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General DESJARDINS. Ma’am, back in 2003 it was difficult to

watch, but I think that, having been put in this position now and

having those events of 2003, I would like to refer to Ms. Beth Davis

as not a victim but as a change agent. I think that we all agree

and we are all working very, very hard to correct those problems,

those issues, to learn from them and really be relentless in pursuing, eliminating sexual assault, providing care for our victims of

sexual assault, and allowing them to report where they are not ostracized, where our victims are not harassed, where our victims are

free to report without getting disciplined for other collateral kinds

of issues until the sexual assault investigation is complete, and

continue to educate and train and turn this tide.

We are all, all of the academies, all of the services, this came to

light in 2003, and we are all incredibly aware now and working toward progress.

Mrs. MALONEY. One last question. Do you think we should pass

a legislation similar to whistleblower protection for victims of sexual assault, that they will not be victimized further and punished

for having reported? We have to do that to protect whistleblowers

in the Federal Government and in the private sector. Do we need

to have a law to protect women and men who report sexual assault,

that they will not be punished for having spoken up for their

rights?

General DESJARDINS. Ma’am, it certainly bears consideration.

Mrs. MALONEY. Would anyone like to comment further?

[No response.]

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS [presiding]. Thank you all for your patience. We are

almost done. I will have a question after the professional staff.

Ms. FIORENTINO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question for Vice

Admiral Rodney Rempt, you had mentioned there were 60 accusations at the Naval Academy and only 9 substantiated as sexual assault charges. The question is, you said six were referred to a court

martial but three were referred for an administrative hearing. Why

was a substantiated sexual assault charge put into an administrative hearing instead of a court martial, and how are those administrative hearings handled in regards to sexual assault claims and

accusations?

Admiral REMPT. Sure. Each case is, obviously, unique and viewed

for its facts and the severity and the situation with the victim and

what is the best thing to do in every case. As I mentioned, in nine

of the cases—and this is over a period of time. I don’t have personal knowledge on several of them which occurred before I was assigned as superintendent, but over that period of time decisions

were made in each case as to how to proceed. Obviously, our goal

is to hold perpetrators accountable. We have to follow the legal procedures correctly. It is very important that each case be given the

light of day with respect to the legal process, and we are very careful to do that. Those decisions are made very deliberately.

Ms. FIORENTINO. It is still a little unclear about the use of an administrative hearing when it has been substantiated as sexual assault, charges are legitimate somewhat.

Admiral REMPT. It may depend on the gravity. The definition of

sexual assault includes unwanted kissing, unwanted touching. It

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depends on the circumstances that are involved. I think that is

what you would find if we looked through the record.

Mr. SHAYS. What I would like to do is I would like to ask each

of you how Ms. Davis’ case would be handled today, and I am going

to read some of her testimony.

She said, ‘‘As has now become known, I was raped and assaulted

repeatedly my freshman year by a superior cadet in my squadron.

In a situation where I was blackmailed, degraded, and threatened

daily, I found myself utterly distraught. In earlier sexual assault

briefings during my basic cadet training, upperclass women cadets

informed us that it was very likely that we would be raped or sexually assaulted during our time at the Academy, and they instructed

us that, if we were attacked, to not report it to the authorities because it would effectively destroy our careers.’’

Well, she was right about that, wasn’t she?

‘‘Images of those women flashed through my mind and deterred

me from immediately reporting these crimes to my commanding officer. I remembered my pride in getting accepted to the Academy

and I dreamt of the day I would graduate and fly in my jet in defense of my country. I thought that was all I needed to survive the

grueling physical, military, and academic tests and challenges I endured every day. But these dreams couldn’t carry me through the

pain I was suffering at the hands of my superior. I began to get

sick frequently and developed inhibitions and phobias that made

the work demand at the Academy unbearable. Finally, after realizing that nothing could possibly hurt more than the pain I was enduring, then I broke down—’’ that is an interesting phrase to say

I broke down—‘‘I broke down and went to the Office of Special Investigations, OSI, with my story.’’

I will stop in a second.

‘‘The OSI commander sat engrossed as I sopped tears from my

eyes reciting every wretched detail from the first time months after

the last incident.’’

This person comes in to you, said, ‘‘I was raped repeatedly,’’ said,

‘‘I was blackmailed, I was degraded, and threatened daily.’’ She is

obviously very distraught. And she, in fact, informs you that her

fellow female cadets told her not to bring a complaint forward because it would probably mean—which is exactly what happened to

her—that she would be out.

Now, I want each of you to tell me how now, in your academies,

what she had to deal with wouldn’t have been dealt with the way

it was.

I think I will start with you, Admiral.

Admiral REMPT. Yes, sir, I would be happy to relate. Our hope

would be that she would come forward, talk to a roommate, talk

to a savvy guide, one of our peer counselors, and inform people, or

to our SARC or other individual, and be counseled and encouraged

to report and assigned an advocate as we proceed through the process that will stick with her through the whole way.

Mr. SHAYS. This is what I am going to say, and this is no disrespect to you, Admiral, but as you say this I want you to visualize

our committee, whether it is Republican or Democrat, whether I

chair it or whether Mrs. Maloney does, having contact with cadets

now in the system.

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Admiral REMPT. Right.

Mr. SHAYS. This is all going to be a matter of public record.

Maybe a year or two from now or three there is going to be someone who looks exactly what you said, and there is going to be a

cadet who comes in and said how it actually happened. We hope

and pray it will be like what it is, but I want you to think of that

as you are saying this, OK?

Admiral REMPT. I am actually relating to you the most recent

cases and how they proceed in the Academy.

Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough. Good.

Admiral REMPT. We would then initiate an impartial investigation conducted by NCIS, which does not report to me, it reports to

the NCIS director, so I have no control over the investigation as

it proceeds.

Once we get the facts we make decisions as to how we proceed,

consulting with the victim, continuing to provide counseling and

support for the victim.

It is a pretty set forward process, and it is focused on support

to the victim as No. 1 priority, with the second being seeing if we

can get at the facts and develop the case.

I would like to make one other comment, sir, concerning Ms.

Davis. I agree that because of her and others we are all taking it

seriously. We are working this hard. We are making good progress.

Because of her, the situation she described 4 years ago is considerably different than what we see at the academies today. We have

a completely different circumstance.

For instance, we have more data. I have more data about all this

than I need. I don’t need more data. What I need is the ability to

educate and train and encourage and support our young men and

women as to how they should treat each other and ensure that culture is established there.

One of the questions that was raised of the earlier panel is:

would you recommend coming to the Academy to a friend? Well,

our most recent data of our survey——

Mr. SHAYS. I don’t want you to go down there right now.

Admiral REMPT. I want to mention one thing.

Mr. SHAYS. No, I let you mention it. I just want to know how the

system works right now, because I really want to go down the line.

You will have a chance to make your point. All I asked you, the

question I asked you, Admiral, was how it would be handled. You

will have a chance to make your other point before we adjourn.

How would this case be handled? I am sorry, Admiral. So this

individual brings a complaint. I will just say that it is Ms. Davis,

and she comes back and reports to you that the person who is

charged, the complaint she brought against, found out about it obviously because he was involved and questioned and he told some

of his fellow cadets and she started to receive some real anger on

the part of some of the cadets. How would you deal with that?

Admiral REMPT. If there was any physical or risk of any intimidation or ostracism, we would remove the accused midshipman

from Bancroft Hall.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you this: if he had disclosed that she had

done this, would that have been grounds for—if the man who was

alleged to have raped her in this theoretical case—well, in this case

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who raped her, told someone else that he was under investigation,

would he have been breaking part of the code?

Admiral REMPT. Not at all.

Mr. SHAYS. Why not? He’s allowed to tell his friends that a

charge has been brought against him?

Admiral REMPT. He’s free to say whatever he wishes.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, doesn’t that potentially put her at risk?

Admiral REMPT. Not in the cases that we have seen.

Mr. SHAYS. Maybe you don’t understand the question. I am not

trying to play a game. She brings a complaint. She comes in to

bring a complaint, a confidential complaint. In the process of your

investigating, and you have told no one else but that young man,

and that young man tells someone, then what privacy does she now

have?

Admiral REMPT. I can’t constrict what young men and women are

going to say, sir. There is no way I can do that. What I can do is

counsel them and provide them education and encourage them to

do the right thing.

Now, certainly this is one of the issues that we see day in and

day out in the press on these cases. The only information that gets

into the press is from the defense, from the one who is protecting

the accused. The reason is because they get access to the reports.

They are able to redact and provide information to the press that

covers their viewpoint in part. That is what we all see occurs in

the newspaper, because we are held to a higher standard, which is

providing privacy. We want to protect the accused’s rights, we want

to protect the individual who is a victim, we want to protect their

confidentiality. Every time we see this occur and repeated in the

press it undermines the willingness of young people to come forward and talk about very sensitive and private matters.

Mr. SHAYS. I am not quite sure of this one aspect, and the part

I am not sure of is, if you bring a complaint forward confidentially

and the accused then tells his friends that this female cadet is after

him, and then she starts to feel the pressure——

Admiral REMPT. If it is a confidential report, we would not initiate an investigation until the individual, the victim, is willing to

proceed and is willing to step away from what is now called a restricted report.

Mr. SHAYS. So, in other words, you don’t even contact and investigate until that cadet has given you permission?

Admiral REMPT. In the case of a restricted report where a victim

does not desire her name or his name revealed or any personal information, we have no basis to proceed on an investigation until

that occurs. We provide counseling, we provide advice, we provide

help for them to help them come to the decision to go to an unrestricted report so we can initiate an investigation.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you.

Admiral REMPT. OK.

Mr. SHAYS. General.

General CASLEN. Sir, I think it is a good question because it will

measure the effectiveness and give us an assessment of our sexual

assault prevention and response plan. Now that plan is put in

place, we are hoping—and hope is not the real course of action, but

we are hoping that it will have a significant impact on changing

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our culture, because I think if you get to the root of the issues, it

is the culture.

The first thing that we would like to see is how this incident was

reported, because that would give us some indicators and some

metrics for whether or not the culture is changing, because if the

cadets take responsibility for it and the cadets police immediately

their ranks in terms of the perpetrator and any other rumors, insinuations, and the fact that the cadet, itself, felt comfortable

enough, confident in the chain of command to report it, those are

cultural changing indicators. So I think the reporting thing is significant, and we will measure these in the future.

The first thing in how we handle this is victim care once it is reported, and that is the victim care, the victim’s right, the advocate

and other things, even what the vice admiral had mentioned.

The second piece is the investigation. That is the criminal investigation that will, exactly as the Admiral had said. The Army has

a criminal investigation detachment that works at CID, and then

they will refer to the superintendent, who has the convening authority for an article 32 investigation as necessary.

Let me point out that is a criminal investigation. I agree, I think

that is the proper way to proceed for this.

Third is the institution’s response. Besides the institution’s response for the protection of the victim, the institution has some recurring plans and programs that are in place. We have a monthly

sexual assessment review board that takes all the people in the entire institution—the doctors and the counselors and the chaplains—

and they are involved in sexual assault cases so that we look at

it from the victims’ standpoint and the proper care, and then we

look at it from the perpetrator’s standpoint and the progression of

the investigation.

We also have the cadet health promotion and wellness clinic that

works with the cadets. We meet on a monthly basis and get the reports back, as well. That is how that would be handled today, and

all of that is in accordance with the Military Academy Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Plan.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

General DESJARDINS. Sir, the process is the same at the Air

Force Academy. The one thing or two things that I would add is

the first thing when a person who thinks that they have been sexually assaulted reports to the SARC or the sexual assault response

coordinator, the first thing we do is believe her or him, because if

they believe that they have been sexually assaulted, perception is

reality. That is the first thing.

Then, as was indicated by Admiral Rempt and General Caslen,

we run through the restricted report and allow the victim to get

the care that he or she needs to get to a place where they can go

unrestricted and we can do a full, very thorough investigation and

get the perpetrator.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you of the ethics. If you believe that a

rape has occurred, if you believe that blackmail has occurred, if you

believe someone has been degraded and threatened daily, if you believe that and the victim, eventual survivor, isn’t willing to have

it go public, what do you do?

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General DESJARDINS. Well, that remains restricted then, and in

the restricted reporting realm, and so the best we can do is provide

her or him all the medical, physical, and counseling care to make

them well again that we can, within that very restricted guidelines.

But that has to be first. That victim care has to be first.

Mr. SHAYS. What about the perpetrator?

General DESJARDINS. Sir, if the individual who was assaulted is

unwilling to open up an investigation because she wants to maintain power, maintain control, then we have to respect that.

Mr. SHAYS. Wait. I don’t understand.

General DESJARDINS. If she or he wants to keep it in the restricted realm, so wants to be——

Mr. SHAYS. We are talking about the victim, whether it is a he

or she, right?

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

General DESJARDINS. So if they want to keep it in those confidential lines, then we really can’t do anything to get to the perpetrator. If she wants to maintain her——

Mr. SHAYS. I will come back to this.

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I realize you have given me a straightforward answer.

You had a question? Why don’t you jump in?

Mrs. MALONEY. With a restricted report, as I understand this is

a new development coming out of the DOD Task Force that you

have a restricted and non-restricted report. Is the restricted report

part of the DIBRS data base?

General CASLEN. No, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. It is not? OK. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to come back to this question though before we close up, but Admiral Higgins?

Admiral HIGGINS. I will answer the question in what happened

in a recent court martial case, Mr. Chairman. That victim came

forward with an unrestricted report. We simultaneously started

mental and physical health care for the victim and started an aggressive, professional investigation by our CGIS agents. In addition, in this particular case the perpetrator was quickly reassigned,

disenrolled from its classes, restricted to a certain part of the Coast

Guard Academy, and removed from the dormitory, so, to avoid contact with the victims as well as with other cadets, this member was

taken out of class, restricted to a part of the Academy, and taken

out of the dormitory. In that particular case, because of the issues

involved in that case, we did temporarily disenroll that member

from the classes.

We held an article 32 hearing when we got the evidence back

from the professional investigation. We had enough evidence to go

forward with the victim’s testimony to a court martial. That is how

the recent case was handled, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. You all are aware of the exceptions to confidentiality?

What would they be? We will start with you, Admiral Rempt.

Admiral REMPT. Certainly. There are a number of people who

have full confidentiality, which means that their discussions are

privileged. Those are normally the clergy, our chaplains, and our

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counselors in our Midshipmen Development Center. They are the

ones that have full confidentiality and are only ethically required

to report if they are aware of something that could be a future danger to someone.

Mr. SHAYS. Are you aware of any other exceptions? Anybody?

There are others? What are some others?

Admiral HIGGINS. Sir, our medical providers at the Coast Guard

Academy have limited confidentiality and, to some extent, the

PEER programs, the cadets against sexual assault, have some limited confidentiality.

Admiral REMPT. That would be the same thing at the Naval

Academy. We have designated individuals who have limited confidentiality who can receive a report but must, in fact, report the

fact that something has occurred without identifying information.

Mr. SHAYS. I am really not trying to test you, though it sounds

like it. I am just trying to have a dialog. If someone is raped and

is alleged to have raped others and has been involved in blackmail

and threatening activity on a daily basis, and the individual is not

willing to step forward, I make an assumption that some of the exemptions would apply. The command officer law enforcement disclosure is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent

threat to the health or safety of the victim or another person. I

mean, isn’t it very possible that if he raped one person he will rape

someone else? And so, I mean, you have to tell a potential victim

that they have confidentiality, but——

Admiral REMPT. Sir, you are asking us to make a big leap in assumption here, and that is why we are struggling.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Admiral REMPT. The leap that you are asking us to make is you

are saying a rape has occurred and someone had been blackmailed

and these events have occurred. We typically have no facts or data

to support that when we first hear about a case. We will hear

about a case that something has occurred. In order to get to the

point where we know that a violent crime has occurred, we have

to do some level of investigation. Otherwise, we have no information. That is what we struggle with, is whether the facts that we

are basing it on that will enable us to go to an article 32 will enable us to go to further disciplinary action. Until we develop that

information and that data, it is very hard.

Now, if we believe someone is at imminent risk, we will take immediate action to separate people, to isolate them, or to do what

is necessary to preserve their safety.

Mr. SHAYS. And I want to say obviously we have had very powerful testimony on the part of the young lady. I realize that not every

accusation is true, and I understand that. I understand that a rape

may, in fact, not have occurred. I understand that.

What I am just wrestling with is we have a process, it seems to

me, kind of unfolding because, frankly, if someone came to me and

I was aware that this person is violent and I believe the individual

that this is not the first person, she’s not the first person, I am

struck with the fact that I will want to know—you are told who

that person is, so you are aware of him.

I can’t believe that somehow there is not some oversight of that

individual just to make sure that individual doesn’t do something

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harmful. So it seems to me that we are putting you in a bit of a

quandary, and you have to use some judgment here. That is what

it seems.

Mrs. MALONEY. The FBI rates rape as the worst crime, preceded

only by murder, in the psychological damage and lasting impact on

an individual. In the private sector now most rapists are sick people. They strike seven to eight times. We passed legislation—it

happened to have been my legislation—that created a data base in

the FBI of DNA so that rapists could be tracked and put behind

bars.

What I think is troubling to some people is this particular man

that was eventually, after he abused several people. The problem

is if someone makes an allegation is there a way to track that this

person, even though you don’t convict this person, the allegation is

there so that if the allegation comes again and again and again and

again then the degree of probability is that this is a sick person.

I mean, that is what we do in the private sector now. We keep that

information, and if there is another attack we have the DNA to

build a case that this is the third reported rape, the DNA is there,

and the case is stronger.

I’d just give that as an example of what we are doing in the private sector. Again, this is a serious, serious crime. I have talked

to women who have been raped and they have never recovered.

They have not been able to function. They have not been able to

hold jobs. It is a very, very serious crime. So, to the extent we can

prevent another man or women from being violated and destroyed,

I think it is our civic and moral responsibility to do so.

So if you want to keep your military chain of command, then

maybe you should try to think of a way to sort of mirror what we

have done in the private sector so that you don’t get to the fifth

victim before you feel like you have enough evidence to remove

them from the military and convict them.

Admiral REMPT. I certainly didn’t mean to give you any impression that we are waiting around for evidence. We are going to move

on exactly what we know and what we are about. We are going to

move immediately in a case. Very few of our cases are——

Mrs. MALONEY. Admiral——

Admiral REMPT [continuing]. Of the type that are being described

by the admiral from the Coast Guard or in other cases. Most of

them are much more difficult to discern what has occurred.

Mrs. MALONEY. But the first step in building a case is maintaining an accurate data base. What I have learned today is the Navy

is not part of this data base. The Army and Air Force are. Now,

in the elements that are in the data base, the elements are put in

on the victim. Nothing is put in on the alleged rapist until he is

convicted. That is the difference with the civilian. The information

is put in on the allegation. So absolutely nothing, based on the testimony today, is put into that system.

Admiral REMPT. I am happy to report that, in fact, DNA is collected on every single person that comes to any one of the academies, so we should have a good data base for future cases.

Mrs. MALONEY. But not in the DIBRS system that keeps the information on rape. It is not in there. And then, as was testified by

all of you, you have now this dual system where you can decide

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whether your case goes forward or not. And even though you may

believe it and a person does not want to go forward, that particular

rape is not put into the system. That I see is problematic in maintaining accurate information of what is happening. Do you follow

what I am saying? And your response to that? Do you believe that

element should be in the system?

General DESJARDINS. Ma’am, we track restricted and unrestricted cases by case number, but, again, because it is a restricted

case, the whole idea—it is so important. I am sure you all know

the most important thing about victim care in a restricted report

is so that they, the victims, will not be revictimized before they are

ready to open up a full investigation. That is why the restricted reporting and getting the individual to a place where she is ready to

open up—we don’t want to go down the road of revictimizing someone who has undergone such a traumatic event, and so that is why

the restricted reporting is so important.

But we do keep track and, in fact, restricted reporting and unrestricted reporting, this process has been in place for almost a year,

since June 2005, for all the academies and for the Department of

Defense.

Mr. SHAYS. I want to clarify one point with you, Admiral Higgins. Given that you are under the Department of Homeland Security, how many of the 25 task forces, commissions, panels, and reports looked into the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Coast Guard

Academy?

Admiral HIGGINS. I know we participated in several. Sir, I would

have to get——

Mr. SHAYS. Would you provide that?

Some but not all?

Admiral HIGGINS. That is correct.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I feel in this last bit of time I have been functioning almost with a filibuster, but I think I have figured out why,

what I am wrestling with. It strikes me that one of the things that

the military is never willing to do is admit a mistake. They will do

it in an offhanded way by saying, ‘‘You know, Cadet Davis, you are

the reason why all these good things are happening,’’ but it doesn’t

happen directly. That is why I made reference to has anyone ever

given her a document that thanks her.

And then I began to think, if you all agree that the system

sucked before and it is getting better now, and you all agree that

it was really bad in the past, that tells me there are a lot of other

people like Ms. Davis that got really hurt badly. It would strike me

that one of the ways that you would help make cadets now have

comfort in the system, that you would go back in the past, try to

identify some of those individuals, exonerate them in a way that

is meaningful, maybe even invite them to the Academy in a way

that salutes them and honors them, but in a way that is so meaningful that female cadets now will say, ‘‘You know, the military is

taking this seriously.’’

I think until you are willing to not just acknowledge that mistakes were made in the past, but try to right some of those mistake, I don’t really think you are going to be believed. I just don’t

think you will be. That is kind of what I am getting out of this.

I believe that you all want to be believed, but I just think it is

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against your culture to want to say, ‘‘We screwed up. There are

people who were hurt. We are going to find out who they were and

we are going to try to make amends.’’ That would be a huge thing.

I am not holding my breath, but I tell you if you wanted to move

this process along faster that is my judgment of how it could happen.

Ms. Whitley, I didn’t allow you to make a point you wanted to

make earlier because I wanted to make sure you heard my point

about the task force, but I am happy to have any of you—I know,

Admiral, I interrupted you at a point where you wanted to describe

something. I don’t want you to leave here without you feeling that

you made the point that you need to make, and lord knows Carol

Maloney and I have been able to make the points we wanted to

make.

Dr. Whitley, what would you like to say?

Dr. WHITLEY. Well, I would like to thank you again for this opportunity and basically three points to kind of bring some things

together.

First, I would like to point out that the Department of Defense

office responsibility for this policy stood up just in October 2005.

That is how new this is.

Mr. SHAYS. That is helpful to know. Thank you.

Dr. WHITLEY. We also are outraged, just as you are, and my leadership is determined to do something about this. We recognize it

is a crime and we know we have a lot of work to do, and a lot of

that work will be in the area of prevention.

The second point I wanted to make is I am not sure everyone understands the benefits of restricted reporting. Victims come forward

that would not otherwise come forward, and for commanders in the

field they might not know who is sexually assaulted but they would

know that it is a problem in their unit or on their base and they

can take action. For example, they may put extra help in the barracks, they may install lighting. So we have more information than

we had before. And we all know that victims feel a loss of control

and power, and this restricted reporting option gives that back to

them.

Of course, we would like for them to come forward so that we can

go after the alleged offender, but sometimes just having that power

given back they can go away and gather the courage and gather

confidence in our system to come forward later. But also, even with

the restricted report, we can do a full forensic exam and keep the

data on file in case they come forward later. At least we get some

information.

And, finally, sir, I pledge to you that the Department will do everything we can. We do recognize it is a problem. I think we have

an extremely unique opportunity. It is a problem in society, but society doesn’t have some of the tools that we have. We can get to

every person in the Department of Defense, every cadet in every

academy, and we can train them and educate them, and that is

something that I don’t think society can do.

I am looking forward to the challenge ahead, and I pledge to you

the Department will do our best to make this not a problem.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. That was a very helpful statement. I am

very grateful you put it on the record. Thank you.

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Dr. WHITLEY. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Admiral.

Admiral REMPT. Sir, just to sum up, preventing and deterring

sexual harassment, misconduct, and assault are very complex

issues. There are no simple answers here. We take these issues extremely seriously. We encourage reporting. We investigate allegations. We do that objectively and fairly. We endeavor to protect the

confidentiality of the victims and the rights of the accused and the

privacy of both.

As I was mentioning before, we try to use all the data in our surveys and focus groups to learn what is actually occurring and applying our best leadership ability and programs to where we can

make a difference.

As I mentioned, on the panel raised earlier the question of would

you recommend going to the Academy to a friend. Well, in our last

survey, 91 percent of our men said yes, but 95 percent of our

women said yes. That is a pretty good indicator to me that the conditions are, in fact, improved over where they were a few years ago.

Since women were first admitted to the Academy in 1976, we

have come a long way, but we have to continue to improve. This

has our full focus and attention, and we are going to continue making solid progress.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

General CASLEN. Sir, thank you very much for the opportunity

to sit on your subcommittee. I certainly learned a lot and there is

a lot I am going to take back and we will implement those that we

need to. I think, in particular, your comment here at the end was

very interesting. We are studying that and I will take that back,

for sure, about going back in the past. I think it is very helpful.

In that regard, what we did here recently in April at the U.S.

Military Academy is that we had a Women’s Conference to celebrate 30 years of women at West Point. We had 410 ladies that

came back and participated. We had a number of sexual harassment/sexual assault panels that addressed some of these issues.

But I think it is worth, like you said, going back and digging in

and finding the ones we need to and restore some dignity and

honor that we need to.

Again, thank you for the invitation, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. General Caslen, thank you.

General Desjardins.

General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir. I have one correction to an earlier

question that you had asked. I answered it part right, part wrong.

It was I think Congressman Marchant asked how many court

martials we had since 2000 that dealt with sexual assault, and we

have had three. I said zero. We had zero convictions of rape. We

had one conviction of a lesser charge.

Again, I also want to thank the committee for asking us to come

here today. We will continue our journey to change the culture at

the Air Force Academy and embed the culture that is one of respect

for human dignity, respect for each other. We will continue to get

role models, women, in their contributions to the military, in their

contributions to our Nation, and continue in our journey.

Again, I thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. General Desjardins, thank you very much.

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General DESJARDINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. I appreciate your statement, as well.

Admiral Higgins.

Admiral HIGGINS. Mr. Chairman and Mrs. Maloney, I also thank

you for the opportunity to come here. I have also learned a lot, and

I pledge to take this and the Coast Guard will take this as seriously as you two take it. We do have lessons to learn. We try in

the Coast Guard to learn lessons on the run, and we will learn

these lessons, as well. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank you all very much.

Mrs. Maloney, any last comment?

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I just want to thank you, Mrs. Maloney, for

working on these issues for years and being so informative in making sure that this hearing was as helpful as I think it was because

of your presence.

Thank you all very much.

To our recorders, thank you for sitting in. I am sorry we have

kept you here so late.

This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 8 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger and

additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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