More Former Cadets Accuse US Coast Guard Academy of Failing to Prevent Campus Sexual Assaults
Associated Press | By Susan Haigh
Published October 30, 2024
Nine additional former cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy have formally accused overseers of the prestigious service academy of failing to prevent and properly address sexual violence on campus, while also covering it up. The claims, filed Wednesday, come more than a month after 13 former cadets filed similar federal complaints seeking $10 million apiece in damages. Many of latest unnamed plaintiffs contacted lawyers in the case after reading news accounts of the initial batch of administrative complaints filed against the Coast Guard; its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security; and its former parent agency, the Department of Transportation, attorney Christine Dunn said: “I am certain that these 22 are just the tip of the iceberg. I know that sexual assault has been taking place for decades at the Coast Guard Academy and that there are many survivors out there,” she said. The 22 include 20 women and two men. Dunn said she hopes and expects more former cadets who have been assaulted will come forward. “I want a whole army of survivors,” she said. “I think that the more people you have, the harder it is to ignore us.”
The complaints stem from incidents dating back to the 1980s and as recent as 2017. Several detail how the former cadets were assaulted in their dorm rooms by classmates who were able to gain entry because Academy policy prevented cadets from locking their doors. One former cadet described going to bed at night in a sleeping bag cinched tightly around her neck because she was so fearful of being sexually assaulted in her sleep.
“The Coast Guard negligently created, condoned, and actively concealed the rampant nature of sexual harassment and assault at the Academy, knowingly placing me and other cadets in danger,” wrote one of the nine new plaintiffs. “What happened to me was the entirely preventable result of the negligent actions,” wrote the woman, who said she was sexually assaulted twice during her time at the Academy — once by a classman and once by an officer. She was diagnosed years later with depression and PTSD related to Military Sexual Trauma or MST and now receives partial disability payments. The experience at the academy, she said, “ruined” her career and “negatively impacted” many relationships she has had over the years.
A message was left seeking comment with the Coast Guard. In statement released in September, officials said the service was barred by federal law from discussing the complaints and noted it is “devoting significant resources to improving prevention, victim support, and accountability. ”
The complaints follow revelations the Coast Guard kept secret a probe, called Operation Fouled Anchor, into sexual assault and harassment on campus. The investigation found that dozens of cases involving cadets from 1990 to 2006 had been mishandled by the school, including the prevention of some perpetrators from being prosecuted. The revelations, first reported by CNN, sparked calls for major reforms and long-awaited accountability for offenders and those who protected them. There are multiple government and congressional investigations underway looking into the mishandling of serious misbehavior at the school and beyond.
Coast Guard officials have previously said they are taking actionto change and improve the culture at the academy and in the service in response to the allegations raised in the Operation Fouled Anchor investigation.
Wednesday's filing marks the first in a multistep process of attempting to sue the federal government. After an administrative complaint is submitted, the agency that allegedly harmed the plaintiff gets six months or longer to investigate the claim. The agency can then settle or deny the claim. If a claim is denied, the plaintiff can then file a federal lawsuit, Dunn said.
Navy Exonerates Black Sailors Unfairly Convicted After World War II Disaster
New York Times: John Ismay
July 19, 2024,
On July 17, 1944, hundreds of sailors were loading ammunition onto two cargo ships in Port Chicago, Calif., not far from San Francisco, when an
explosion powerful enough to be felt 50 miles away killed 320 of the men, most of them Black.
More than 400 sailors were injured in the blast, the cause of which has never fully been determined.
When ordered to continue loading ammunition the next day, 258 Black sailors objected until safety conditions improved. All of them were subjected to a sham trial and convicted of various offenses, though most of them eventually agreed to return to work at the piers. The situation was so bereft of justice that Thurgood Marshall, who was then a lawyer for the N.A.A.C.P. and would later became a Supreme Court justice, attempted to intervene on their behalf.
The group of 50 men who continued to resist were given dishonorable discharges and jail sentences. They became known as the Port Chicago 50, and their case was used as a driver in the early days of the civil rights movement nationwide and helped lead to the desegregation of the armed forces.
On Wednesday, 80 years after the explosion at Port Chicago, the Navy secretary, Carlos Del Toro, officially exonerated all 258 Black sailors, none of whom are still alive.
“Today, the U.S. Navy is righting a historic wrong,” President Biden said in a statement after the announcement.
“The Port Chicago 50, and the hundreds who stood with them, may not be with us today, but their story lives on, a testament to the enduring power of courage and the unwavering pursuit of justice,” Mr. Del Toro said in a statement. “They stand as a beacon of hope, forever reminding us that even in the face of overwhelming odds, the fight for what’s right can and will prevail.”
An earlier petition to exonerate the men was rejected in 1994 by one of Mr. Del Toro’s predecessors, John H. Dalton.
In February, the Navy announced that it would name a new Virginia-class attack submarine in Mr. Dalton’s honor.
The men who served at Port Chicago did so in racially segregated units, with Black enlisted sailors and white officers.
According to a Navy history of the disaster and its aftermath, a report written by a court of inquiry convened after the explosion in 1944 “strongly implied that specific attributes — essentially the common racist stereotypes of the era — of the African American enlisted personnel had slowed training evolutions and day-to-day operations, and made them more difficult.”
“The report raised no questions concerning the white officers’ leadership responsibilities,” the Navy document added.
The exoneration came a week too late for Robert L. Allen, an emeritus professor of Ethnic Studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who interviewed scores of survivors for a book about the disaster that was published in 1989.
Mr. Allen died on July 10, according to Yulie Padmore, the executive director of the Port Chicago Alliance, which will hold a commemoration of the disaster’s 80th anniversary this weekend. Mr. Del Toro is expected to attend.
“Robert was aware that the secretary of the Navy was coming and that it was likely he was bringing good news, but we didn’t know for sure,” the Rev. Diana McDaniel, a close friend and colleague of Mr. Allen, said in an email.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III applauded the Navy secretary’s decision to exonerate the sailors.
“We honor the memory of the 320 dedicated Americans who lost their lives in the Port Chicago explosion,” he said in a statement, “and we honor the service of the 258 brave Americans who refused afterward to bend to racist and cruel treatment.”
In the future, we will no doubt be reading an article similar to this one but concering the Coast Guard’s longtime abuse of the Uncharacterized Discharge to punish junior enlisted “Coasties” in the absence of due process.
Blumenthal Releases New Report Featuring Dozens of Firsthand Accounts of Sexual Assault and Harassment in the Coast Guard
[NEW LONDON, CT - 08/07/2024)] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), released a majority staff report today highlighting firsthand accounts of Coast Guard enlisted personnel, officers, and Coast Guard Academy cadets who have experienced sexual assault, harassment, and other forms of misconduct. The report, A Pervasive Problem: Voices of Coast Guard Sexual Assault and Harassment Survivors, was released ahead of a field hearing in New London, Connecticut, featuring testimony from two current and three former members of the Coast Guard.
“The voices of these whistleblowers make clear that sexual assault and sexual harassment in the Coast Guard are fleet-wide problems, impacting enlisted members and officers just as pervasively as cadets. For far too long, Coast Guard survivors have felt unheard and unseen. They have been brushed aside and silenced. This report seeks to redress that harm,” Blumenthal wrote in a note from the Chair at the front of the report.
The report presents accounts from the more than 80 whistleblowers who came forward to report their personal experiences in the Coast Guard and at the Coast Guard Academy since PSI opened an inquiry into sexual misconduct within the Coast Guard in September 2023. These stories, spanning from the 1970s through the 2020s, depict systemic and ongoing failures at the Coast Guard Academy and in the Coast Guard.
Survivor stories received by PSI include common themes, describing a culture of ostracization, shaming, and disbelief that deterred victims of abuse from reporting – these experiences were compounded by reports of leadership specifically discouraging abuse victims from coming forward or threatening to punish those who did for unrelated misconduct. Survivors who did report their abuse often found the investigations retraumatizing and inadequate, frequently resulting in retaliation against the abuse victim and little to no accountability for perpetrators.
Sexual abuse survivors continued to experience mistreatment by the Coast Guard after reporting their assaults or harassment. Not only were some victims refused adequate medical care and services, others were denied the necessary documentation to access U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs services or refused their own records, impacting their ability to understand what happened to them and to move forward with their lives
In a note from the Chair preceding the report, Blumenthal called for additional accountability and transparency to address the ongoing sexual assault and harassment crisis within the Coast Guard.
“It is imperative that the Coast Guard uses all means available to hold accountable both individual perpetrators and the leadership that covered up their wrongdoing. And it is equally essential that the Coast Guard begins to leverage meaningful, swift, and consistent accountability against present and future perpetrators. The culture will not change until the Coast Guard makes clear that sexual assault and harassment will not be tolerated,” Blumenthal wrote.
“Nor will the culture change until the Coast Guard makes a meaningful commitment to transparency.”
“Until the Coast Guard is willing to fully reckon with its failures, it will remain tethered to them.”
In September 2023, PSI opened a bipartisan inquiry into the Coast Guard’s internal review of sexual assault and harassment cases that occurred between 1990 and 2006, which was called Operation Fouled Anchor. The Subcommittee’s inquiry has focused on the Coast Guard’s original mishandling of these cases and the Coast Guard’s failure to reveal Operation Fouled Anchor, and its associated report, to Congress and the public. The Subcommittee is also examining the ways in which the Coast Guard currently handles reports of sexual assault and harassment. In December, the Subcommittee held a hearing in which four current and former Coast Guard Academy cadets testified about the Coast Guard’s mishandling of their cases. In June, Admiral Linda Fagan, Commandant of the Coast Guard, testified before PSI.
1. The full text of the Senators’ initial letter to the Coast Guard is available here: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023-09-12-Blumenthal-and-Johnson-Letter-to-USCG-re-Operation-Fouled-Anchor.pdf
2. The letter from December 2023 is available here: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023-12-19-Blumenthal-and-Johnson-Letter-to-USCG.pdf
3. Video of the Subcommittee’s hearing in December featuring testimony from survivors can be viewed here: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hearings/coast-guard-academy-whistleblowers-stories-of-sexual-assault-and-harassment/
4.The Subcommittee’s February 2024 letter is available here: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024.02.14-Letter-from-Blumenthal-and-Johnson-to-Fagan-_Redacted.pdf
5.The Subcommittee’s hearing invitation to Admiral Fagan’s is available here: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024.04.25-Letter-from-PSI-to-USCG-and-Invitation-for-Admiral-Fagan.pdf
6.The video of the Admiral Fagan’s testimony in June 2024 is available here: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hearings/coast-guard-oversight-sexual-assault-and-harassment/
7. A livestream of Thursday's field hearing featuring testimony from five whistleblowers is available here: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hearings/coast-guard-oversight-sexual-assault-and-harassment/
US Coast Guard boss says she is not trying to hide the branch’s failure to handle sex assault cases
Associated Press
June 11, 2024
The commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard tried Tuesday to assure skeptical and frustrated U.S. senators that she is not attempting to cover up the branch’s failure to adequately handle cases of sexual assault and harassment at the service academy in Connecticut.
Admiral Linda L. Fagan said she is committed to “transparency and accountability” within the Coast Guard and is trying to cooperate with congressional investigations and provide requested documents while also abiding by the constraints of an ongoing Office of Inspector General investigation and victim privacy concerns.
“This is not a cover-up. I am committed to providing documents in good faith,” she told the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations during a 90-minute hearing in Washington. “This is an incredible organization ... I am committed to bringing the organization forward and making the culture change necessary.”
55 Coast Guard Academy cadets disciplined over homework cheating accusations
Associated Press
April 11, 2024
NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) — Fifty-five U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadets have been disciplined for sharing homework answers in violation of academy policy, Coast Guard officials announced.
After a series of disciplinary hearings, six of the cadets failed the course and 48 got lowered grades, officials said Wednesday.
The cadets were accused of cheating by sharing answers for two separate homework assignments electronically.
“The U.S. Coast Guard Academy is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity, honor, and accountability,” said Capt. Edward Hernaez, commandant of the academy. “Misconduct like this undermines trust and those found to have violated our principles were held accountable for their actions.”
The cadets will be provided the opportunity to appeal the disciplinary actions, officials said.
US Coast Guard service members don’t feel safe, new review says. Officials are promising changes
December 6, 2023
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — U.S. Coast Guard officials are promising reforms after an internal review sparked by reports of sexual assault and harassment found that “too many” of its members don’t feel safe and trust in leadership is eroding.
The wide-ranging 90-day review, released Wednesday, calls for an end to a “permissive environment” that extends to inappropriate jokes and comments, and a greater focus on preventing “inappropriate or unhealthy behavior” at the earliest stages.
Many of the recommendations in the report stem from interviews with hundreds of Coast Guard members at locations throughout the service, including from victims of sexual assault and harassment dating from the 1960s to the present.
“These victims expressed deep rooted feelings of pain and a loss of trust in the organization,” the report says. “Acknowledging this broken trust is an important first step in reestablishing it.”
CNN uncovered a damning, secret investigation into sexual assault at the US Coast Guard Academy. This woman’s case triggered that probe
By Melanie Hicken, Blake Ellis, Audrey Ash, Pamela Brown and Curt Devine, CNN
Wed July 12, 2023
The young Coast Guard officer was often seen crying. She had entered the US Coast Guard Academy with dreams of traveling the world, drawn to the agency’s missions of protecting the environment and saving lives. But her emotional displays following her academy graduation in 1998 prompted one superior officer to question whether she was suicidal. He noted his observations in her personnel file, she says, resulting in a negative evaluation that tarnished her career. Then, in September 2014, after being denied yet another a promotion, she said couldn’t help but tell a colleague what she says had been troubling her for so long: She had been raped more than a decade earlier by an upperclassman at the academy, but leaders there had failed to investigate. For years, as she silently struggled with the trauma of the attack, she was unable to advance in her career. Meanwhile, the man she said assaulted her saw his military career flourish.
After hearing the woman’s allegations, the colleague felt required to report them, launching what would become the US Coast Guard’s most sweeping investigation into sexual assaults at its academy. It exposed a disturbing history of rapes, assaults and other misconduct being ignored – and at times – covered up. The damning results of the probe, dubbed Operation Fouled Anchor, were kept secret for years until CNN, which had gained access to the findings, questioned the agency about its handling of the investigation. Those questions prompted the Coast Guard to brief Congress in recent weeks. Until then, the document was “very centrally controlled,” similar to how a classified report would be treated, a congressional aide told CNN. The aide said it was evident from the recent briefing that the Coast Guard had no intention of telling anyone about the probe until it became clear CNN would report on it. Then, in a remarkable move after CNN’s report last month, the Coast Guard Commandant and the academy superintendent issued public apologies for mishandling nearly two decades-worth of sexual assaults complaints. The damning results of Operation Fouled Anchor were kept secret for years.
CNN examined the Coast Guard’s investigation into the woman’s allegations and extensive court documents from her case and found that her case not only shows how the Coast Guard routinely dismissed serious sexual misconduct in the past, but also how its failures continued to reverberate and undercut the agency’s ability to hold those attackers and Coast Guard and academy leaders accountable years later. Linda Fagan, the Coast Guard’s first female commandant who took the helm after the operation came to a close, is slated to appear before a Senate budget hearing Thursday and will address the swirling controversy surrounding Operation Fouled Anchor, according to the agency. At the hearing, senators are set to press on how an inquiry that exposed so many cover-ups was, itself, covered up. The woman whose allegations prompted the investigation said in an interview with CNN that she feels a combination of “hopeful and pissed” that issues, which should have been addressed decades ago, are finally being spotlighted at a congressional level.
The case at the center of the probe
Within weeks of expressing her frustrations to her colleague in 2014, the woman met with a Coast Guard investigator to recount the events of a Saturday night in February 1997. The incident may have occurred 17 years earlier, but what she says happened was still fresh in her mind.
Cadet Edzel Mangahas had been her friend, she said, when she awoke to find him in her bed, smelling strongly of beer. When he made unwelcome sexual advances, she said she rolled herself into a fetal position to protect herself. But Mangahas continued to grope her. Then, she said, he raped her as she begged him to stop. At first, the woman said she decided against reporting what happened because she had seen fellow cadets report abuse “then later be processed for discharge as the men continued on in the service.” She says she did tell a school counselor in the hopes of getting support, but instead the woman told her that if she continued to seek counseling she could be kicked out of the academy or lose her officer commission for mental health reasons. So, she stayed silent.
A few months later, however, she learned that school officials were investigating Mangahas for allegedly raping another cadet, a freshman. She gathered the courage to report her own accusation against him. “I still remember how my tears felt as though they were burning scars into my face,” she would go on to write of the incident in an official statement given to academy leaders. The alleged assault of the freshman resulted in Coast Guard officials pushing Mangahas out of the service. Despite that action, Mangahas was able to receive his diploma and join the Air Force as an officer.
Outraged that Mangahas was able to remain in the military, the woman said she met with academy attorneys, Lt. Glenn Sulmasy, and Captain Thomas Mackell, questioning how he had been able to stay in the military. She said Sulmasy and Mackell then discouraged her from pursuing the issue any further — telling her she should instead focus on her graduation prospects, according to court records. Both men dispute her allegation.
Nearly 20 years later, the investigators working on the Fouled Anchor inquiry found the woman’s signed statement among old boxes in the academy’s law library. The boxes were labeled with Sulmasy’s name. As investigators dug deeper into the case, they gathered additional evidence to sustain the woman’s allegations against Mangahas. In October 2015, he was charged with rape in Air Force court martial proceedings. Mangahas was the first and only alleged assailant to face criminal or military charges as a result of the Fouled Anchor investigation. But a judge and then appeals court ruled that the government had waited too long to prosecute Mangahas and that the statute of limitations on his alleged rape had expired so the case against him was dismissed. The ruling was a blow to the Fouled Anchor investigation because it meant prosecutors no longer had the ability to pursue criminal charges against even those alleged perpetrators accused of rape whose alleged conduct dated back many years, if not decades, earlier. After Fouled Anchor came to a close, the Supreme Court ruled that there was no statute of limitations for rape cases brought by the military. But a Coast Guard spokesperson told CNN that the narrow Court Martial definition of rape from the 1980s that applied to the historical cases examined by the probe meant that the bulk of the alleged assaults remain off limits for prosecution. Mangahas, who had been put on leave during the court martial proceedings, now serves in the Pennsylvania Air National Guard after his time in the Air Force, according to a National Guard spokesperson. The Air Force did not comment on the prior case against him.
Mangahas’ attorney, Terri Zimmermann, was adamant to CNN that her client was innocent and said she believes that he would have been acquitted if his case went to trial. She said he had never been aware of the allegation against him until Fouled Anchor was underway. “How do you defend yourself after 17 years have gone by?” she said. She also noted that an officer at a preliminary hearing in the case had not found enough evidence to support moving forward with the case but the government had moved forward anyway. “I’m sure there were women who were raped and they handled those cases badly … It happens every day unfortunately,” she said. “There are officers who went on to graduate from the Coast Guard Academy that probably should have been investigated and prosecuted earlier. I don’t think Ed Mangahas is in that category.”
‘They set their precedent’
With criminal charges off the table, Fouled Anchor investigators turned their attention to finding any perpetrators who remained in the service to see if they could be held accountable administratively. But here, too, they found that the passage of time worked against them. Many of the suspects had retired or long ago left the Coast Guard. There were a handful, however, who remained on the job. The Coast Guard ultimately pushed out two high-ranking officers who had both been in line for promotions when Fouled Anchor unfolded.
One of them had been investigated for sexually assaulting fellow cadet, Kerry Karwan, while at the academy in 1995. The alleged perpetrator, a football player, had come to her room to borrow her headphones but refused to leave until she stood up and gave him a hug, she wrote in a journal entry she later turned over during Fouled Anchor. She agreed, but quickly pulled away after feeling his erection. According to Karwan, he bit her neck and groped her breasts before leaving her room. He warned her it would be easy for him to return since she didn’t have a roommate. Unable to lock the door to her room due to academy policies, she “booby trapped” it before going to sleep that night, according to her journal. She reported the cadet to school officials the next day even though she knew doing so could expose her to backlash from others on campus. “I couldn’t live with myself if I thought he was trying this (with) other girls,” she wrote in her journal.
"This episode is probably the most shameful, disgraceful incident of cover-up of sexual assault that I have seen in the United States military," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut. In the end, his punishment for his alleged assault included 75 demerits and an assignment to write a paper on the sexual harassment hearings involving now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, according to records. During the Fouled Anchor probe, records show that Karwan told investigators she had heard from other women who had been allegedly assaulted by her attacker while attending the academy. But they were too afraid to report what had happened after seeing how she was ostracized for coming forward, Karwan said. “If they had actually looked into it the way they should have, other women would have come forward and said something,” she told CNN. “Not only did they not handle it well, but then they set their precedent for how it was going to be handled.” Kerry Karwan reported her alleged attacker while still a student at the Coast Guard Academy. Records show that the Fouled Anchor investigation into Karwan’s alleged attacker ultimately looked into allegations from multiple victims, including one involving descriptions of rape.
While the Fouled Anchor investigation did not gather enough evidence to substantiate rape claims against him, investigators did find that he had committed indecent assault, but the statute of limitations prevented him from being charged in military court. The officer had been set to be promoted to captain, but instead, he was denied his command assignment and discreetly allowed to retire from the agency, according to records reviewed by CNN. Confidential records reviewed by CNN show that within Coast Guard headquarters, officials had crafted a detailed communication plan aimed at keeping the action against the officer under wraps — directing Coast Guard employees that even requests for information from Congress should be declined. “Evidence gathered through the Fouled Anchor investigation has led to a determination that the conduct of [the captain] while serving as a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy renders him unsuitable for command,” a communication plan stated. “Without an overriding public interest in the result of an administrative action, such as the relief of a commanding officer, these actions are not disclosed publicly due to privacy concerns.”
Years later, Karwan remains frustrated — that an alleged attacker was still able to retire honorably and that more wasn’t done as a result of Fouled Anchor, which she says put her safety at risk by encouraging her to take part in a recorded conversation with her alleged attacker “He is in the wrong, but I get to pay the price. I already endured retribution while at the Academy from reporting him the first time. I can only imagine to what levels of escalation this could be taken to,” she wrote in a 2018 letter to the then-Trump White House about the investigation. “The Coast Guard has ignored me, used me, humiliated me, endangered me … is this the ‘justice’ the investigation was supposed to achieve??”
Years of mishandling
As Fouled Anchor stretched on, investigators turned from looking at alleged rapists and other perpetrators to the academy leaders who had kept their reported assaults quiet. Agents interviewed 20 people who had served as senior officials at the academy and had a hand in how the cases were investigated and resolved, though some key people had passed away, records show. Ultimately Fouled Anchor found that the academy’s leadership “did not adequately investigate allegations as serious criminal matters and hold perpetrators appropriately accountable.”
Of 31 sexual assault allegations reported to the academy between 1990 and 2006, the Fouled Anchor probe determined only five had been reported for criminal investigations as required, according to a draft of the Fouled Anchor final report from 2019 reviewed by CNN. They “failed to take sufficient action to ensure a safe environment - particularly for female cadets - and failed to instill a culture intolerant of sexual misconduct,” the report stated about those at the helm in the 90s and early 2000s.
Following the publication of CNN's investigation into Fouled Anchor, the agency's leader, Fagan, sent a rare apology to the tens of thousands of people who make up the Coast Guard's workforce. Despite such a damning conclusion, Fouled Anchor resulted in no punishments for those leaders. “The ability to assign specific accountability was limited because none of these individuals remained subject to criminal or administrative actions, the evidence for the decisions made on these cases (most of which were over 20 years old) was incomplete, and the imprecise nature of the then-existing policies.”
Mackell and Sulmasy, the academy lawyers who allegedly met with the woman whose allegation sparked Fouled Anchor for example, were not subject to any public action against them. Sulmasy left the Coast Guard in 2015, and now serves as the president of Nichols College in Massachusetts. Sulmasy’s attorney disputed that Sulmasy had pressured Mangahas’ alleged victim, saying he “has no recollection of any such conversation from a quarter of a century ago, much less of having said anything that would discourage any cadet from putting another cadet on report for a serious criminal offense.” Mackell could not be reached for comment by CNN, but also disputed the woman’s allegations in interviews with Fouled Anchor investigators, according to court records, saying that he would have done more with her case if he thought she wanted him to.
Congressional scrutiny
The Fouled Anchor investigation, which was supposed to shed light on past cover-ups and abuses, was in the end covered-up as well. The records remained confidential for years and it wasn’t until CNN asked whether the agency’s congressional overseers were aware of the report that the Coast Guard actually briefed Congress. Karl Schultz, who led the agency when Operation Fouled Anchor came to a close, declined to comment to CNN, referring any questions to the agency. Following the publication of CNN’s investigation into Fouled Anchor, the agency’s leader, Fagan, sent a rare apology to the tens of thousands of people who make up the Coast Guard’s workforce. “By not taking appropriate action at the time, we may have further traumatized the victims, delayed access to care and recovery, and prevented some cases from being referred to the military justice system for appropriate accountability,” said Fagan, who herself graduated from the academy. “We own this failure.” But some members of Congress aren’t satisfied.
A Coast Guard spokesperson told CNN that the narrow Court Martial definition of rape from the 1980s that applied to the historical cases examined by the probe meant that the bulk of the alleged assaults remain off limits for prosecution. “This episode is probably the most shameful, disgraceful incident of cover-up of sexual assault that I have seen in the United States military,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, where the academy is based, told CNN this week. Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, meanwhile, sent a letter questioning both the lack of transparency around the probe and the lack of actions to hold both perpetrators and academy leaders accountable.
The senators are demanding a long list of information and documents related to the secret investigation, including the names of all substantiated perpetrators and academy officials investigated during the probe. A staffer with Baldwin’s office said the Coast Guard has not yet responded to the letter’s questions and document requests, though Baldwin plans to discuss Operation Fouled Anchor at Thursday’s hearing. The congressional aide interviewed by CNN said that staff has been researching potential actions, such as possibly stripping pensions from perpetrators, but that seeking accountability appears difficult because their pensions are written into law unless court martial convictions have been reached. Several congressional offices are still looking at ways to prevent this from happening again, according to multiple staffers.
Sen. Chris Murphy, also a Connecticut Democrat, is working on ways to include transparency requirements in upcoming legislation and has been calling for “anyone involved in this cover-up” to be fired. “For years, I have been calling on Coast Guard Academy leadership to be transparent about sexual assault on campus and get serious about reform,” he said in a tweet, referencing CNN’s investigation. “Instead, we now know they were deliberately hiding the truth.”
Coast Guard Is Short on Manpower, But Lack of Data Makes 'True Magnitude' Unknown, Watchdog Says
Military.com | By Rachel Nostrant (…with comments from the USCoastGuard.net staff)
Published November 14, 2023
The Coast Guard could be facing an even greater personnel shortage than current estimates suggest, testimony during a House hearing Tuesday revealed, but data and workplace assessment failures mean the exact number is unknown.
Lawmakers on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee suggested during the hearing that the Coast Guard was facing a 3,000-person shortfall. But according to the Government Accountability Office, it's likely thousands more because the Coast Guard has yet to conduct an entire branchwide manpower assessment. (…this speaks directly to the incompetence of USCG Human Resouces -CG-1 “led’ by Rear Admiral Joe Raymond, the Assistant Commandant for Military Personnel (CG-1M) and Dr. Mischell Navarro, the acting and all but invisible Assistant Commandant for Human Resources.)
"The Coast Guard estimates that it is short thousands of service members. Without workforce assessments (also known as doing their job), it does not know the true magnitude of the shortfall and which units or missions are most effective," Heather Macleod, the director of GAO's Homeland Security and Justice team, told the committee. Just 15% of workplace assessments have been completed for units across the service. (…so, in fact they’ve only done 15% of their job.)
A May report from the GAO suggested the Coast Guard is therefore closer to around 4,800 members short, marking the fourth consecutive fiscal year the branch has missed its recruiting goals. (…can you say “Blended Retirement”?)
The Coast Guard isn't alone in its personnel woes. Across the military branches, only the Marine Corps and the Space Force met their enlisted recruiting goals for 2023. The Army, Air Force and Navy, fell short. Every service -- excluding the Marine Corps -- missed some element of its target numbers, whether in reserve, National Guard or officer goals. (…can you spell “Blended Retirement”?)
Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., said budgetary concerns are largely to blame, and Coast Guard leadership was admonished during the hearing for not advocating better for funding. (…leaderdhip failures are not a result of sufficient funding; they’re a result of insufficient leadership!)
"While the underlying recruiting and retention problems have been exacerbated by larger workforce trends and our declining interest in military service (despite the uniforms, what’s military abou the Coast Guard?"), chronic underfunding is a major factor," Carbajal said. (…Bullshit.)
The Coast Guard's requested budget for fiscal 2024 was around $13.45 billion, including $12.05 billion to be spent at the discretion of the branch. Upgrades are being made to both the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, and Training Center Cape May in New Jersey as an approach to making sure the outward face of the branch is attractive to potential recruits and officer candidates, but Rear Adm. Jo-Ann Burdian, the assistant commandant for response policy, said the branch still needs more. (…the Coast Guard’s response to recruiting shortages is to beautify the Coast Guard Academy and fucking boot camp? Sure, boot camp will be so much better when the urinals are made by TOTO vice American Standard. Oh, and higher quality mattresses would be nice.)
"I think to be the Coast Guard of the future, by 2033, we would offer that we need to be a $20 billion Coast Guard," Burdian said. (…the Coast Guard NEEDS to be subordinate to the Dept. of the Navy!)
Shortages in Coast Guard personnel are particularly concerning as the demand for maritime interdiction missions have exploded over the last few years. The branch has three main law enforcement interdiction missions, including migration, drug and unregulated fishing. (…and they are failing at all three.)
In each of the last two fiscal years, the Coast Guard has interdicted more than 12,000 migrants attempting to cross the maritime border into the U.S., with a high concentration occurring near the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. (…in other words, in two years the Coast Guard has interdicted the same number of migrants attempting to cross the land border into the U.S. in a single day!)
Meanwhile, the branch has failed to meet its goal of interdicting 10% of the known cocaine flow for the last three years, despite having interdicted more than 800 metric tons of cocaine over the last five years, 130 of which were intercepted in 2022 alone. (…eighty-five percent or more of illicit cocaine goes from the drug’s major production centers in Colombia, by sea, to Central America or Mexico from where it enters the United States across the southwestern border, where most seizures of cocaine by U.S. authorities are made. Restated, 85% of the illicit cocaine entering the U.S. slipped pass the Coat Guard. )
The failure to address the personnel shortage and the ensuing degradation of mission capabilities will only continue to affect the branch's readiness, Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., said.
"It's just the reality of, you don't have enough people," he said. (… or competent leaders.)
FORBES BUSINESS AEROSPACE & DEFENSE
Personnel Shortage At U.S. Coast Guard Sinks 10 Cutters, 29 Stations
November 2nd, 2023
Senior Contributor
Recruitment and retention challenges have led the U.S. Coast Guard into a system-wide service retreat. A 3500-person shortfall—a nearly 10% shortage in the enlisted ranks—is forcing the Coast Guard to take ten cutters out of service, transfer five tugs to seasonal activation, and shutter 29 boat stations.
The moves, couched as a bland “AY 24 Force Alignment Initiative”, present an unprecedented loss of maritime capability at a time when the United States is facing an array of complex challenges at sea. But the Coast Guard simply “cannot maintain the same level of operations” going forward. Behind the scenes, the service is using the crisis to advance an array of modern management and personnel initiatives to help bring more people into the Coast Guard—and keep them there.
The cuts, coming as the Coast Guard has, according to Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan, “never been in greater demand around the world,” will hurt, but leaders were quick to assure the realignment will not cause a decay in existing Search and Rescue capabilities. But, at a minimum, the Coast Guard’s retreat does reduce redundancy and raises risk. The cuts will roil the enforcement of America’s maritime border, opening new and dangerous opportunities for migrants, drug smugglers and criminal networks.
The Coast Guard’s emergency service drawdown, however painful, is necessary. The Coast Guard’s underfunded and overworked force of 57,000 active duty and reserve personnel have been stretched thin for a long, long time. But Fagan’s decisive action, coming just days after the Coast Guard was boxed out of a $100 billion funding supplemental for security and the border, is more than just a prudent effort to redirect Coast Guard personnel towards 1700 mission-critical billets. It is a cry for help.
The Coast Guard certainly needs more funding, but, right now, it could breathe a lot easier if the service was given the flexibility to simply fund recruiting efforts and allowed to test out new personnel management approaches.
Service Cuts Hurt But They Are Needed:
Despite a brave face, the Coast Guard has struggled for years to keep remote bases operational and big cutters at sea. On land, bases would sometimes battle along with 60% of approved staff levels, with everyone busy and yet, no ability to do any of the many Coast Guard missions well. At sea, cutters often went on deployment short-handed or key personnel were yanked from shore assignments to help support the Coast Guard’s ferocious operational tempo afloat.
While the Coast Guard celebrates their personnel flexibility and an individual’s commitment to mission, the grinding uncertainty of constant “mission-juggling” aboard balky, hard-to-run platforms has taken a toll on morale, exacerbating the Coast Guard’s already-big retention challenges.
Admiral Fagan’s tough action to cut Coast Guard services is a healthy break from the past. Traditionally, Coast Guard personnel shortfalls were masked, spread across the fleet, leaving the short-handed cutter fleet to muddle through a blistering operational tempo and demanding mission requirements. Today, the Coast Guard’s newer and more capable vessels are designed for personnel efficiency, making them far less able to absorb random crew shortfalls. On a Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter, every member of the 24-person crew is essential. It’s how the Coast Guard is eking near-mid-endurance cutter performance out of a far smaller vessel.
The cuts ashore are, in part, driven by safety and redundancy concerns. There’s simply no way to operate a small boat team safely if it is short-handed. Given the staffing challenges, consolidating services in areas where the Coast Guard can still meet statutory search and rescue response expectations makes sense.
The Coast Guard’s action will be politically contentious, and it should be. The Coast Guard does need more help from supporters and stakeholders, and service cuts may just be the thing that forces potential Coast Guard advocates into action. While the capability cuts are galling, it is the only way forward. There’s no going back.
By cutting deeply now and accepting additional risk, the Coast Guard can keep America’s beloved sea service from collapse. But, as the Coast Guard starts implementing these massive cuts over the next year, it should, as more migrants drown and more smugglers begin moving more cocaine, fentanyl and other dangerous items into America from the sea, become very obvious that the Coast Guard needs more funding, more public support and more champions at every level of the U.S. government.
FORBES BUSINESS AEROSPACE & DEFENSE
Personnel Shortage At U.S. Coast Guard Sinks 10 Cutters, 29 Stations
November 2nd, 2023
Senior Contributor
Recruitment and retention challenges have led the U.S. Coast Guard into a system-wide service retreat. A 3500-person shortfall—a nearly 10% shortage in the enlisted ranks—is forcing the Coast Guard to take ten cutters out of service, transfer five tugs to seasonal activation, and shutter 29 boat stations.
The moves, couched as a bland “AY 24 Force Alignment Initiative”, present an unprecedented loss of maritime capability at a time when the United States is facing an array of complex challenges at sea. But the Coast Guard simply “cannot maintain the same level of operations” going forward. Behind the scenes, the service is using the crisis to advance an array of modern management and personnel initiatives to help bring more people into the Coast Guard—and keep them there.
The cuts, coming as the Coast Guard has, according to Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan, “never been in greater demand around the world,” will hurt, but leaders were quick to assure the realignment will not cause a decay in existing Search and Rescue capabilities. But, at a minimum, the Coast Guard’s retreat does reduce redundancy and raises risk. The cuts will roil the enforcement of America’s maritime border, opening new and dangerous opportunities for migrants, drug smugglers and criminal networks.
The Coast Guard’s emergency service drawdown, however painful, is necessary. The Coast Guard’s underfunded and overworked force of 57,000 active duty and reserve personnel have been stretched thin for a long, long time. But Fagan’s decisive action, coming just days after the Coast Guard was boxed out of a $100 billion funding supplemental for security and the border, is more than just a prudent effort to redirect Coast Guard personnel towards 1700 mission-critical billets. It is a cry for help.
The Coast Guard certainly needs more funding, but, right now, it could breathe a lot easier if the service was given the flexibility to simply fund recruiting efforts and allowed to test out new personnel management approaches.
Service Cuts Hurt But They Are Needed:
Despite a brave face, the Coast Guard has struggled for years to keep remote bases operational and big cutters at sea. On land, bases would sometimes battle along with 60% of approved staff levels, with everyone busy and yet, no ability to do any of the many Coast Guard missions well. At sea, cutters often went on deployment short-handed or key personnel were yanked from shore assignments to help support the Coast Guard’s ferocious operational tempo afloat.
While the Coast Guard celebrates their personnel flexibility and an individual’s commitment to mission, the grinding uncertainty of constant “mission-juggling” aboard balky, hard-to-run platforms has taken a toll on morale, exacerbating the Coast Guard’s already-big retention challenges.
Admiral Fagan’s tough action to cut Coast Guard services is a healthy break from the past. Traditionally, Coast Guard personnel shortfalls were masked, spread across the fleet, leaving the short-handed cutter fleet to muddle through a blistering operational tempo and demanding mission requirements. Today, the Coast Guard’s newer and more capable vessels are designed for personnel efficiency, making them far less able to absorb random crew shortfalls. On a Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter, every member of the 24-person crew is essential. It’s how the Coast Guard is eking near-mid-endurance cutter performance out of a far smaller vessel.
The cuts ashore are, in part, driven by safety and redundancy concerns. There’s simply no way to operate a small boat team safely if it is short-handed. Given the staffing challenges, consolidating services in areas where the Coast Guard can still meet statutory search and rescue response expectations makes sense.
The Coast Guard’s action will be politically contentious, and it should be. The Coast Guard does need more help from supporters and stakeholders, and service cuts may just be the thing that forces potential Coast Guard advocates into action. While the capability cuts are galling, it is the only way forward. There’s no going back.
By cutting deeply now and accepting additional risk, the Coast Guard can keep America’s beloved sea service from collapse. But, as the Coast Guard starts implementing these massive cuts over the next year, it should, as more migrants drown and more smugglers begin moving more cocaine, fentanyl and other dangerous items into America from the sea, become very obvious that the Coast Guard needs more funding, more public support and more champions at every level of the U.S. government.
Coast Guard suspends requirement for regular EERs for members in paygrades E1 – E-3
By Kyle Ford, MyCG Writer (…with comments from the USCoastGuard.net staff)
The Coast Guard recently removed the requirement for regular Enlisted Evaluation Reports (EER) for junior enlisted to reduce the administrative workload for supervisors allowing them to focus on mentoring and coaching. (… which means fewer evaluations upon which to base your discharge characterization.)
This change is in alignment with efforts to reduce administrative requirements across the service and will be reflected in the next revision of Enlistments, Evaluations, and Advancements, COMDTINST M1000.2 (series). (… less work for Personnel Service Center and your Servicing Personnel Office, likely at your expense.)
From 2018 to 2022, the Coast Guard processed a total of 33,722 EERs for just E3 paygrade personnel. Of these, 29,966 were categorized as Regular EERs. (… clearing the way for the awarding of Uncharacterized Discharges to undesignated Coastguardsmen with over one year of active duty.)
“This number highlights the intricacy and exhaustive nature of this administrative task,” said Lt. Jaimee Richter, Military Human Resources Specialist, Office of Military Policy and Standards (CG-1M1). “The elimination of E1-E3 regular EERs represents a significant reduction of an administratively heavy and time-consuming process.” (… and eliminates written feedback that can’t be denied after the fact.)
“The necessity for comprehensive and routine formal evaluations, particularly during the initial stages of a service member’s career is largely unnecessary,” added Richter. “That’s because the daily performance and tasking of junior personnel within these paygrades is typically subject to continuous and direct supervision that naturally serves to provide needed course correction and accountability.” (… so this Lieutenant with all of five years in the Coast Guard knows best?)
This Enlisted Evaluation System (EES) change will not adversely impact career or advancement opportunities of E1-E3 personnel. It will not affect “Good Conduct” eligibility or placement on Class ‘A’ school lists as long as personnel are otherwise eligible. (… and Lt. Richter based this assertion on what?)
What is not changing?
Performance-Based Unscheduled Enlisted Evaluation Reports remain available. Unscheduled EERs for disciplinary matters are still required as outlined in 4.2.c. of the Enlistments, Evaluations, and Advancements Instruction. (… but all the negative evaluations will remain.)
A Commanding Officer's Recommendation Change (CORC) may still be submitted to change a recommendation for advancement for any good and sufficient reason as outlined in 4.D.3.i. of the Enlistments, Evaluations, and Advancements Instruction.
Additionally, in situations where a Performance-Based Evaluation or CORC for loss of recommendation was submitted, a subsequent CORC is required to change the commanding officer’s (CO) recommendation before a member can advance or be placed on a Class ‘A’ school list.
In the event the member no longer holds a favorable recommendation, the CO must document this either via a CORC or, if justified IAW COMDTINST M1000.2, through a Performance-Based EER. Furthermore, in the event a Performance-Based EER or CORC has been submitted to indicate a loss of recommendation, a follow-up CORC is required to change the CO’s recommendation before the member is eligible to advance or be placed on a Class ‘A’ school list.
“It’s important to remember that even though Regular EERs are no longer required for junior enlisted, performance feedback remains a cornerstone of our commitment to professional growth and service excellence,” said Richter. (… verbal performance feedback that can be denied later.)
For more information visit the EES Page. For questions and comments, contact the Office of Military Personnel Policy COMDT (CG-1M1) at: HQS-PolicyandStandards@uscg.mil.
Coast Guard Academy banned a retired captain from its grounds after CNN reported he sexted a student. Now more allegations are surfacing.
CURT DEVINE, AUDREY ASH, MELANIE HICKEN, BLAKE ELLIS AND PAMELA BROWN, CNN
September 22, 2023 at 7:40 PM
The US Coast Guard Academy on Friday announced it had banned a retired captain from its grounds following a CNN report this week that revealed the captain, who is now president of a small college, exchanged hundreds of sexually suggestive messages with a student more than a decade ago.
Coast Guard attorneys had recommended prosecuting Glenn Sulmasy, who previously served as a department chair at the academy, on charges of conduct unbecoming an officer and willful dereliction of duty in 2016, even though he had retired eight months earlier. Coast Guard leaders rejected that recommendation and Sulmasy went on to have a successful career in academia, first as a provost at Bryant University in Rhode Island, and more recently as president of Nichols College in Massachusetts.
Also Friday, CNN obtained new documentation showing that Sulmasy’s alleged misconduct was more sweeping and involved another former student and subordinates, prompting Coast Guard officials to seek to demote his rank after he retired.
The case against Sulmasy was another example of the Coast Guard internally expressing concern about alleged sexual misconduct but ultimately choosing not to hold its service members accountable. Earlier this year, CNN reported on a secret investigation–dubbed Operation Fouled Anchor–that found dozens of sexual assaults and rapes at the Coast Guard Academy had been mishandled, and in some cases covered up.
Following CNN’s report on Sulmasy this week, the president of Bryant University released a statement that said Coast Guard officials contacted the president of the school in 2016 to revoke their prior recommendation of Sulmasy after completing an internal investigation. By then, Sulmasy had been hired and the then-president of Bryant University placed Sulmasy on probation. The statement did not say how long Sulmasy was on probation, nor whether the school had alerted Nichols College about the Coast Guard’s concerns.
A spokesperson for Bryant University did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. The chairman of the board of trustees at Nichols College said in a note to the campus last week, after inquiries from CNN, the school had launched a third-party investigation into the matter and that Sulmasy volunteered to take a leave of absence pending the results of that investigation.
An attorney for Sulmasy did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
CNN’s report this week revealed a Coast Guard prosecution memo from 2016, which detailed texts Sulmasy exchanged with a student in 2010 and 2011. A Coast Guard attorney wrote in the memo that Sulmasy “offered to give high grades and show favoritism in class in exchange for sexual banter.” Separately, Melissa McCafferty, a 2011 academy graduate, told CNN that Sulmasy verbally harassed her and texted her that he would only write her a recommendation letter for law school if she sent him pictures of herself.
Sulmasy’s attorney, Jeffrey Robbins, previously called McCafferty’s allegations “false” and said the prosecution memo was “ridiculous on its face.” Robbins also said that “the intimate texts in question” with the student were characterized by prosecutors as “consensual in nature” and added that the proposed prosecution had been “rightfully rejected by the adults within the legal wing of the Coast Guard.”
After publication of that story, CNN obtained a 2016 Coast Guard performance evaluation of Sulmasy that documented other misconduct allegations against him. In addition to sexual texts Sulmasy exchanged with a cadet in 2010 and 2011, he engaged in “flirtatious” and “inappropriate” communications with another former cadet in 2013 and made “sexist” and “inappropriate” comments to subordinates, according to the report, which concluded he committed an “abuse of positional power.”
“There is no abuse a military officer, a trustee of the public confidence, can commit that is more foul than use of the officer’s rank, position, and prestige for self-gratification at the expense of others,” the evaluation report stated.
The “toxic environment” created by Sulmasy “violated the Coast Guard’s sexual harassment and civil rights policies,” stated the report, which recommended his rank be reduced.
In a written response to the report, Sulmasy protested the recommended rank reduction and argued that the evaluation report should not be submitted because he had already retired. He also argued that his rank upon retirement could not be changed under US law and Coast Guard practice.
Coast Guard officials did not respond to requests for comment Friday. Earlier, however, an administrator with the Coast Guard Academy, Eva Van Camp, wrote in an email to the academy that allegations about Sulmasy had been referred to the Coast Guard Investigative Service and that he “will not be allowed aboard the Coast Guard Academy campus.”
“The United States Coast Guard holds every one of us to the highest personal and professional standards and does not tolerate abuse in any form,” Van Camp’s email stated.
He was investigated for sexting a student at the Coast Guard Academy. He’s now a college president.
By Melanie Hicken, Audrey Ash, Curt Devine, Blake Ellis and Pamela Brown
Published 4:29 PM EDT, Thu September 21, 2023
CNN —
A college president, who wants his campus to become the business school “of choice for women,” once exchanged hundreds of sexually suggestive messages with a student he taught at the prestigious Coast Guard Academy, prompting prosecutors to recommend charges against him in military court, according to confidential records obtained by CNN.
Attorneys at the Coast Guard were so troubled by Capt. Glenn Sulmasy’s actions — and by the fact that he continued to work with students — that they recommended in early 2016 that he be charged with conduct unbecoming an officer even though he had retired from the service the prior year.
“Prosecution appears to be the only proper course of action,” an attorney wrote in a February 2016 memo laying out the prosecution recommendation. Failing to act, the attorney added, could attract “significant negative publicity by the media, Congress and internal staff for the appearance of sweeping the case under the rug.”
Coast Guard leaders, however, quashed the case and never prosecuted Sulmasy, which allowed his career in private academia to flourish. He now heads Nichols College, a small school in Massachusetts that focuses on business and leadership education.
Sulmasy’s attorney, Jeffrey Robbins, defended his client, calling the prosecution memo, provided to him by CNN, “ridiculous on its face.” He noted that “the intimate texts in question” with the student were characterized by prosecutors as “consensual in nature” and said that the proposed prosecution had been “rightfully rejected by the adults within the legal wing of the Coast Guard.”
Following CNN inquiries, the chairman of the board of trustees at Nichols College said the school had launched an “impartial, third-party investigation into this matter” and that they take “these allegations very seriously.” In a note to the campus community last week, he said Sulmasy volunteered to take a leave of absence pending the results of that investigation.
The case from nearly a decade ago is another hidden example of the Coast Guard internally expressing concern about alleged misconduct but ultimately failing to hold its service members accountable.
“…prosecution appears to be the only proper course of action.” Coast Guard prosecutor
CNN in June uncovered a secret investigation of rapes and sexual assaults at the agency’s academy, which found that dozens of assaults had been mishandled, allowing some alleged sexual predators to ascend to high-level roles in the US military. The findings of that investigation, dubbed Operation Fouled Anchor, had been withheld from Congress until CNN reporters started making inquiries. And, CNN found that the agency’s top leaders had been behind the cover-up.
In the separate investigation into Sulmasy, Coast Guard investigators uncovered more than 1,600 texts between him and a young female student, the majority of which were of a “sexual or flirtatious nature,” demonstrating that “at best, he offered to give high grades and show favoritism in class in exchange for sexual banter, and at worst, he actually did so,” according to the internal Coast Guard prosecution memo.
The memo said the student told investigators she had earned the grades herself and denied any sexual contact with Sulmasy. It also described the young woman as a “willing participant” in the exchanges with Sulmasy and said she had been designated as a witness to his alleged misconduct and was not being granted the benefits given to victims of a crime.
The messages show Sulmasy, who also served as a department chair at the academy, commenting on how attracted he was to the student more than 20 years his junior, requesting photos of her and expressing his desire to “spoil” her. “I am… a good boy — no final for the goddess,” he wrote one night. “Just know that I will give u a 100,” he said about another assignment. “Do u luv turning me on…U really looked great and the nails were very hott.”
Coast Guard attorneys found that the “strong” evidence against him warranted prosecuting him in a military court-martial for conduct unbecoming an officer and willful dereliction of duty around eight months after he had retired from the academy and taken on an administrator role at a private university, records show.
While Sulmasy’s misconduct case centered on his interactions with one female cadet, attorneys wrote that “there are likely other students whom [Capt.] Sulmasy pursued,” saying that moving the case forward could possibly bring new women out of the shadows.
Attorneys noted in the prosecution memo that a court-martial of a retired officer was rare and said a successful prosecution for someone as well connected as Sulmasy was even more unlikely. But they argued that it was the “Coast Guard’s obligation to protect students and institutions.” If successful, such a prosecution could have stripped Sulmasy of his pension and landed him behind bars, though prosecutors noted securing the maximum punishment for the alleged misconduct was unlikely.
In the end, Coast Guard leaders overruled the prosecutors and decided not to press charges against Sulmasy, keeping the findings of the investigation from being made public. Sulmasy worked as provost at Bryant University for a number of years before leaving to become the president at Nichols College in Massachusetts in 2021. Bryant University did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
An academy graduate himself, Sulmasy worked at the academy for many years as an attorney, professor and eventually the head of the school’s humanities department. During the Fouled Anchor investigation, Sulmasy was mentioned by at least one woman who said he discouraged her from pursuing a rape complaint against another cadet while he was working at the school in the late 1990s, court records show. Fouled Anchor investigators found a statement she had made about her alleged attack years later in a box labeled with Sulmasy’s name.
A previous attorney for Sulmasy told CNN his client “has no recollection of any such conversation from a quarter of a century ago, much less of having said anything that would discourage any cadet from putting another cadet on report for a serious criminal offense.” His current attorney disputed that Sulmasy had ever been in a meeting with the woman, noting she told investigators she initially met with Sulmasy at a time before he had begun working at the academy. The attorney for Sulmasy pointed CNN to a 2016 ruling by a military judge who stated that the cadet reported her rape allegation to four Coast Guard Academy authorities, none of whom were Sulmasy. That ruling described Sulmasy’s boss as a “primary” individual with whom the woman spoke about her allegation in the 1990s.
In a 2017 court filing, however, military attorneys described Sulmasy as a “main witness” with whom the cadet talked about her rape allegation. In an interview with CNN, the woman said she specifically remembered meeting with Sulmasy about her allegation.
In the wake of CNN’s reporting on Fouled Anchor, the Coast Guard launched a review of its policies on assault and harassment and announced changes in how allegations are handled by the agency. And former vice commandant Charles Ray, who declined comment, resigned from his position at a Coast Guard Academy leadership institute after CNN reported he helped keep Fouled Anchor secret. Both House and Senate lawmakers have slammed the agency for keeping the investigation secret and called for independent investigations, with a Senate inquiry announced just last week. And House lawmakers have introduced legislation that would increase protections for academy cadets reporting sexual assault allegations.
CNN started asking questions and filed a public records request about the Coast Guard’s investigation into Sulmasy more than three months ago, but the agency has yet to provide any details of the investigation or explain why charges were not filed as recommended, saying last week that “legal constraints prevent the Coast Guard from commenting on personnel matters related to Mr. Sulmasy.”
Melissa McCafferty, a 2011 academy graduate, says it wasn’t long after arriving on campus that she began hearing a whisper network of warnings from upperclassmen about Sulmasy.
According to McCafferty, Sulmasy verbally harassed her, telling her she looked good in her pencil skirt and making sexual comments. As the harassment continued, she says she told a female professor at the academy, who was herself a Coast Guard sexual assault survivor, what had happened, but the woman warned that she should stay silent, saying Sulmasy was “untouchable” and that saying something could “jeopardize (her) career.”
After she graduated from the academy, McCafferty said she reached out to Sulmasy to see if he would write her a letter of recommendation for law school based on her academic performance at the academy. But in response, she remembers him texting back that he would only write her a letter if she sent him pictures of herself, telling her he had always loved her foot tattoo. “I stopped the conversation and found a letter elsewhere… It made me feel very dirty and disrespected and very dehumanized,” she said.
She said she saved the messages for years but was never asked about them so discarded the phone when she retired in 2019. She did, however, connect CNN to a former colleague who confirmed having viewed the text messages and that they came from a captain in the Coast Guard. The colleague, however, didn’t remember the captain’s name.
Sulmasy’s attorney told CNN that McCafferty’s allegations were “categorically false.”
The Coast Guard told CNN that it had referred allegations from McCafferty to Coast Guard criminal investigators after being contacted by CNN and urged “anyone who has experienced or observed assault or harassment within the Coast Guard to make reports to their command or to the Coast Guard Investigative Service.” McCafferty confirmed to CNN that she had been contacted by Coast Guard investigators about her allegations.
“They just wanted it to go away.” Melissa McCafferty, Coast Guard Academy graduate
Today, McCafferty, a recent Georgetown Law graduate, says she is still angry about the way she and other female students were treated and says it is unacceptable that the Coast Guard had an opportunity to hold Sulmasy accountable for his actions but didn’t.“A lot of these people were his friends. They went to school with him,” she said. “They just wanted it to go away.”
Forbes
Congress Blasts U.S. Coast Guard In An Unprecedented Hearing
Senior Contributor
July 17th, 2023
No Service chief likes to see a run-of-the-mill budget hearing turn into a brutal and public beat-down. But that’s what happened to the two top leaders of the U.S. Coast Guard.
On July 13, members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation took turns raging at the Coast Guard’s “heartbreaking, maddening, frustrating and intolerable” record of handling sexual assaults at the Coast Guard Academy. Furious legislators slapped the embattled Service with an Inspector General investigation and demanded greater accountability from a Coast Guard that is struggling to reconcile a demanding, zero-defect culture with an imperfect reality.
Fouled Anchor Fouls Up:
In the hearing, Committee members dropped a far-too-infrequent opportunity to support a larger Coast Guard budget to focus on Operation Fouled Anchor, a closely-held, years-long Coast Guard investigation into how the Coast Guard Academy handled sexual assault cases between 1988 and 2006.
In 2014, just as the Navy began working through their sprawling “Fat Leonard” scandal, the Coast Guard began digging into some long-buried allegations of sexual assault at the Coast Guard Academy, the college that trains most of the Coast Guard’s top leaders. The investigation snowballed, and, by 2020, investigators had uncovered more than sixty substantiated incidents of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. Few of the accused perpetrators—who had, by then, moved into top leadership posts—received more than light administrative punishments.
Unlike the Navy’s painful effort to hunt down potentially corrupt officers, Coast Guard leaders hid the Fouled Anchor report. It only revealed the scandal and investigation after CNN reporters, earlier this year, learned of the allegations and started asking questions. Even Admiral Fagan, the Coast Guard Commandant, was kept in the dark, apparently unaware of the “totality” of the Fouled Anchor investigation.
Senators were livid.
To her credit, Admiral Linda Fagan, the current Coast Guard Commandant, was contrite, recognizing the Service’s systemic failure to address sexual misconduct in the Service.
Fagan used the hearing to announce the start of a 90-day “accountability and transparency” review of the Service, led by a Flag Officer, aimed at understanding “what are the aspects of the culture that have allowed this to occur.” But the review, focusing predominantly upon sexual assault and harassment, is far too limited.
Culture Of The USCG Academy Is Coast Guard Culture:
If Coast Guard culture is what drove the Fouled Anchor scandal, then similar accountability and transparency challenges are percolating throughout the rest of the Service.
Fagan hinted at the scope of the Coast Guard’s problem with its corporate culture, telling the Senators, “It is clear to me that we’ve got a culture in areas that is permissive and allows sexual assaults, harassment, bullying, retaliation, that’s inconsistent with our core values. It is not the workforce that I want or expect.” When pressed, Fagan walked her statement back, redirecting her focus towards rooting out sexual assault and improving management of sexual assault allegations.
Fagan was wrong to back away and limit her concerns about the Coast Guard’s corporate culture. In a service that reassigns employees every two years, it is tough to believe a single facility is a behavioral outlier. If the Fouled Anchor scandal reflects wider Coast Guard culture, then similar behaviors reach well beyond the Coast Guard Academy gates.
And it isn’t just sexual assault. If, over a period of years, leaders at the Coast Guard Academy put their concerns for the Coast Guard’s image above the safety of Cadets, those same pressures are, in other commands, justifying the quashing casualty reports, the misrepresentation of estimates of completion, or the gaming of platform availability rates. If the Coast Guard is unable to acknowledge a major scandal, hiding the scope of the problem from senior officers, what else is the Service refusing to acknowledge to itself?
Chair of the Committee, Senator Maria Cantwell, bore down on the problem, wondering why the Commandant might not “have the ability to hold somebody accountable if they didn’t inform you or kept information from reaching the highest ranks.”
On the rare occasion Senators broke away from raging over the Fouled Anchor scandal, the Coast Guard’s ongoing struggle for accountability and transparency were on full display.
Fagan, when asked about the Offshore Patrol Cutter program, admitted some problems, saying, “There was a shafting issue that’s resulted in a delay of several weeks and we believe Argus will be launched by the end of this year and that’s a likely year delay in delivery date.”
That is, at best, an understatement. The Argus, the Coast Guard’s first Offshore Patrol Cutter, has been delayed for far more than “several weeks.” Last year, when Forbes.com broke news of the shafting issues, the Coast Guard stated the Argus launch ceremony “was originally scheduled to occur” in the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2022, between April 1 and June 30, 2022.
Today, the Argus is still high and dry, with no launch date in sight.
Fagan also failed to relate that the Argus was contractually due to deliver in June of 2023. Until the ramifications of the apparent contractual breach with the Argus are understood, and the vessel construction schedule is re-baselined, the Coast Guard has no real idea of when the first Offshore Patrol Cutter will leave the shipyard and enter service.
A Service that aspires to transparency and accountability should say as much. A failure to relate such problems eliminates any opportunity for Congress to intervene, either to help shipyards do better, or shaping future Coast Guard contracts to better align with best procurement and shipbuilding practices.
A discussion of Coast Guard personnel offered a similar story. While the Coast Guard is observing a welcome growth in recruitment numbers, Fagan said retention was “good” but then noted that the Coast Guard “have had a slight uptick—or sort of decrease—in retention in this past year.” Rather than provide details, Fagan stated, “I am satisfied with where our retention numbers are.”
In aggregate, the retention numbers may well look good. But some of the details are disturbing. Mid-level Coast Guard leaders, necessary to grow and guide the Service, are leaving the Coast Guard in enormous numbers. According to observers with access to Coast Guard personnel data, traditionally, only about 10% of Coast Guard Commanders file for retirement before being vetted for promotion to Captain. That retirement rate doubled during the COVID-19 epidemic, only to double again this year. Today, over 40% of the class of promotion-ready Coast Guard commanders decided to quit before even facing their promotion board.
That’s not a good sign. And, if it continues, it will be very hard for the Service to recover the lost pool of senior-level talent.
Coast Guard’s Corporate Culture Needs Reform:
The Academy scandal is likely not a one-off thing. When the Coast Guard cannot move accurate information up through its own Command Chain, and the assorted pressures of the Coast Guard’s zero-defect culture show signs of bending and breaking the Coast Guard’s core values of honor, respect and devotion to duty, it’s a problem.
Given the Senate’s response to the Fouled Anchor cover-up, Fagan, if she can strategically shape the IG investigation, has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to move the Coast Guard away from the pointless pursuit of a zero-defect culture, and towards a Service that acknowledges reality. It is important to teach every Coast Guard stakeholder that, in an underfunded, overtasked government agency, things can—and do—go wrong. Things break. Accidents happen.
And that is OK. Public confidence in the Coast Guard is a result of the Coast Guard’s core values. It doesn’t rest in sortie rates, or availability numbers or some other metric. Nobody doubts that the Coast Guard puts everything on the line every single day. And, for a Service that enjoys a well-deserved boost in public confidence after every big storm, the Coast Guard has a unique ability within the U.S. Government to acknowledge challenges, ride out scandals and fix big problems with little fear of long-term consequences. The Coast Guard’s efforts and devotion to duty are unquestioned. Rather than rely on cover-ups or artful debating tactics, greater openness and transparency, along with an effort to reflect the Coast Guard’s real day-to-day challenges, offer a route to a bigger and better Coast Guard.
With the IG Investigation, Congress has given Fagan the needle gun she needs to go after what she characterizes as “pockets of rust that need to be eliminated from the organization.” But Fagan needs to look beyond sexual assault and use the IG investigators to help the Coast Guard examine information flows from major procurements and operations, seeing how information gets into the Coast Guard headquarters.
Too many Coast Guard leaders are hiding their problems. They shouldn’t. There is nothing wrong with airing Coast Guard challenges and letting the public see how the Coast Guard fights every day to do good. A stronger overall Coast Guard focus on public accountability and transparency will resonate within Congress, leading to more money and help for this overtasked and underfunded Agency.
Put bluntly, openness is good for the Coast Guard. Use the IG investigation to clean house and get a fresh start. There’s nothing the American public loves more than an underdog that, when faced with failure, reorients to confront and overcome big challenges.Take a minute to write an introduction that is short, sweet, and to the point. If you sell something, use this space to describe it in detail and tell us why we should make a purchase. Tap into your creativity. You’ve got this.
Criminal investigation into Coast Guard Academy revealed years of sexual assault cover-ups, but findings were kept secret
By Blake Ellis, Melanie Hicken and Audrey Ash, CNN
Updated 10:42 AM EDT, Fri June 30, 2023
(CNN) — A secret investigation into alleged sexual abuse at the US Coast Guard Academy, the training ground for the Coast Guard’s top officers, uncovered a dark history of rapes, assaults and other serious misconduct being ignored and, at times, covered up by high-ranking officials.
The findings of the probe, dubbed “Operation Fouled Anchor,” were kept confidential by the agency’s top leadership for several years. Coast Guard officials briefed members of Congress this month after inquiries from CNN, which had reviewed internal documents from the probe.
Despite credible evidence of assaults dating back to the late 1980s, investigators found that most of the alleged perpetrators were not criminally investigated at the time. Instead, the incidents were handled as administrative violations, and punishments, if they happened at all, were as minor as extra homework or lowered class standings. Sometimes, even those pushed out of the academy were still able to serve in the US military.
As a result, some of the accused ascended to top roles at the Coast Guard and other military agencies.
In contrast, many alleged victims left the academy after reporting their assaults, ending their hopes of a career in the service.
“This investigation made clear that the [school’s] leadership was more concerned at that time about organizational and [Coast Guard Academy] reputation than about the victims of crimes who were members of our service,” a draft of the Fouled Anchor final report from 2019 said.
Sexual assault survivors said that what the academy put them through continued to affect their mental health, personal relationships and careers, according to records and interviews with CNN. They detailed suicide attempts, battles with depression and anxiety, emergency room visits and long lists of medications they have used to help them cope with the lingering trauma.
“Whose fault is it that he was still in the (Coast Guard) 20 (years) later? If I’m sounding frustrated it is because I am,” Kerry Karwan, a Coast Guard veteran whose allegations were part of the Fouled Anchor probe, wrote in a 2018 letter she sent to Coast Guard leaders and then-President Donald Trump about her alleged assailant.
“I upheld the Coast Guard Corps Values and an individual that assaulted me and other women retired honorably with higher benefits than I did…We are a service that saves people for a living. I’d like to think our own service members are people worth saving,” Karwan wrote.
The investigation was a historical reckoning of past abuses, but in some ways raises questions about the current culture of the academy and Coast Guard at large. While the agency partially blamed the poor handling of sexual misconduct investigations on outdated views of sexual assault and officials who had left the academy long ago, the Coast Guard continues to struggle to hold suspected sexual predators accountable, as a CNN investigation earlier this year revealed.
Despite findings of wrong doing against academy officials and former students, Operation Fouled Anchor was quietly closed by agency leaders, many of whom had studied and worked alongside the alleged perpetrators. Two accused perpetrators were discreetly pushed to retire from the Coast Guard, according to internal records reviewed by CNN.
Records show that there were nearly 40 cases where the Coast Guard no longer had jurisdiction over the alleged attackers and local and federal criminal statutes had long run out of time, so no action was taken at all.
The US Coast Guard did not initially respond to CNN’s inquiries about the handling of the probe, but said in a statement provided after publication that the probe was not “disclosed widely at the time.”
“We recognize that transparency is critical to building the trust not only of victims, but all cadets and personnel at the Academy, and we are committed, moving forward, to be open and transparent regarding the outcomes of this process and our efforts to prevent and address this scourge,” the agency said.
The agency also noted that improvements to sexual assault and harassment policies and investigative procedures had been improved in the years that followed the focus of the report.
“The Coast Guard fully recognizes that, by not having taken appropriate action at the time of the sexual assaults, the Coast Guard may have further traumatized the victims, delayed access to their care and recovery, and prevented some cases from being referred to the military justice system for appropriate accountability,” it said. “The Coast Guard owns this failure and apologizes to each of the victims and their loved ones.”
Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin sent a letter to the Coast Guard Friday, questioning why the report had been kept secret, even from those in Congress with oversight authority over the agency. The senators expressed concern that substantiated perpetrators may hold security clearances and that two were allowed to honorably retire with their pensions and veterans benefits intact. They requested additional information to help the committee “determine if the Coast Guard complied with the law and to inform potential legislative actions.”
The senators also questioned whether the Coast Guard failed to use its authority “to appropriately discipline individuals who were investigated and remain (or remained) in the Coast Guard.”
Operation Fouled Anchor, named after a ship’s anchor that has become entangled around itself, was launched in 2014 when an academy graduate claimed that her allegations of rape from years earlier had never been investigated. She said school officials pressured her not to pursue the issue. Her alleged rapist had gone on to be a top officer in the Air Force and was the only person to face criminal charges in military court as a result of the probe, but an appeals court ended up ruling in his favor and dismissing the charges, saying that the military had missed its window to prosecute because the Coast Guard waited nearly two decades to investigate the victim’s allegations.
While looking into the woman’s case, agents determined that her allegations and more than two dozen other reports of misconduct had essentially been buried by academy leaders. And as they continued digging, they unearthed more than 90 potential assaults from the late 1980s to 2006. It is unclear from the documents why the probe did not extend to more recent years. Former cadets recounted stories of awakening in the middle of the night only to find classmates on top of them mid-assault. Some reported being assaulted multiple times by different classmates; others described being attacked by the same man. In one case, a victim had allegedly been left with rope marks on her wrists.
In informal briefings to Senate Commerce Committee staff as recently as this week, Coast Guard officials said the investigation had ultimately identified more than 60 substantiated incidents of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment committed by academy cadets or otherwise that occurred at the academy, according to the senators’ letter.
The investigation, which involved more than 75 agents, hundreds of interviews and nearly 20,000 hours of investigative work, according to records, found that school leaders routinely failed to report serious allegations to law enforcement, intentionally avoiding the criminal justice system.
“There was a disturbing pattern of not treating reported sexual assaults as criminal matters,” the Coast Guard’s draft report reviewed by CNN stated.
In some instances, school officials at the time recommended launching criminal inquiries into alleged assaults only to be overruled by top leadership at the academy, according to records reviewed by CNN.
Documents show how Coast Guard agents cobbled together fragmented pieces of information detailing the academy’s handling of past reports of sexual assault as administrative disciplinary matters.
Many documents about the alleged assaults were shredded long ago. Agents resorted to flipping through old yearbooks and other student records to track down suspects and victims referenced by only their last names and class ranks in the limited records they did receive from academy officials.
As they interviewed former students who had reported or witnessed abuses, they learned about others who had been too afraid to come forward at the time and attempted to track them down as well. The dozens of academy graduates they ended up revisiting were women, and some men, in their 30s, 40s and even 50s. They were now Coast Guard officers, veterans and mothers.
According to records, some expressed relief that someone was finally listening, and they were hopeful that their alleged perpetrators might be held accountable. Others wanted nothing to do with the investigation, saying it was too painful to revisit what had happened to them – both the initial attacks and the aftermath at the academy. Several said they feared for their safety, not knowing what their alleged attackers would do when they found out the allegations against them had resurfaced all these years later. One said she didn’t want her teen daughter to ever learn of what had happened. Another became upset at the mention of her alleged attacker’s name, with her husband later telling investigators that she was most upset about how her allegations had been handled by the academy and had struggled with depression and distrust of authority for decades since leaving.
From the records agents gathered and interviews they conducted, clear patterns emerged: Alleged victims were blamed for contributing to their assaults by drinking alcohol, or not resisting forcefully enough. Suspected perpetrators had their conduct minimized and excused.
Among the cases documented by the investigation:
A female cadet who reported her classmate for allegedly raping her faced discipline for “engaging in lewd acts.” An academy official ruled that she did not protest her assailant’s advances strongly enough. “She did not willingly acquiesce to an act of sexual intercourse,” the official wrote, but she “did not reasonably manifest her lack of consent by taking such measures of resistance as were called for by the totality of the circumstances because she was confused, indecisive, lonely, naïve, and sexually inexperienced.” Her classmate was allowed to resign without further punishment. She left the school.
A cadet accused of sneaking into a classmate’s room in the middle of the night, pinning her down and raping her, was allowed by the superintendent to remain at the academy as long as he completed alcohol rehabilitation, counseling and “human relations training.” The victim was punished for “fraternization” with a different classmate when the investigation uncovered her spending time in his room.
Academy superintendents significantly minimized punishments for a number of alleged perpetrators, letting them drop out of school instead of facing more punitive outcomes. One superintendent, for example, rejected a recommendation to court martial a cadet accused of assaulting and harassing three female classmates, including the one who had rope marks on her wrists.
Academy officials failed to pursue a criminal investigation against a cadet accused of raping two women even though they found that the alleged assailant had “displayed poor judgment” and had sexual intercourse with one of the women, a local college student, “without her consent.” While academy officials found that alleged victim “very credible” and “sincere,” they decided that the other accuser – who was an academy cadet – was not credible. She later left the school for medical reasons, with records citing “depression,” while the alleged rapist was kicked out of the academy, “disenrolled” for misconduct.
As part of the investigation, agents interviewed 20 people who had served as senior officials at the academy and had a hand in how the cases were investigated and resolved, though some key people had passed away, records show.
Ultimately, Fouled Anchor found that the academy’s leadership “did not adequately investigate allegations as serious criminal matters and hold perpetrators appropriately accountable,” according to the draft final report.
They “failed to take sufficient action to ensure a safe environment - particularly for female cadets - and failed to instill a culture intolerant of sexual misconduct,” the report stated about those at the helm in the 90s and early 2000s.
Despite such a damning conclusion, Fouled Anchor resulted in no punishments for those leaders.
“The ability to assign specific accountability was limited because none of these individuals remained subject to criminal or administrative actions, the evidence for the decisions made on these cases (most of which were over 20 years old) was incomplete, and the imprecise nature of the then-existing policies.”
As Fouled Anchor came to a close, agents were instructed to apologize to the alleged victims for how their cases had been handled previously and offer them support services. Records show some victims were upset with how Fouled Anchor reopened old wounds only to leave them angry that, once again, more couldn’t or wasn’t being done.
“There is no statute of limitations to my fear or pain…. I lost my career because of this assault. I will never know what my future could have been,” one woman wrote in a 2019 message to a Coast Guard admiral about the investigation. “I will never forget what happened to me and I will never be the person I could have been before this assault occurred.”
CNN’s Pamela Brown and Allison Gordon contributed to this report
Coast Guard apologizes for mishandling of sexual assaults at academy following revelation of probe
BY SUSAN HAIGH
Associated Press
Published 1:41 PM EDT, June 30, 2023
The U.S. Coast Guard apologized Friday for not taking “appropriate action” years ago when it failed to adequately handle cases of sexual assault and harassment at the service’s Connecticut academy. The service also acknowledged it did not widely disclose its six-year internal investigation into dozens of cases from 1988 to 2006.
Two U.S. senators on Friday said in a statement that the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which has oversight of the Coast Guard, was not informed of the probe until a recent informal briefing with Senate staff. Known as “Operation Fouled Anchor,” it was conducted from 2014 to 2020.
“This information is disturbing,” Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin wrote in a joint letter dated Friday to Admiral Linda L. Fagan, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. They demanded documents and records related to the investigation, which identified 62 substantiated incidents of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment that occurred at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, or by academy cadets.
The Democratic senators said they’re seeking additional information “to determine if the Coast Guard complied with the law and to inform potential legislative actions.” Besides documents, they want answers to questions including whether any individuals with substantiated claims are now employed by the Department of Homeland Security, including the Coast Guard, and whether they have security clearances.
Cantwell and Baldwin said the committee staff were told that 42 individuals may have had substantiated claims made against them, “yet it does not appear that the Coast Guard appropriately investigated at the time the incidents were reported” and that some of the accused may have been allowed to rise up in the ranks.
The Coast Guard, in a written statement provided by a spokesperson, acknowledged Friday it “may have further traumatized the victims” and “prevented some cases from being referred to the military justice system for appropriate accountability” by “not having taken appropriate action at the time of the sexual assaults.”
“The Coast Guard owns this failure and apologizes to each of the victims and their loved ones,” the statement said
The Coast Guard also acknowledged the internal investigation “was not disclosed widely at the time” when it was completed in 2020 and the service recognizes “transparency is critical to building the trust not only of victims, but all cadets and personnel at the Academy.”
The Coast Guard Investigative Service, according to the statement, became aware in 2014 of a sexual assault allegation that occurred years earlier “and the matter had been mishandled.” The service then conducted a broad investigation that “followed up on all leads related to sexual assaults that were alleged to have occurred between 1988 and 2006,” a period before changes were made to the academy’s sexual assault and harassment policies.
The Coast Guard said it ultimately “took action to hold accountable those known perpetrators who remained within CGIS’s jurisdiction,” but did not say how many. The statement also said Coast Guard officials reached out to all known victims and “invited them to individual, in-person meetings to provide each of them with information on their specific cases and access to support services.”
The senators noted that two officers accused of misconduct were allowed to retire as commanders and currently have pension and veteran’s benefits. Both people, the senators said, were confirmed for promotion by the Senate at least once during the course of the investigation.
“The Committee was not notified that the officers were under investigation when the Coast Guard provided the promotion lists to the Senate resulting in their confirmation,” they wrote. “It is unclear how many other officers had substantiated claims against them, were not disciplined, and remained in positions of leadership or management.”
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat whose eastern Connecticut district includes the academy, said the lack of action by the Coast Guard “left dozens of survivors with no pathway to justice or recovery while assailants have been afforded unchecked opportunity to advance their careers” and ultimately prevented Congress from correcting policy gaps.
He noted the lack of disclosure came as the academy was being scrutinized for its handling of racial discrimination cases, saying the “lack of transparency and accountability here is deeply disappointing.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal called the Coast Guard’s failure to protect cadets “a shameful legacy” for the service, while U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy accused the Coast Guard’s leadership of hiding the report, saying that “anyone involved in this cover-up should be terminated. It’s that simple.” Both Connecticut senators are Democrats.
Federal officials are aware that unwanted sexual contact has been an issue at the elite academy. A 2019 Pentagon survey found almost half of female cadets said they were sexually harassed and about one in eight women reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact. Almost 20% of male cadets reported experiencing sexual harassment.
Associated Press Writers Dave Collins and Pat Eaton-Robb in Hartford, Connecticut contributed to this report.
Cruz demands answers from Merchant Marine Academy over sexual assault head’s ‘full-on’ racist tweets
By Houston Keene
Published June 29, 2023
Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, demanded answers from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) head regarding the academy's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) director's series of racially-charged tweets.
Cruz sent the letter to USMMA Superintendent Joanna Nunan late Wednesday regarding Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) director Anton Tripolskii, who came under fire last month for racially-charged tweets attacking White people.
In the letter, Cruz recognized the academy's "vital role in training future U.S. military officers and mariners" and that he is "proud to have recommended many Texans" for appointment to the USMMA.
US MERCHANT MARINE ACADEMY OFFICIAL UNDER FIRE FOR TWEET ON ‘WHITE, MALE’ ROOTS OF RACISM, MISOGYNY
Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sent the letter to USMMA Superintendent Joanna Nunan late Wednesday regarding SAPR director Anton Tripolskii, who came under fire last month for racially-charged tweets attacking White people.
"These current appointees and their fellow cadets are owed a safe environment to study, learn, and train," Cruz wrote.
"However, recently discovered statements from the USMMA’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response ('SAPR') office director have raised serious questions about USMMA’s commitment to cadet safety and about the Academy’s culture overall," he continued.
The Texas Republican wrote that Tripolskii's "remarks in question were at best offensive and at worst nothing short of full-on racism" and "raise genuine concerns about whether the SAPR office can promote and ensure an environment that is free from sexual misconduct for all cadets."
"Furthermore, since these remarks occurred prior to the director’s hiring, I have a number of questions about the USMMA’s hiring process," Cruz said, going on to note that the academy "has struggled for many years with issues of sexual assault and harassment."
"According to USMMA’s annual reports on sexual assault and harassment, there were 69 cases of sexual assault reported to USMMA during academic years 2012 through 2023. Over the past five years, eight sexual assault cases reported to USMMA involved a male victim, amounting to over one-fifth of all reported cases during that time span."
Vice Admiral Joanna Nunan has been a controversial head of the Merchant Marine Academy since her appointment in December 2022.
Cruz noted that the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act required the USMMA to bring on a SAPR coordinator full-time that would be under the watch of the program director. The senator also highlighted that "there have been major gaps" in the academy fulfilling the requirement, "including an eight-month period in 2019 when there was no SAPR coordinator at USMMA."
"Given the important role the SAPR office plays in ensuring the safety of cadets—a role that Congress recognized by mandating that USMMA employ a full-time SAPR coordinator—it is essential that the Academy carefully recruit, vet, and hire SAPR office staff who can fairly and effectively advance the office’s mission," Cruz wrote.
The senator wrote that Tripolskii had published a "litany of public statements indicating racial and gender bias," noting the director's tweet from June 6, 2020 — as the nation was reeling amid violent riots after the murder of George Floyd — where he wrote Americans "don’t have forces who do right by survivors of intimate partner and sexual violence because we don’t have forces who don’t abuse Brown and Black people. Same forces, same reasons. Misogyny and racism grow from the same white, male root."
"Mr. Tripolskii’s statements are troubling for obvious reasons. They are both bigoted and objectively false," Cruz wrote. "It is empirically inaccurate to claim that the sole source of misogyny and racism are white males, and for cadets who happen to fall into those categories, it is difficult to see how they could believe they would be treated fairly by Mr. Tripolskii."
Ted Cruz wrote that Anton Tripolskii had published a "litany of public statements indicating racial and gender bias."
"Moreover, historical data shows that in previous years, both male and female cadets have reported being victims of sexual assault and harassment at the Academy," he continued. "In fact, one of the most recent high-profile sexual assault cases at USMMA involved multiple freshman male cadets who were sexually assaulted during hazing by upperclassmen on the Academy’s soccer team."
Cruz pointed out that cadets "who are victims of sexual assault or harassment are directed to contact the office that Mr. Tripolskii leads." Cruz asserted that it "stands to reason that his discriminatory statements may, at a minimum, make some cadets less likely to trust USMMA’s SAPR office, report sexual assault and harassment, and seek assistance."
"Even in circumstances where a cadet reports sexual assault or harassment, they may not be confident that Mr. Tripolskii’s investigative reports will be free of his own discriminatory biases," the Texas senator wrote. "The worst outcome would be if Mr. Tripolskii’s personal views about gender or race prejudice a complaint or investigation and lead to a criminal evading justice."
"The mishandling of an investigation or the reluctance of a cadet to report an assault would jeopardize the safety of all cadets at USMMA," Cruz added.
Cruz peppered Nunan with a long list of questions, including whether the academy teaches cadets "that ‘[m]isogyny and racism’ are the fault of a single racial group" and if Tripolskii has received any disciplinary action for his public statements.
The USMMA did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on the letter.
Coast Guard Academy faulted on response to racial incidents
Associated Press
BY PAT EATON-ROBB
Published 5:48 PM EDT, June 8, 2020
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The U.S. Coast Guard Academy failed to properly address complaints of racial harassment, including the use of racial slurs by cadets, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.
The academy in New London, Connecticut, said Monday it accepts the recommendations of the inspector general’s report and is committed to “pursuing improvements to policies and procedures that govern the response and investigation of all allegations of harassment and misconduct.”
The complaints investigated by the Inspector General’s Office included episodes in which cadets used racial epithets, posed with a Confederate flag and watched and laughed at a blackface video in a common area.
Of 16 allegations of race-based harassment at the academy between 2013 and 2018 identified by the inspector general, the academy failed to properly investigate or handle 11 of them, the report said.
“Specifically, cadets alleged racial slurs, ignorant comments, and instances of disrespect were common on campus, and, when reported to leadership, were not taken seriously,” according to the report, dated June 3.
The report also found that harassing behaviors persist at the academy and that cadets are under-reporting instances of harassment in part because of “concerns about negative consequences for reporting allegations.”
The review began in June 2018 after several cadets raised concerns about racist jokes, disparities in discipline and the administration’s handling of what some saw as racial hostility.
The Coast Guard Academy said it has agreed to implement changes including mandatory training for academy personnel and cadets involved in instances of harassment or hate, mandatory training to cadets on how to recognize harassing behavior, and investigating and documenting any harassment involving race or ethnicity.
“The Coast Guard, and its academy, are steadfast and enduring in its commitment to build an inclusive environment, free of harassment, and this extends to the highest levels of our service,” the academy said in a statement
One of the nation’s smallest service academies, the Coast Guard Academy is overseen by Homeland Security, unlike others such as the U.S. Military Academy and the Naval Academy, which are run by the Defense Department. It enrolls over 1,000 cadets, who attend the school tuition-free and graduate as officers with a Bachelor of Science degree and a requirement to spend five years in the service.
The incidents documented in the report included a third-year cadet repeatedly used the N-word toward a first-year cadet in April 2016 during a conversation, even after the first-year cadet tried to walk away. The third-year cadet was not disciplined or ordered to participate in respect remediation, according to the report, and it was not noted on his official conduct record.
In another case, a company officer used the same epithet in a briefing intended to communicate to cadets that they should not use that word. At the time, the academy said, it was trying to discourage use of the same word among cadets who were using it widely inside a campus dormitory in greetings and in slang references to music.
The officer, who indicated the use of the word was part of a “shock and awe” strategy to get the cadets attention, was counseled and given training, according to the report, which said the academy should have more fully informed its civil rights staff of that incident
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat who represents New London and sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said the report is the latest in a series of hearings and investigations to find similar patterns, including a “climate which discouraged reporting racial incidents or bullying.”
“This is a fundamental problem that stunts the goal of an inclusive academy that can tap into the ‘best and brightest’ of America regardless of race, gender, or ethnic background,” he said. “This report sets out a road map to achieve inclusion with specific recommendations whose implementation Congress will track.”
Reports of unwanted sexual contact up at Coast Guard Academy
BY JENNIFER MCDERMOTT
Published 2:51 PM EDT, July 3, 2019
Associated Press
Almost half of female cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy said they were sexually harassed, and about one in eight women reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact, according to a Pentagon survey released Wednesday.
The anonymous 2018 gender relations survey completed by cadets at the school in New London, Connecticut, shows that 45% of women and 17% of men said they experienced sexual harassment, up from 36% and 11%, respectively, in 2016.
And 12.4% of women said they experienced unwanted sexual contact, up from 8% in 2016.
The percentage of men saying they experienced unwanted sexual contact, including sexual assault, attempted sexual assault and unwanted sexual touching, was 3.6%, up from 1% in 2016.
The percentage of cadets experiencing unwanted sexual contact is the highest since the survey began a decade ago. Officials noted that the increases could at least partially reflect a greater willingness to report misconduct as a result of the Coast Guard’s focus on the problem and new training programs.
The survey, conducted every two years, comes after an already tough year for the Coast Guard Academy. Lawmakers have criticized its handling of racial discrimination and harassment, and the college is the subject of a congressional investigation into harassment, bullying and discrimination against minority cadets.
All the U.S. military academies are “facing a sexual assault crisis, and we are asleep at the wheel,” Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, said in June. She is trying to create a four-year pilot program for independent prosecutorial review of all sexual assault reports at the academies.
Most instances of unwanted sexual contact at the Coast Guard Academy involved cadets in the same class year, with 65% of women and 85% of men saying the alleged offender was a classmate, according to the survey. Most occurred in a dorm or living area at the academy. Seventy percent of women and 92% of men didn’t report what happened to authorities, the survey said.
About 1,100 cadets attend the academy, and 77% of them filled out the survey in March 2018. It asked about their academy experiences since June 2017.
The academy released the survey, which was conducted by the Defense Department’s Office of People Analytics. The numbers are in line with data released this year from the other military academies.
That earlier survey found that among female students at the Army, Navy and Air Force academies, 15.8% said they experienced unwanted sexual contact in the past year, up from 12.2% in 2016, and that 2.4% of men experienced unwanted sexual contact, up from 1.7%. An estimated 50% of women and 16% of men experienced sexual harassment in the past year, similar to 2016.
The Coast Guard Academy survey showed that 30% of women who experienced unwanted sexual contact reported it, marking the first time the reporting rate among women climbed above 10%. Men had an 8% reporting rate. In past years, the reporting rate for men was so low it couldn’t be counted.
The academy’s sexual assault response coordinator, Shannon Norenberg, credited the growing rate to growth in the school’s Cadets Against Sexual Assault club, which typically includes about 20% of the student population. Cadets who join are trained to receive reports of sexual assault and be a resource for their peers.
A 2018 campaign to educate cadets about what sexual harassment is may have contributed to the increase in sexual harassment reports, she added. Norenberg, however, said the numbers still concern her.
She talks to all incoming freshmen about how to report sexual assault. Last year, she began also talking to them about what sexual consent means and discussing healthy relationships with juniors.
“I think we’re focusing our efforts in the right direction and in the right way,” she said.
The head of the Coast Guard, Adm. Karl Schultz, told The Associated Press in March that unwanted sexual contact throughout the service is “unacceptable.” Schultz said he had discussed the preliminary survey results with the academy’s superintendent, which showed the same increases as the final report.
The Coast Guard, he said, is trying to create an “environment of intolerance” toward sexual misconduct, where no one is allowed to be a bystander.
“Am I concerned about the 12.4% increase? Absolutely. Because I want to drive sexual assault, unwanted sexual contact to zero in the Coast Guard,” Schultz said. “Will we do that in my lifetime? I don’t know, but we’re going to continue to lean in from a leadership standpoint.”
The report also showed that 28% of female cadets reported experiencing gender discrimination in 2018, up from 11% in 2016, while 6% of male cadets reported experiencing gender discrimination, up from 4% in 2016.
On a positive note, the vast majority of cadets reported intervening if they observed a potentially risky situation, and there were fewer cases of unwanted sexual contact involving alcohol than in 2016.
Most cadets, 62% of women and 76% of men, believe the academy’s senior leadership make honest and reasonable efforts to stop unwanted sexual contact and sexual harassment, though those percentages are down from 80% and 86%, respectively, in the 2016 survey.
Rear Adm. William Kelly, the new academy superintendent, said officials are focused on providing the safest environment possible and will use the insight from the Office of People Analytics and the Coast Guard’s sexual assault prevention experts to eradicate such behaviors and threats from campus.
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
Families of 34 who died in Conception dive boat disaster sue Coast Guard
By RICHARD WINTON THE LOS ANGELES TIMES • September 2, 2021
LOS ANGELES (Tribune News Service)— Family members of the 34 people who died in the Conception dive boat fire off the Channel Islands in 2019 sued the U.S. Coast Guard, alleging it failed to enforce regulations and allowed the vessel to operate with substandard electrical and safety systems that led to the deaths. The wrongful death lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles portrays the Coast Guard as the enabler that helped send the 34 people to their deaths in Platts Harbor off Santa Cruz Island with failed oversight. Less than a year before the fire, the Coast Guard certified the boat to carry 40 passengers overnight "even though her electrical wiring systems, her fire detection and suppression systems and passenger accommodation escape hatch were in open and obvious violation of" federal regulations, according to the lawsuit. In the aftermath of the fire, the Coast Guard inspected the Conception's sister vessel, the Vision, and "discovered numerous glaring deficiencies" in its wiring and electrical systems, fire detection and suppression systems and its escape hatch, according to the suit. The Vision is similar in build and design to the Conception and was also owned by Truth Aquatics. "Had the Coast Guard properly inspected the Conception it never would have been certified, never set sail, and these 34 victims would not have lost their lives," said Jeffrey P. Goodman, who represented several of the families and speaks for the legal team. "Sadly, certifying noncompliant vessels is commonplace at the Coast Guard," he added. "The time has come for the Coast Guard to be held accountable for its failures to protect those victims and prevent future maritime disasters on America's waterways." Goodman said that although most people know of the men and women who risk their lives in critical safety missions, the Coast Guard also is a regulatory agency responsible for properly certified vessels. "The Coast Guard has failed in that mission for decades by not enforcing certification requirements and routinely allowing noncompliant and unsafe vessels on the water," he said. The lawsuit notes that an examination of the Vision revealed homemade repairs done with the kind of wiring available at Home Depot and not of the quality used in maritime vessels. The boat's electrical system was so stressed that it could not run when the galley stove was on. The suit notes that in 2013, the Coast Guard started publishing so-called Navigation and Vessel Inspection Circulars and safety alerts about the danger of circuit overloads and shipboard fires caused by power strips and rechargeable devices aboard vessels. The suit alleges the Coast Guard knew or should have known that Truth Aquatics added "undocumented and ill-designed electrical outlets throughout the vessel for the purpose of battery charging" and encouraged passengers and crew to charge video cameras, smartphones, underwater scooter power packs and other lithium-ion battery equipment. Eleven months before the deadly Conception fire, those on a dive trip on the Vision saw a battery being charged spark flames, which was then smothered with a dry chemical fire extinguisher and tossed in a bucket. The Conception consisted of three decks: the pilot house and crew quarters on top; a middle deck, where the fire ignited; and sleeping quarters in the belly of the vessel. The NTSB determined the fire began in the back of the middle deck salon, where lithium-ion batteries were being charged. But the agency could not say whether it was the source that ignited the blaze. Those sleeping below deck were trapped beneath the fire. There were signs that some were awake with their shoes on before they were killed by smoke inhalation. The NTSB faulted Truth Aquatics for running a vessel with little or no oversight, which Truth Aquatics' attorneys strongly deny. The families have already sued Truth Aquatics for wrongful death and negligence in the operation of the Conception.
The Lack of Diversity and Coast Guard Command
By Chief Petty Officer Phillip Null, U.S. Coast Guard
June 2021
Proceedings
Vol. 147/6/1,420
Organizational problems are difficult to solve without a focused executive leading the charge. Following the 9/11 attacks and a series of natural disasters in the early 2000s, the Coast Guard experienced unprecedented public and Congressional support, with its authorities and budget ballooning as it proved its utility to the nation. Though the work to accomplish these missions was collective, then-Commandant Admiral Thad Allen proved to be one of few executives in the service’s history able to seize the opportunities presented.
Subsequent Coast Guard leaders have been unable to achieve similar outcomes during ongoing social movements and have even missed opportunities to garner Congressional and public support by meeting their demands to advance diversity and inclusion in the service. Such missed opportunities are now generating external action to force the changes with consequences to the service’s reputation. Chester Barnard’s strategic management theory proposes that “the executive, not the leadership team, the organization, empowerment, or a combination of management choices” is the source of an organization’s success. Enlisted officers in charge of boat stations, cutters, and aids to navigation teams are the Coast Guard’s executive leaders with the greatest potential to influence both within and outside of the organization because of their operational nature and close interactions with the public, but the service has not made developing and selecting them consistent with the nation’s diversity a priority. Doing so is now necessary to achieve the changes being demanded.
Advancing a diverse group to flag rank is insufficient, because many flag billets lack the characteristics of a truly executive position. Instead, diversity must be achieved in the operational units in which opportunities for first-person heroics and recognition expand the ability of even enlisted executives to influence. These selections cannot be a one-time event involving a handful of individuals. The severity of the service’s problem, increasing legislative pressure, and competition with other agencies and the private sector for talent require substantive and sustained action to achieve lasting organization change, not a one-time event affecting a handful of individuals.
For example, the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, has struggled to achieve diversity and, despite work over the past decade to bolster its percentage of minority and female cadets, has been subject to repeated Congressional investigations and academic studies that have found minority and female cadets graduate at a lower rate than the average and suffer from a disproportionately high share of disciplinary actions. Such inquiries have caused Congress to demand action from agency leaders. In one recent hearing in which the service’s senior most leader was called to testify, a lower-ranking flag officer was sent instead, generating complaints of obstruction from several members of Congress. Rather than limit their response to a public statement admonishing the service, Congress instead blocked the nominations of two officers the service had recommended for promotion to flag rank. One nominee had made social media posts disparaging Congress and minorities while he was in command of the service’s enlisted training center at Cape May, New Jersey. The other was found to have taken little or no action to investigate harassment and discrimination complaints while she was in a leadership role at the Coast Guard Academy.
Blocking two flag promotions in a service with only 45 admirals is a significant development, particularly when they held key positions at the service’s enlisted and officer accession points. Congress also included language in the latest National Defense Authorization Act that requires the Coast Guard create a public strategy to improve leadership development and foster a culture of inclusion and diversity, immediately implement the recommendations of recent Office of Inspector General reports, and establish advisory boards on women and minorities at the Coast Guard Academy.
Though Congress provided these mandates, advisory boards and service-wide training will not solve the Coast Guard’s inclusion and diversity problem. What is needed is executive attention like that taken in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy noticed there were no African Americans in the Coast Guard Academy cadet unit marching in his inaugural parade and remarked, “That's not acceptable. Something ought to be done about it.” The next day a presidential aide contacted the Treasury Secretary, who ordered Academy officials to scrutinize their admissions policies and ensure they did not discriminate against blacks. Had President Kennedy been alive three years later to deliver his scheduled commencement address at the Academy, there is little doubt that, if he had not seen black faces among corps of cadets, some commissions would have been rescinded. Dramatic change requires executive leaders to address tough problems decisively, with such changes best made under the leadership of those motivated by life experience relative to the problem.
Coast Guard African American Executives
Four African Americans have achieved flag grade in the service. The first was Rear Admiral Erroll Brown. Twice a cutter executive officer with multiple tours at Coast Guard Headquarters, Admiral Brown never held an operational command and is best known for being the service’s first black admiral. Rear Admiral Stephen Rochon and Vice Admiral Manson K. Brown, the second and third admirals, both served in positions of immense responsibility, but never held operational commands, and are obscure among service members because of it. The fourth and most recent is Rear Admiral Michael J. Johnston, the Ninth District Commander.
Executive roles yield recognition, and even Vice Admiral Brown is recognized holding one executive position at the very start of his career—the first African American to command the cadet brigade in the history of the Coast Guard Academy. Eighth Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Vince Patton held no command position during his career, but his widespread influence persists even into retirement because he was the first African American promoted to the highest paygrade possible for an enlisted member—E-10, which has many characteristics of an executive position.
Obtaining a flag may grant minor celebrity, but, in the Coast Guard, real recognition is achieved by being first or by successfully leading operational units at sea, whether on board cutters, boats, or aircraft. Many significant firsts have been filled, leaving the best option for recognition and influence in operational command. Some will argue that service as the commander of a shoreside sector, district, or area is operational, but the reality is, unless your boots get wet, you have an uphill battle for true relevance.
Examples of executives with influence during their lifetimes and sustained recognition through today include Captain Michael Healy, who captained the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear, Keeper Richard Etheridge, who led the surfmen assigned to the Pea Island Life-Saving Station, and Commander Merle James Smith, who commanded the patrol boats Point Mast and Point Ellis during the Vietnam War. Though he was the only African American to have a commission in any of the Coast Guard’s predecessor services and the first to command any government vessel of the United States, Healy is known less for those firsts than for commanding a decorated cutter assigned to patrol the remote and dangerous Alaskan coast. Etheridge similarly is not known only for being the first African American to command a U.S. government installation, but for the lives he and his all–African American crew saved or died trying to. Though known as the first African American to graduate from the Coast Guard Academy (1966), Commander Smith is most recognized for wartime service that saw him recognized with the Bronze Star for actions in close-quarters combat, the first by a black officer in command of a U.S. warship.
To improve its demographics, the Coast Guard needs to promote more minorities into executive positions in which they will gain first-hand leadership experience in rescues, interdictions, storms, and disasters.
The bulk of Coast Guard operational commands are held by enlisted officers in charge (OICs)—all boatswains mates (BMs) in paygrades E-6 to E-9—who will not attend the Coast Guard Academy and have no viable path to Commandant. Enlisted OICs are vested by Coast Guard Regulations with the responsibilities and authorities of a commanding officer, with few exceptions. Lewis Wescott was the first black OIC, assuming command of Station Pea Island when the Coast Guard was established in 1915. He was followed in 1928 by Boatswain’s Mate First Class Clarence Samuels, who took command of Patrol Boat AB-15 to become the first African American to command a Coast Guard cutter. It took until 2017 for Chief Boatswain’s Mate Malia Chasteen to take command of the CGC Tackle and become the first African American female OIC. Though we have examples of minorities and women serving in OIC roles, particularly early in the service’s history, their numbers are few. Despite shore-based boat units providing the bulk of the operational statistics for the Coast Guard—the same statistics that drive budgets and generate public support—those commanding them today and serving as the face of the Coast Guard at the local level are overwhelmingly enlisted white males. This presents two significant problems for diversity and inclusion.
First, enlisted OICs are not positioned to ascend to the highest ranks of the service. This negatively impacts not only the budgets, facilities, and support services of boat stations, but also makes leading them an afterthought at the highest levels, as the commissioned officers filling headquarters and controlling the purse and policies have no experience in the community of work. Some will argue that Sectors fill such a void, but these are manufactured and redundant shoreside command roles that confuse how enlisted OICs lead by presenting a dangerous parallel chain of command lacking the same brand of experience and influence (8). Many senior leaders are likely unaware the opportunity even exists to advance the diversity of this lower tier of executive enlisted leaders, a tier now pulling candidates not from the officer corps, but from a much larger and diverse pool of enlisted candidates. Providing opportunities for command to enlisted members allows the service significant potential to diversify its executives through targeted selection, but it simultaneously limits some ability of these leaders and their community of work to influence within the organization as they have no possibility of ascending to the highest ranks.
Providing commissions to this tier of executives with a path to the senior executive role in the service would drastically improve both internal and external influence and could easily be achieved by reprograming billets from sectors, which are non-operational and officer-heavy. Coupled with officer recruiting efforts and academy admissions that prioritize diversity, opening these operational assignments to the commissioned officer corps would aid recruiting efforts by providing additional opportunity for shore and command duty, ensure visible diversity in executive leadership positions, and allow those filling the roles to engage in nearly daily heroics, the tales of which will broaden their influence.
A second problem is the flawed process used to select enlisted OICs. Candidates must sit for multiple oral boards with large numbers of senior personnel from disparate programs asking questions from an expansive range of topics. No formal training exists to prepare candidates for these boards, and vague standards for determining their outcome leave many unwilling to attempt them or frustrated following a failure to certify to the point they make no subsequent attempt. The decisions of these boards have potential to be highly subjective and negatively impact the Coast Guard’s largest enlisted rating and service wide diversity goals.
Many service members are suspicious that cronyism has, in part, sustained a lack of diversity in the ranks. Because they are only required for the boatswain’s mate rating, in-person boards for OIC screening are unnecessary. A panel review of electronic service records would be consistent with the process to select personnel for advancement to master chief (E-9) and special assignments, and the process to select commissioned officers for command. Subjectivity must be avoided to eliminate the potential for bias that impedes diversity in the workforce.
The public demands its Coast Guard be diverse, and its elected leaders in Congress are now acting on those demands. The service has established policies, working groups, and program offices whose sole focus has been to meet these demands, but none has worked. What has not been seen is a determined effort to increase the number of minority executives, much less those with the operational background to achieve maximum influence.
There is precedent for targeted selection of OICs and evidence of its successful application from the service’s early history. In 1879, an Inspector of the Life-Saving Service recommended Richard Etheridge for Keeper of the Pea Island Station following the discharge of the previous keeper and surfmen, whose failures resulted in unnecessary loss of life in a shipwreck. At the time, Etheridge was one of only eight African Americans in the entire service and one of its lowest ranking surfmen. The Inspector wrote that he was “aware that no colored man holds the position of Keeper in the Life-Saving Service,” but explained that Etheridge was such an excellent surfman that “the efficiency of the Service at Pea Island station will be greatly enhanced.” He further recommended Etheridge be allowed to select an all-black crew of surfmen. Etheridge went on to become a national hero and an executive leader with the operational background needed for maximum influence. His story continues to inspire others to serve even now.
As with Etheridge, a diverse cadre of executives is now needed to enhance the service and to meet the demands of the public we serve. The longer such recommendations are delayed, the greater the risks to the service’s future.
