TOUGH ON THE ACADEMY

Without a sense of the background on the scandals now being exposed at the Air Force Academy, a C-SPAN viewer might have wondered the other day why Sen. Susan Collins was roughing up Air Force Secretary James Roche. Secretary Roche had just about finished explaining that the problems of sexual harassment, including the rape of female cadets, predated the current academy leadership team.

“I don’t care whether someone inherited a problem,” Sen. Collins responded. “Presumably being part of the leadership of the academy makes it your responsibility to correct these problems.”

She is right, and here is the background. For years – decades, perhaps – Air Force leadership had buried accusations of the entire range of harassment, from males stalking female cadets to gang rape. Not only buried the stories but drove the women who dared to complain from the academy, found minor reasons to punish them, made sure to humiliate them, flunked them out. They sent the unstated message that academy women, some of the brightest and bravest their states had to offer, would become targets for sexual assault by their fellow cadets and the current leadership has not changed those conditions.

Secretary Roche announced Monday that even in the initial stages of an investigation, which began when a couple of cadets complained to a member of Congress, 56 reports of rape and sexual assault were being investigated, but, he said, “there are probably a hundred more that we do not see.” Since 1996, 99 reports of sexual assault have been called into the academy’s hotline, allegedly set up expressly for catching these assailants. But the academy could have saved money on the phone line: It has yet to court-martial a single cadet for sexually assaulting another cadet.

Air Force officials have been active lately, however. They have confirmed that they will replace the top six leaders of the academy in addition to conducting a vigorous investigation. These are both positive steps, but will not matter ultimately unless the culture of the academy changes. And that’s what was clearly irritating Maine’s senator on Armed Services this week. If, as Secretary Roche maintained throughout the hearing, the leadership was not responsible for these assaults because they had followed the policies in place, then no one was to blame and the problem would not be solved. More personally, Sen. Collins noted that nominating students to the service academies is one of her happiest duties and was angry to discover that she has been nominating young women to attend an academy where they may be in danger.

It is difficult to gain a perspective on this scandal in the middle of a war, but the investigation into the academy cannot wait, indeed it has been put off for far too long. Senators – and Sen. Collins wasn’t alone in her outrage this week – are right to push the Air Force hard on this scandal. The investigations have encouraged many more women to come forward and report being assaulted while at the academy.

It is clear what has come to the surface so far is only the beginning.