Military Personnel
The DOD and Coast Guard Academies Have Taken Steps to Address Incidents of Sexual Harassment and Assault, but Greater Federal Oversight Is Needed Gao ID: GAO-08-296 January 17, 2008Incidents of sexual harassment and assault contradict the academies' core values to treat all with dignity and respect. Yet, since 2003, each of the Department of Defense (DOD) academies and the Coast Guard Academy has experienced at least one incident. In 2003, Congress directed DOD to establish programs and to submit annual reports, and although not required, the Coast Guard Academy, within the Department of Homeland Security, has taken similar action. GAO was asked to review sexual harassment and assault programs at the academies. This report evaluates (1) the academies' programs to prevent, respond to, and resolve sexual harassment and assault cases; (2) the academies' visibility over sexual harassment and assault incidents; and (3) DOD and Coast Guard oversight of their academies' efforts. GAO analyzed data for program years 2003 through 2006, reviewed requirements, met with service and academy officials, and interviewed randomly selected students at each academy.
The academies have taken steps to prevent, respond to, and resolve sexual harassment and assault incidents. Each DOD academy, for example, has created and staffed the position of Sexual Assault Response Coordinator. Additionally, the DOD and Coast Guard academies have established training programs aimed at preventing and responding to future incidents. The academies have also established alternatives for responding to and resolving reported incidents, depending on whether the incident involves harassment or assault, and in cases of assault, whether the victim wishes to make a restricted report--privately disclosing the incident to select response service providers without triggering an investigation--or an unrestricted report--which involves investigative authorities and the chain of command. A few of the reported sexual assault cases have resulted in formal charges. The academies collect sexual harassment and assault data, but student perceptions in surveys administered in 2006 indicate that incidents may be underreported, suggesting that the academies may not have full visibility over all sexual harassment and assault incidents. For academy program years 2003 through 2006, the DOD academies' military equal opportunity offices reported 32 sexual harassment cases, the Sexual Assault Response Coordinators reported 25 restricted cases of sexual assault, and the military criminal investigators reported 96 unrestricted sexual assault cases. However, estimates from DOD's most recent survey of its academy students, which was administered in March and April 2006, suggest that approximately 200 female and 100 male students may have experienced "unwanted sexual contact" in the previous year alone. Coast Guard Academy data show similar results. While DOD has established an oversight framework for its academies' sexual harassment and assault programs, its oversight has not been integrated and comprehensive, and the Coast Guard headquarters has not established an oversight framework. For example, inconsistencies exist in the way sexual harassment and assault data have been collected and reported because the department has not clearly articulated data reporting requirements. Further, DOD is unable to fully evaluate the academies' programs because it has not established measures to analyze incident data, survey results, and academy programs. Also, DOD has been only minimally addressing congressional interest in academy programs because it has not been conducting a comprehensive and integrated analysis of academy data or programs before forwarding academy reports to Congress. As a result, it has been difficult for DOD and Congress to judge how well the academies are addressing these important issues. It appears that DOD has very recently taken steps to address these concerns. Although the Coast Guard has performed a limited assessment of its academy's sexual harassment activities, it does not report statistics to Congress. In addition, the Coast Guard headquarters has not established guidance with which to oversee and evaluate its academy's efforts. Consequently, the Coast Guard headquarters lacks measures of how well its academy may be addressing incidents of sexual harassment and assault.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-08-296, Military Personnel: The DOD and Coast Guard Academies Have Taken Steps to Address Incidents of Sexual Harassment and Assault, but Greater Federal Oversight Is Needed
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United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
Report to the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives:
January 2008:
Military Personnel:
The DOD and Coast Guard Academies Have Taken Steps to Address Incidents
of Sexual Harassment and Assault, but Greater Federal Oversight Is
Needed:
Military Personnel:
GAO-08-296:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-08-296, a report to the Subcommittee on National
Security and Foreign Affairs, Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform, House of Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study:
Incidents of sexual harassment and assault contradict the academies‘
core values to treat all with dignity and respect. Yet, since 2003,
each of the Department of Defense (DOD) academies and the Coast Guard
Academy has experienced at least one incident. In 2003, Congress
directed DOD to establish programs and to submit annual reports, and
although not required, the Coast Guard Academy, within the Department
of Homeland Security, has taken similar action. GAO was asked to review
sexual harassment and assault programs at the academies. This report
evaluates (1) the academies‘ programs to prevent, respond to, and
resolve sexual harassment and assault cases; (2) the academies‘
visibility over sexual harassment and assault incidents; and (3) DOD
and Coast Guard oversight of their academies‘ efforts. GAO analyzed
data for program years 2003 through 2006, reviewed requirements, met
with service and academy officials, and interviewed randomly selected
students at each academy.
What GAO Found:
The academies have taken steps to prevent, respond to, and resolve
sexual harassment and assault incidents. Each DOD academy, for example,
has created and staffed the position of Sexual Assault Response
Coordinator. Additionally, the DOD and Coast Guard academies have
established training programs aimed at preventing and responding to
future incidents. The academies have also established alternatives for
responding to and resolving reported incidents, depending on whether
the incident involves harassment or assault, and in cases of assault,
whether the victim wishes to make a restricted report”privately
disclosing the incident to select response service providers without
triggering an investigation”or an unrestricted report”which involves
investigative authorities and the chain of command. A few of the
reported sexual assault cases have resulted in formal charges.
The academies collect sexual harassment and assault data, but student
perceptions in surveys administered in 2006 indicate that incidents may
be underreported, suggesting that the academies may not have full
visibility over all sexual harassment and assault incidents. For
academy program years 2003 through 2006, the DOD academies‘ military
equal opportunity offices reported 32 sexual harassment cases, the
Sexual Assault Response Coordinators reported 25 restricted cases of
sexual assault, and the military criminal investigators reported 96
unrestricted sexual assault cases. However, estimates from DOD‘s most
recent survey of its academy students, which was administered in March
and April 2006, suggest that approximately 200 female and 100 male
students may have experienced ’unwanted sexual contact“ in the previous
year alone. Coast Guard Academy data show similar results.
While DOD has established an oversight framework for its academies‘
sexual harassment and assault programs, its oversight has not been
integrated and comprehensive, and the Coast Guard headquarters has not
established an oversight framework. For example, inconsistencies exist
in the way sexual harassment and assault data have been collected and
reported because the department has not clearly articulated data
reporting requirements. Further, DOD is unable to fully evaluate the
academies‘ programs because it has not established measures to analyze
incident data, survey results, and academy programs. Also, DOD has been
only minimally addressing congressional interest in academy programs
because it has not been conducting a comprehensive and integrated
analysis of academy data or programs before forwarding academy reports
to Congress. As a result, it has been difficult for DOD and Congress to
judge how well the academies are addressing these important issues. It
appears that DOD has very recently taken steps to address these
concerns. Although the Coast Guard has performed a limited assessment
of its academy‘s sexual harassment activities, it does not report
statistics to Congress. In addition, the Coast Guard headquarters has
not established guidance with which to oversee and evaluate its
academy‘s efforts. Consequently, the Coast Guard headquarters lacks
measures of how well its academy may be addressing incidents of sexual
harassment and assault.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO suggests that Congress consider requiring the Coast Guard Academy
to submit data for DOD‘s annual report and to participate in
assessments methodologically comparable to those administered by DOD.
GAO is also making recommendations to DOD and the Coast Guard to
improve oversight of sexual assault and harassment at their academies.
Both agencies concurred or partially concurred with GAO‘s
recommendations.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
[hyperlink, http://www.GAO-08-296]. For more information, contact
Brenda S. Farrell at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
The Academies Have Taken Steps to Prevent, Respond to, and Resolve
Incidents of Sexual Harassment and Assault:
Academies Collect Data on Sexual Harassment and Assault, but Results
from Anonymous Surveys Administered in 2006 Suggest That the Academies
May Not Have Complete Visibility Due to Underreporting:
DOD's Oversight of Its Academies' Sexual Harassment and Assault
Programs Has Not Been Integrated and Comprehensive, and Coast Guard
Headquarters Has Not Established an Oversight Framework:
Conclusions:
Matter for Congressional Consideration:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security:
Appendix IV: Commissions and Initiatives to Study Sexual Harassment and
Assault:
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Related GAO Products:
Tables:
Table 1: Alleged Sexual Harassment Incidents at the DOD Academies for
Academy Program Years 2003 through 2006:
Table 2: Unrestricted Sexual Assault Incidents Reported by the Military
Criminal Investigative Organizations at the DOD Academies for Academy
Program Years 2003 through 2006:
Table 3: Unrestricted and Restricted Sexual Assault Incidents Reported
by the Sexual Assault Response Coordinators at the DOD Academies for
Academy Program Years 2003 through 2006:
Table 4: Unrestricted and Restricted Sexual Assault Incidents at the
Coast Guard Academy for Academy Program Years 2003 through 2006:
Figures:
Figure 1: General Responsibilities of DOD Sexual Assault Response
Coordinators (Applicable for Military Servicemembers, DOD Civilian
Employees, or DOD Contractors Serving in This Capacity):
Figure 2: Sexual Harassment and Assault Reporting Options:
Abbreviations:
DHS: Department of Homeland Security:
DMDC: Defense Manpower Data Center DOD Department of Defense:
SAPR: Sexual Assault Prevention & Response:
[End of section]
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
January 17, 2008:
The Honorable John F. Tierney:
Chairman:
The Honorable Christopher Shays:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs:
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:
House of Representatives:
Sexual harassment and assault are fundamentally at odds with the
obligation of men and women in uniform to treat all with dignity and
respect. Nonetheless, incidents of sexual harassment and assault at the
service academies are not a new concern. Congress first asked us to
examine the issue of sexual harassment at the Department of Defense
(DOD) academies in the 1990s. More recently, following a series of
sexual assault investigations at the United States Air Force Academy
(Air Force Academy) in 2003, the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2004[Footnote 1] required the service secretaries, under
guidance provided by the Secretary of Defense, to direct the
superintendents of the United States Military Academy (Military
Academy), the United States Naval Academy (Naval Academy), and the Air
Force Academy to establish policies, programs, and procedures to
address incidents of sexual harassment and assault at the academies
overseen by DOD, to report annually on sexual harassment and assault
involving academy personnel, and to perform assessments, to include
surveys, to determine the effectiveness of the academies' policies,
training, and procedures on sexual harassment and violence to prevent
criminal harassment and violence involving academy personnel.[Footnote
2] In response to this requirement, DOD released the results of a
survey of DOD academy students in April 2005, which suggested that a
number of sexual assaults involving students at the academies went
unreported. In addition, DOD is required and has been reporting
annually to Congress since 2005 on sexual assault incidents involving
academy students. In June 2005, a DOD task force, established pursuant
to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2004,[Footnote 3] recommended that Congress create an additional
reporting option that would protect the confidentiality of sexual
assault victims at the academies. Since 2005, victims of sexual assault
have had two reporting options: unrestricted, which will trigger an
investigation by the appropriate military criminal investigative
organization, and restricted, which allows victims to disclose a sexual
assault incident to specified officials and receive medical care and
other response services without automatically triggering a report to
law enforcement or the initiation of an official investigation.
Although the requirements Congress established for the service
academies do not apply to the United States Coast Guard Academy (Coast
Guard Academy), which is administered by the United States Coast Guard
(Coast Guard) under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the
Coast Guard Academy has adopted similar sexual harassment and assault
policies, programs, and procedures. Nevertheless, since the
requirements were first put into place, each of the academies has
experienced one or more reported incidents of sexual harassment or
assault.
In August 2006, Congressman Christopher Shays, then Chairman of the
House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National
Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, asked us to
review the incidence, prevention of, response to, and resolution of
sexual assault at the DOD and Coast Guard academies. In September 2007,
Congressman John Tierney, in his new position as Chairman of the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on National
Security and Foreign Affairs, signed on to the original request
submitted by Congressman Shays. This report evaluates (1) the
academies' programs to address the prevention of, response to, and
resolution of sexual harassment and assault cases; (2) the visibility
that the academies have over incidents of sexual harassment and
assault; and (3) the oversight exercised by DOD and the Coast Guard
over the academies' sexual harassment and assault programs[Footnote 4].
During the course of this review, we visited each of the service
academies: the Military Academy in West Point, New York; the Naval
Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; the Air Force Academy in Colorado
Springs, Colorado; and the Coast Guard Academy in New London,
Connecticut. For each of our objectives, we reviewed multiple
legislative requirements and DOD, DHS, service, and academy policies,
regulations, procedures, and processes. To evaluate the academies'
programs addressing the prevention, response, and resolution of sexual
harassment and assault cases, we examined relevant government and non-
government reports, studies, and surveys; conducted one-on-one
structured interviews with randomly selected students; and consulted
experts in the area of sexual harassment and assault. To evaluate the
academies' visibility over sexual harassment and assault incidents, we
analyzed data on reported incidents occurring at the academies during
program years 2003 through 2006. We assessed the reliability of the
academies' sexual harassment and assault data by interviewing
knowledgeable officials and comparing data collected from different
sources and found inconsistencies, which we discuss further in this
report. We compared reported incidents from the DOD service academies
with information provided by students on surveys administered by the
Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC).[Footnote 5] To evaluate DOD's and
the Coast Guard's oversight of academy sexual harassment and assault
programs, we obtained and reviewed applicable oversight reports and
examined DOD's and the Coast Guard's responses to any recommendations
from prior studies related to sexual harassment and assault at the
academies. For each of our objectives, we also interviewed responsible
officials and other knowledgeable personnel in the Office of the Under
Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, at DHS, at the
service headquarters, and at each of the academies. Further details
about our scope and methodology, including further details about the
Defense Manpower Data Center's survey methods and the nature of the
questions we used in our one-on-one structured interviews with academy
students, can be found in appendix I.
We conducted this performance audit from February 2007 through November
2007 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards.
Results in Brief:
All four academies have taken a number of steps to prevent, respond to,
and resolve incidents of sexual harassment and assault. In 2006, DOD
issued an instruction that required each major defense installation,
including the academies, to establish the position of Sexual Assault
Response Coordinator, which serves as a single point of accountability
for each academy's sexual assault prevention, response, and resolution
efforts. The individuals currently serving in these positions are
responsible for coordinating community sexual assault response,
providing victim advocacy, facilitating the education of personnel on
sexual assault and victim advocacy, organizing public awareness
campaigns, documenting services provided, and reporting sexual assault
data. The Sexual Assault Response Coordinator--who may be a
servicemember, DOD civilian employee, or contractor--also conducts an
ongoing assessment of the consistency and effectiveness of his or her
academy's sexual assault prevention and response program. The Coast
Guard Academy is not required to have a Sexual Assault Response
Coordinator, but Coast Guard Academy officials have indicated that they
plan to establish the position. Each of the academies has also
established training requirements and programs aimed at preventing and
responding to future incidents of sexual harassment and assault. For
example, DOD academy policies require Sexual Assault Response
Coordinators to attend formal training that may include the management
of sexual assault cases, reporting options available to victims, and
appropriate methods for transferring victim care to civilian
authorities. Academy students also receive mandatory sexual harassment
and assault prevention and response training during their 4 years at
the academies. Although the Coast Guard Academy is not subject to the
laws that require the DOD academies to develop sexual harassment and
assault prevention and response training requirements, the academy has
instituted training policies and programs similar to those at the DOD
academies, and these policies were revised in 2006. All of the students
we interviewed from a nongeneralizable random sample confirmed that
they had received sexual harassment and assault training, and many
noted that they received the training in a variety of formats. In
addition, the academies have established alternatives for responding to
and resolving incidents of sexual harassment and assault, depending on
whether the reported incident involves harassment or assault, and in
cases of assault, whether the victim wishes the report to remain
restricted or makes an unrestricted report. Nine of the 126
subjects[Footnote 6] identified in the unrestricted reports of sexual
assault that we reviewed from the DOD and Coast Guard military criminal
investigative organizations in academy program years 2003 through 2006
proceeded to a court-martial and, of those tried, 5 subjects were
convicted and 4 were acquitted. The majority of the remaining 117
subjects identified by the military criminal investigative
organizations were not formally charged with sexual assault because the
evidence was unsubstantiated, unfounded, or insufficient as determined
by the academies' staff judge advocates. DOD has reported that some of
these reported cases were resolved without the court-martial process
because the academies have other nonjudicial options at their disposal.
The academies collect sexual harassment and assault data; however,
student perceptions gathered from a 2006 survey[Footnote 7] indicate
that sexual harassment and assault may be underreported, suggesting
that the academies may not have full visibility over the magnitude of
sexual harassment and assault incidents involving academy students.
Each DOD academy is statutorily required to submit annual sexual
harassment and violence reports, which are to include, among other
things, the number of sexual assaults and other sexual offenses
involving academy students that have been reported to academy officials
during the program year, and also to indicate the number of reported
cases that have been substantiated during the same year.[Footnote 8]
For academy program years 2003 through 2006, the DOD academies'
military equal opportunity offices[Footnote 9] reported 32 sexual
harassment cases, the Sexual Assault Response Coordinators[Footnote 10]
reported 25 restricted cases of sexual assault, and the military
criminal investigators[Footnote 11] reported 96 unrestricted sexual
assault cases. However, the most recent DOD survey of its academy
students, which was administered by the Defense Manpower Data Center in
March and April 2006, resulted in an estimated 8.2 percent to 10.5
percent of females and an estimated 1 percent to 1.4 percent of males
reporting unwanted sexual contact. Based on the total number of men and
women enrolled at the academies, the DOD survey estimates suggest that
approximately 200 female and 100 male students may have experienced
unwanted sexual contact in the previous year alone. Although the term
unwanted sexual contact includes a range of activities that the Uniform
Code of Military Justice prohibits and thus cannot necessarily be
directly compared to reported cases of sexual harassment or sexual
assault, survey results nonetheless suggest that cases may be
underreported and that the academies may not have full visibility over
the total number of incidents of sexual harassment and assault
involving academy students. Although the Coast Guard Academy is not
required to report sexual harassment and assault data through formal
channels, it does track and record incidents that occur at the academy.
The Coast Guard Academy also administers its own surveys of academy
students, and the Coast Guard Academy surveys show disparities that are
similar to the DOD academies' survey results.
DOD has established an oversight framework for its academies' sexual
harassment and assault programs, but the department's oversight has not
been integrated and comprehensive. The Coast Guard has not established
an oversight framework for the Coast Guard Academy's programs. DOD has
established directives and other guidance that establish an oversight
framework for its sexual harassment and sexual assault prevention and
response programs. Oversight responsibility for sexual harassment
programs is assigned to the Office of Diversity Management and Equal
Opportunity and for sexual assault programs to the Sexual Assault
Prevention and Response Office--both of which are under the authority
of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and
Readiness. DOD guidance also provides oversight expectations to the
military services, and defines statutory reporting requirements. In
addition, each military department prepares service-specific operating
instructions based on DOD's guidance, and the academies develop
implementation guidance based on their services' instructions and
regulations. However, DOD's oversight has not been comprehensive and
integrated. For example, inconsistencies exist in the way sexual
harassment and assault data have been collected and reported because
the department has not clearly articulated data-reporting requirements.
Further, DOD is unable to fully evaluate the effectiveness of the
academies' programs because it has not established evaluative
performance measures with which to conduct a comprehensive and
integrated analysis of reported sexual harassment and assault incident
data, survey and qualitative data analyses results, and information on
programs implemented at the academies. Moreover, DOD has been only
minimally addressing congressional interest in academy programs because
it has not been conducting a comprehensive and integrated analysis of
the information contained in the DOD academies' annual reports, or a
meaningful assessment of the academies' programs before forwarding the
academies' reports to Congress. As a result, DOD and congressional
decision makers have not had an integrated source of reliable data with
which to judge how well the academies are addressing these important
issues and may have difficulty assessing the overall successes,
challenges, and overall lessons learned from the academies' sexual
harassment and assault prevention and response programs. DOD has very
recently taken steps to address these concerns. For example, we
reviewed a draft of the 2007 annual academies report, which, among
other things, included DOD's assessment of academy compliance with DOD
program requirements and a summary of sexual harassment incidents that
occurred during the academy program year. Although the Coast Guard has
performed a limited assessment of its academy's sexual harassment
program, it has not established guidance, program requirements, or
other aspects of an oversight framework for the sexual harassment and
assault programs at the Coast Guard Academy. While there is no
statutory reporting requirement for the Coast Guard Academy, the
academy voluntarily participates in DOD's annual reporting process by
submitting data, although in a more limited format, to DOD's Sexual
Assault Prevention and Response Office, and it internally administers
climate surveys and focus groups on an annual basis. Nevertheless,
without a management oversight framework for the Coast Guard Academy to
include data collection, maintenance, and reporting requirements,
management goals, performance measures, and milestones to evaluate
progress made toward addressing the incidence of sexual harassment and
assault, the Coast Guard also will be unable to assure Congress or even
members of its own community that its efforts to prevent, respond to,
and resolve these incidents are effective.
We are suggesting that Congress may wish to consider requiring the
Coast Guard Academy to submit sexual harassment and assault incident
and program data for the annual report on Sexual Harassment and
Violence at the Military Academies and to participate in surveys and
appropriate qualitative methods that produce results that are
methodologically comparable to those administered by DOD. In addition,
we are making recommendations to DOD to improve the oversight of sexual
harassment and assault programs at the DOD academies and to ensure
consistent capturing and reporting of data. DOD concurred or partially
concurred with the recommendations in our draft report. Specifically,
DOD partially concurred with our recommendation that the department
clearly articulate data reporting requirements, to include common
terminology, stating that there are challenges with maintaining
consistent terminology in the data reporting process. DOD concurred
with our recommendation to create service-wide performance metrics for
sexual harassment and assault programs, noting that the department
plans to make this a priority for the upcoming year. DOD partially
concurred with our recommendation that it conduct a comprehensive,
integrated assessment of the health of academy sexual harassment and
assault programs, stating that it had conducted such an assessment of
the academies for academic program year 2006-2007 and documented its
findings in its annual report, which it delivered to Congress on
December 7, 2007. We reviewed this most recent assessment, and our
report notes DOD's recent efforts to address this concern. We continue
to believe, however, that additional action is needed. DOD requested
clarification of the term "health", asserting that the term does not
clearly define what is to be assessed. Through this recommendation, we
are expressing our finding that DOD, at the departmentwide level, has
been missing the opportunity to provide its own assessment of the
successes, challenges, and lessons learned from the academies' sexual
harassment and assault programs. We changed our recommendation to
reflect this language.
We are also recommending that Coast Guard headquarters develop a
management oversight framework for the Coast Guard Academy's sexual
harassment and assault program to include management goals, performance
measures, reporting requirements, and milestones to evaluate progress
made. The Coast Guard concurred with our recommendation, stating that
it recently released a Commandant Instruction on its Sexual Assault
Prevention and Response Program that will provide the necessary
framework and oversight recommended in our report. We have reviewed
this Instruction and it addresses many of our concerns.
DOD's and the Coast Guard's written comments are reprinted in
appendixes II and III, respectively.
Background:
The Military Academy, Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, and Coast Guard
Academy educate and train young men and women to be leaders and
effective officers in the uniformed services. Student life at the
academies is demanding and, in many ways, differs from student life at
other colleges and universities. The approximately 4,000 students who
attend each of the three DOD service academies and 1,000 students who
attend the Coast Guard academy undergo a challenging 4-year program of
academic, physical, and military education that culminates in a
bachelor's degree and a commission as an officer in one of the four
military services for 5 years after graduation. In addition to
completing the academic course work, students must participate in
rigorous military training activities, mandatory athletic events, and
leadership training that includes topics such as ethics and sexual
harassment and assault.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1976 directed
the three DOD service academies to admit female students as part of the
graduating class of 1980.[Footnote 12] This act states that the
academic and other relevant standards required for appointment,
admission, training, graduation, and commissioning are to be the same
for women and men, except for those minimal essential adjustments
required due to physiological differences. Similarly, the Coast Guard
also first admitted women in 1976 as part of its graduating class of
1980. Coast Guard Academy female students, like those at the DOD
academies, are also required to meet the same standards for the
appointment, admission, training, graduation, and commissioning
required of male students except for adjustments necessary due to
physiological differences. Currently, women constitute about 15 percent
of the students at the Military Academy, approximately 17 percent of
the students at the Naval Academy, about 19 percent of the students at
the Air Force Academy, and about 27 percent of the students at the
Coast Guard Academy.
All of DOD's programs related to sexual harassment and sexual assault,
including the programs at its academies, fall under the Office of the
Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. The Under
Secretary has assigned responsibility for sexual harassment program
oversight to DOD's Office of Diversity Management and Equal
Opportunity, and has designated the Sexual Assault Prevention and
Response Office as the department's single point of responsibility for
sexual assault policy matters. In 2003, the new DHS became the parent
agency of the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard maintains an Office of Civil
Rights to address issues including sexual harassment and an Office of
Work-Life to address issues including sexual assault. Both offices fall
under the Commandant of the Coast Guard.
DOD defines sexual harassment as unwelcome sexual advances, requests
for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual
nature, when submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or
implicitly as a term or condition of a person's job, pay or career, or
submission to or rejection of such conduct by a person is used as a
basis for career or employment decisions affecting that person, or such
conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an
individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile, or
offensive work environment. This definition emphasizes that workplace
conduct, to be actionable as "abusive work environment" harassment,
need not result in concrete psychological harm to the victim, but
rather need only be so severe or pervasive that a reasonable person
would perceive, and the victim does perceive, the work environment as
hostile or offensive.[Footnote 13] Any person in a supervisory or
command position who uses or condones any form of sexual behavior to
control, influence, or affect the career, pay, or job of a military
member or civilian employee or who makes deliberate or repeated
unwelcome verbal comments, gestures, or physical contact of a sexual
nature in the workplace is also engaging in sexual harassment. The
Coast Guard employs a similar definition of sexual harassment.
In response to the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 2005,[Footnote 14] the Secretary of Defense issued a
directive for DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program that
included a standard definition of sexual assault for all service
branches, to include the academies. Under the standard definition,
sexual assault is "intentional sexual contact, characterized by the use
of force, physical threat or abuse of authority or when the victim does
not or cannot consent. It includes rape, nonconsensual sodomy (oral and
anal sex), indecent assault (unwanted, inappropriate sexual contact or
fondling), or attempts to commit these acts. Sexual assault can occur
without regard to gender or spousal relationship or age of victim.
"Consent" shall not be deemed or construed to mean the failure by the
victim to offer physical resistance. Consent is not given when a person
uses force, threat of force, coercion, or when a victim is asleep,
incapacitated, or unconscious."[Footnote 15] The Coast Guard employs a
similar definition of sexual assault.
DOD provides oversight of the sexual harassment and assault programs at
the DOD academies by complying with statutory reporting requirements.
Following a series of high-profile sexual assault cases at the DOD
academies, Congress directed DOD to provide an annual report on
incidents of sexual harassment and assault at the DOD
academies.[Footnote 16] The John Warner National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2007 revised and codified the reporting
requirements and directed DOD to administer surveys of academy students
in odd-numbered years and to conduct focus groups for any year that
surveys are not required.[Footnote 17]
To date, DOD has completed three surveys:
1. The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense
issued a Report on the Service Academy Sexual Assault and Leadership
Survey on March 4, 2005.
2. The Defense Manpower Data Center issued the results of the Service
Academy 2005 Sexual Harassment and Assault Survey in December 2005.
3. The Defense Manpower Data Center issued the results of the Service
Academy 2006 Gender Relations Survey in December 2006.
DOD, through its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office and in
conjunction with the Defense Manpower Data Center, issued its fourth
report in December 2007. This report is the first to include results
from academy focus groups as well as an assessment by the Sexual
Assault and Prevention Response Office and the Office of Diversity
Management and Equal Opportunity of the academies' policies and
programs relating to sexual harassment and assault cases. The report
also includes academy data on formal reports of sexual harassment,
which were not included in the earlier reports.
We first examined congressional concerns about sexual harassment at the
DOD academies beginning in 1990, following a Senate Committee on Armed
Services request that we evaluate the treatment of service academy
students. In the years from 1992 through 2003, we issued two
testimonies and three reports on this issue, and made recommendations
for improving the military service academies' treatment of sexual
harassment.
* In June 1992, we testified that sexual harassment occurred more
frequently than what was reported to officials on student treatment at
the DOD academies.[Footnote 18]
* In January 1994, we issued a report based on the 1992 testimony,
which stated that DOD's academies had not met DOD's policy of providing
an environment free from sexual harassment.[Footnote 19]
* In February 1994, we followed up with a testimony based on the
January 1994 report's findings.[Footnote 20]
* In March 1995 we reported that the majority of women in each of the
DOD academies reported experiencing at least one form of sexual
harassment on a recurring basis in academic year 1993-94.[Footnote 21]
* We conducted a survey on students and faculty at the DOD academies
from February 5 through March 7, 2003, which found that on average,
from 21 to 37 percent of female students at the DOD academies responded
that sexual harassment prevention was generally or greatly
underemphasized. We subsequently issued a report in September 2003 that
detailed our findings.[Footnote 22]
In addition, Congress has undertaken several initiatives and DOD has
created a number of related task forces and conducted a number of
studies, which are further detailed in appendix IV.
The Academies Have Taken Steps to Prevent, Respond to, and Resolve
Incidents of Sexual Harassment and Assault:
All four academies have taken a number of steps to prevent, respond to,
and resolve incidents of sexual harassment and assault. For instance,
the DOD academies have each established and staffed a Sexual Assault
Response Coordinator position to operate as the single point of
accountability for each academy's sexual assault prevention, response,
and resolution efforts. Each of the academies has also established
training requirements and programs aimed at preventing and responding
to future incidents of sexual harassment and assault. Procedures
academies use to respond to and resolve incidents of sexual harassment
and assault generally depend on which type of incident is reported and
the reporting option chosen by the victim. A few of the reported sexual
assault cases have resulted in formal charges.
The DOD Academies Have Established and Staffed a Sexual Assault
Response Coordinator Position to Serve as the Single Point of
Accountability:
In 2006, DOD issued an instruction[Footnote 23] requiring the military
services to establish Sexual Assault Response Coordinator positions and
required each coordinator to serve as a single point of contact to
coordinate community sexual assault response when a sexual assault is
reported. The coordinator is the focal point for sexual assault
prevention, response, and resolution efforts at each major
installation, including the DOD academies. The coordinator, who has a
full-time position dedicated to working on sexual assault prevention
and response, is responsible for, among other things, coordinating
community sexual assault response, activating a round-the-clock system
to provide victim advocacy, facilitating the education of personnel on
sexual assault and victim advocacy services, organizing public
awareness campaigns for victims of sexual assault, documenting services
provided, and reporting sexual assault data. When providing victim
care, the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator documents the services
referred to or requested by the victim of each reported sexual assault
incident from the time of an initial report to the final disposition of
the case or until the victim no longer desires services. The
coordinator also serves as the chair of the monthly sexual assault case
management group, oversees victim advocates, and conducts an ongoing
assessment of the consistency and effectiveness of his or her academy's
sexual assault prevention and response program. Figure 1 provides a
general overview of Sexual Assault Response Coordinator
responsibilities.
Figure 1: General Responsibilities of DOD Sexual Assault Response
Coordinators (Applicable for Military Servicemembers, DOD Civilian
Employees, or DOD Contractors Serving in This Capacity):
[See PDF for image]
This figure depicts the following data:
SARC: Shall serve as the single point of contact to coordinate
community sexual assault response when a sexual assault is reported.
Training:
* Facilitates education of command personnel on sexual assault;
* Facilitates briefings on victim advocacy services;
* Facilitates training of first responders, medical responders, health
care providers, military and civilian law enforcement, and criminal
investigative personnel;
* Facilitates Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) public
awareness campaigns, including events for Sexual Assault Awareness
Month;
* Assists the senior commander to meet annual SAPR training
requirements, including orientation for newly assigned personnel and
community education publicizing available SAPR services.
Reporting:
* Provides aggregate information to assist senior-level commanders to
better understand and manage trends and characteristics of sexual
assault crimes;
* Provides the senior commander with nonidentifying personal
information within 24 hours of report of sexual assault;
* Provides aggregate data on restricted cases for annual sexual
harassment and violence reports.
Victim Care:
* Documents the services referred to and/or requested by the victim
from the time of the initial report to final disposition or until
victim no longer desires services;
* Collaborates with other agencies and activities to improve SAPR
response to and support of victims of sexual assault;
* Advocates to ensure the views of the victim of the sexual assault are
considered in the decision-making process;
* Activates victim advocacy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for all
incidents of reported sexual assault occurring either on or off the
installation.
Oversight:
* Serves as chair of monthly, mutidisciplinary case management group
for unrestricted cases of sexual assault;
* Exercises oversight of victim advocates and familiarizes the unit
commanders and/or supervisors of victim advocates with the victim
advocate roles and responsibilities;
* Conducts an ongoing assessment of the consistency and effectiveness
of SAPR within assigned area of responsibility.
Sources: GAO analysis, Art Explosion (clip art).
[End of figure]
The Military Academy and Naval Academy employ Sexual Assault Response
Coordinators who are solely dedicated to students, while the Air Force
Academy's Coordinator serves academy students and the active duty
military personnel assigned to both the academy and the collocated
installation. The Sexual Assault Response Coordinator at the DOD
academies can be a military servicemember, DOD civilian employee, or
DOD contractor. Currently, the position at the Military and Naval
Academies is filled by a military servicemember, while the Air Force
Academy's coordinator is a Government Series civilian. Victim
advocates, chaplains, health care providers, psychologists, criminal
investigative units, judge advocate's offices, military law enforcement
personnel, and victim and subject commanding officers provide support
to the coordinator--and to the sexual assault prevention and response
program in general.
The Coast Guard Academy is not required to have a Sexual Assault
Response Coordinator position. Instead, the Coast Guard relies on a
network comprised of academy leadership, licensed psychologists,
chaplains, staff judge advocates, peers, and investigative personnel to
respond to sexual assault incidents. The Coast Guard Academy also has
victim advocates who provide assistance to students throughout the
unrestricted sexual assault reporting process. Coast Guard Academy
students who choose to make restricted reports may receive services
from victim advocates employed by civilian victim care organizations.
During our review, however, Coast Guard Academy officials indicated
that they plan to establish a Sexual Assault Response Coordinator
position.
The Academies Have Established Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention
and Response Training Requirements and Programs:
Each of the academies has established training requirements and
programs on the prevention of and response to sexual harassment and
assault. In response to the statutory requirements[Footnote 24] and DOD
guidance, DOD's October 2005 directive[Footnote 25] states that DOD's
policy includes eliminating sexual assault within DOD by providing a
culture of prevention, education and training, response capability,
victim support, reporting procedures, and accountability that enhances
the well-being and safety of all its members. The three DOD academies
have established separate sexual harassment and assault-related
training requirements and programs for students, responders, academy
personnel, and academy mental health professionals, such as counselors.
DOD academy policies require the Sexual Assault Response Coordinators
to attend formal training--as victim responders--that includes the
management of sexual assault cases, reporting options available to
victims, and appropriate methods for transferring victim care to
civilian authorities. Coordinators are also trained to provide
instruction to other academy personnel, such as victim advocates.
Additionally, the Sexual Assault Response Coordinators assist
commanders in meeting annual sexual assault prevention and response
training requirements by providing sexual harassment and assault
orientation briefings for new students and personnel.
Each of the DOD academies employs different training curricula for
students, but all share common elements, including mandatory training
on response procedures, available resources, terminology, and the
consequences of committing sexual harassment and assault. Additionally,
each of the academies employs graduated student training programs,
which culminate in more advanced training for seniors on how to handle
potential incidents of sexual harassment and assault as commissioned
officers. Academy sexual harassment and assault training is conducted
in various formats, such as traditional classroom instruction, small
group interaction, and role play. Each of the academies also hosts
nationally recognized lecturers, who present their unique perspectives
to academy students. Students receive an approximately 16 hours of
formal sexual harassment and assault training throughout their 4 years
at the academies. In addition to formal training, students also spend
time participating in command and unit-based briefings, lectures,
presentations, and discussion groups on sexual harassment and assault
issues.
Although the Coast Guard Academy is not subject to the laws requiring
the DOD academies to establish sexual harassment and assault prevention
and response training requirements, the academy has instituted
policies, which were revised in early 2006, and training programs
similar to those at the DOD academies. The Coast Guard Academy policy
on sexual assault requires periodic training on policy requirements to
ensure adequate and appropriate implementation. Specifically, the
training must provide all military personnel, including students, with
an understanding of the reporting options available to them and the
procedures used to ensure confidentiality. Since the Coast Guard
Academy does not have a Sexual Assault Response Coordinator, academy
personnel responsible for all student training develop, coordinate, and
execute the Coast Guard Academy's sexual harassment and assault
training. This training, which is intended to teach character, core
values, and leadership, is conducted outside of regular classes.
Similar to the DOD academies, students at the Coast Guard Academy begin
training during the summer before their freshman year, in which they
learn about and demonstrate understanding of standards. These training
sessions include program definitions, policies, resources, appropriate
responses, confidentiality requirements, a briefing on their peer
resource program, and student roles. Students receive more than 20
hours of formal sexual harassment and assault training throughout their
4 years at the academy. Coast Guard Academy students also participate
in additional command and unit-based briefings, lectures,
presentations, and discussion groups on these topics.
In October and November 2007, we conducted one-on-one structured
interviews with randomly selected students at each of the academies,
who had been at the academy for more than 1 year, to discuss student
perceptions of sexual harassment and assault prevention and response
training programs. While we cannot project to the total population of
students at the academies from our limited sample, all 70 of the
students we interviewed confirmed that they had received sexual
harassment and assault training, and many noted that they received the
training in a variety of formats.
Procedures for Responding to and Resolving Incidents of Sexual
Harassment or Assault Depend on the Incident Reported and the Reporting
Method:
Procedures academies use to respond to and resolve incidents of sexual
harassment and assault at the military academies generally depend on
which type of incident is reported and the reporting option chosen by
the victim. Students at the DOD academies who wish to report an
incident of either sexual harassment or sexual assault have a choice of
two reporting options, each of which includes multiple individuals to
whom a student can report. The reporting option chosen determines the
response from academy officials and presents different options for
achieving resolution. The Coast Guard Academy has similar reporting
options.
The academies provide two options for filing complaints of sexual
harassment: informal and formal. The academies encourage sexual
harassment victims to resolve incidents through the informal complaint
process first, which triggers the lowest-level response. The DOD and
the Coast Guard Academies' sexual harassment policies recommend that
the complainant resolve informal complaints by directly confronting the
subject. If the complainant does not feel comfortable directly
confronting the subject, he or she may ask for help from another
student or another person in the complainant's chain of command. In
informal cases, the subject's commanding officer, with input from the
chain of command, determines the type of action that can range from
informal counseling to written reprimands.
Procedures for filing a formal complaint of sexual harassment differ
slightly depending on the academy attended. For example, the amount of
time a student has to file a formal complaint ranges from 45 to 60 days
of the alleged incident. In response, the official who receives and
reviews the written complaint determines if an investigation should be
initiated. If a student chooses to file a formal complaint, the DOD
academies' military equal opportunity offices and the Coast Guard
Academy's Office of Civil Rights will interview any witnesses, collect
data, and create a report with findings and recommended actions. From
this point, the commander will determine whether further investigation
is necessary or whether to approve all or part of the findings and
recommendations. Once the commanding officer determines that a sexual
harassment complaint has merit, the Superintendent will determine the
most appropriate action to address the subject's misconduct. If
egregious enough, sexual harassment claims may be prosecuted under the
Uniform Code of Military Justice. Resolution time varies depending on
the nature of the incident and whether the complainant makes a formal
or informal complaint.
Like sexual harassment, academy responses to allegations of sexual
assault are largely based on how the victim chooses to report the
incident. Each academy offers two reporting options: restricted and
unrestricted. The restricted reporting option permits a victim to
disclose an alleged sexual assault incident to designated officials,
such as Sexual Assault Response Coordinators at the DOD academies,
doctors, or victim advocates, privately. In response, designated
academy officials will provide necessary medical treatment, mental
health services, or other care the victim needs while maintaining the
anonymity of the victim and without initiating a criminal investigation
or taking action for any victim misconduct associated with the reported
incident. However, the academies' military criminal investigative
organizations or military police are required to store forensic
evidence gathered by health care providers using nonpersonalized
identifiers for up to a year after a restricted report of sexual
assault. This allows a victim the option of converting the restricted
report to an unrestricted report at a date within 1 year of the initial
restricted report.
Alternatively, the unrestricted reporting option affords the victim the
same level of care, but may also initiate a response by the appropriate
military criminal investigative organization. If a victim reports a
sexual assault through unrestricted channels, the appropriate military
criminal investigative organization--such as the Army's Criminal
Investigative Division, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Air Force
Office of Special Investigations, or Coast Guard Investigative Service-
-will be contacted to collect evidence and interview the victim,
subject, and witnesses. The staff judge advocate office will review the
evidence collected by the criminal investigative organization and
advise the subject's commanding officer on how to proceed. The
subject's superintendent ultimately decides the level at which an
offense is to be resolved. The superintendent may opt for no
punishment; administrative measures, which can vary from an oral or
written reprimand to separation from the academy; nonjudicial
punishment such as loss of privileges, extra duty, and loss of rank or
pay; or, for the most serious offenses, a court-martial. After being
found guilty at a general court-martial, a subject could be dismissed
from the service academy, confined, or--if the case is referred as a
capital case--sentenced to the death penalty. According to officials we
spoke with, legal proceedings in the military courts tend to occur more
promptly than in the civilian judicial system. DOD policy affords the
victim a number of rights during this process, including the right to
consult with the government's attorney, notification of and the right
to be present at all court proceedings unless otherwise determined by
the court, and reasonable protection from the subject.[Footnote 26]
From academy program years 2003 through 2006, 9 of the 126 subjects
identified in the 108[Footnote 27] unrestricted reports of sexual
assault that we reviewed from the DOD and Coast Guard military criminal
investigative organizations proceeded to a court-martial. The majority
of the remaining 117 subjects identified were not formally charged with
sexual assault because the evidence was unsubstantiated, unfounded, or
insufficient. Of those 9 subjects tried, 5 subjects were convicted and
4 were acquitted.
Academies Collect Data on Sexual Harassment and Assault, but Results
from Anonymous Surveys Administered in 2006 Suggest That the Academies
May Not Have Complete Visibility Due to Underreporting:
The academies collect data on sexual harassment and assault; however,
student perceptions gathered from a survey administered in 2006 suggest
that sexual harassment and assault may be underreported and, hence,
that the academies do not have visibility over the total number of
incidents. Although the Coast Guard Academy is not required to report
sexual harassment and assault data, it does record incidents of sexual
harassment and assault and also administers its own surveys of academy
students. The 2006 Coast Guard Academy survey shows similar disparities
in the results.
The DOD Academies Collect Data on Reported Incidents of Sexual
Harassment and Assault:
For academy program years 2003 through 2006, the DOD academies'
military equal opportunity offices[Footnote 28] reported 32 sexual
harassment cases, the Sexual Assault Response Coordinators[Footnote 29]
reported 26 restricted cases of sexual assault, and the military
criminal investigators[Footnote 30] reported 96 unrestricted sexual
assault cases. Each DOD academy is statutorily required[Footnote 31] to
submit annual sexual harassment and violence reports to its respective
service secretary each academy program year.[Footnote 32] These reports
must include the number of sexual assaults, rapes, and other sexual
offenses involving academy students or other personnel that have been
reported to academy officials during the academy program year, and also
indicate the number of reported cases that have been substantiated. The
sexual assault data reported in the annual DOD academy reports are
currently provided by each academy's respective military criminal
investigative organization and Sexual Assault Response Coordinator. In
addition, the DOD academies are statutorily required to participate in
DOD-administered surveys, typically conducted by the Defense Manpower
Data Center, in odd-numbered years and in focus groups in even-numbered
years to determine the effectiveness of the policies, training, and
procedures of the academies with respect to sexual harassment and
sexual violence involving students and other academy personnel. The
academies provide this information to their respective service
secretaries, who forward the report to the Under Secretary of Defense
for Personnel and Readiness' Sexual Assault Prevention and Response
Office[Footnote 33] for report assembly and submission to Congress.
Table 1 presents the number of sexual harassment complaints reported by
each of the DOD academies' military equal opportunity offices for
program years 2003 through 2006. Although all the DOD academies offer
an informal sexual harassment complaint option, the Air Force Academy
is the only academy that formally tracks data on informal complaints.
Sexual harassment data have not been reported previously in the DOD
academies' annual sexual harassment and violence report; however, the
2007 report does include these data.
Table 1: Alleged Sexual Harassment Incidents at the DOD Academies for
Academy Program Years 2003 through 2006:
Military Academy:
2003: 0;
2004: 0;
2005: 0;
2006: 0;
Total: 0[A].
Naval Academy:
2003: 5;
2004: 5;
2005: 13;
2006: 3;
Total: 26.
Air Force Academy[B]:
2003: Not available[C];
2004: Not available[C];
2005: 1;
2006: 5;
Total: 6.
Total:
2003: 5;
2004: 5;
2005: 14;
2006: 8;
Total: 32.
Source: GAO analysis of sexual harassment data provided by the DOD
academies' military equal opportunity offices.
Note: All included alleged cases were closed prior to the end of
academy program year 2006.
[A] According to Military Academy officials, there were no reported
cases of sexual harassment for academy program years 2003 through 2006.
[B] The Air Force Academy numbers include both formal and informal
complaints of sexual harassment.
[C] The Air Force Academy maintains case files for 2 years only.
[End of table]
Table 2 presents the number of unrestricted reports of sexual assault
provided by the military criminal investigative organizations, and the
incidents that were substantiated by each DOD academy for academy
program years 2003 through 2006. The military criminal investigative
organizations track unrestricted sexual assault reports involving
academy students as victims, subjects, or both. Officials noted that
reported data are incident based and do not necessarily reflect the
number of victims or subjects.
Table 2: Unrestricted Sexual Assault Incidents Reported by the Military
Criminal Investigative Organizations at the DOD Academies for Academy
Program Years 2003 through 2006:
Military Academy:
2003: 7;
2004: 8;
2005: 13;
2006: 4;
Total: 32;
Total substantiated: 15.
Naval Academy:
2003: 7;
2004: 7;
2005: 5;
2006: 7;
Total: 26;
Total substantiated: 18.
Air Force Academy:
2003: 8;
2004: 19;
2005: 7;
2006: 4;
Total: 38;
Total substantiated: 3.
Total:
2003: 22;
2004: 34;
2005: 25;
2006: 15;
Total: 96;
Total substantiated: 36.
Source: GAO analysis of unrestricted sexual assault data provided by
the DOD military criminal investigative organizations.
[End of table]
In addition to the unrestricted data obtained from criminal
investigators, we also collected restricted and unrestricted reports of
sexual assault from the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator at each
academy. Table 3 presents the number of restricted and unrestricted
reports of sexual assault incidents reported by the Sexual Assault
Response Coordinator at each academy for academy program years 2003
through 2006. Data collected by the Sexual Assault Response
Coordinators are victim based.
Table 3: Unrestricted and Restricted Sexual Assault Incidents Reported
by the Sexual Assault Response Coordinators at the DOD Academies for
Academy Program Years 2003 through 2006:
Military Academy: Unrestricted;
2003: 10;
2004: 7;
2005: 12;
2006: 6.
Military Academy: Restricted;
2003: Not available[A];
2004: Not available[A];
2005: 3;
2006: 7;
Total: 45.
Naval Academy; Unrestricted;
2003: 12;
2004: 10;
2005: 11;
2006: 12.
Naval Academy; Restricted;
2003: 0;
2004: 1;
2005: 6;
2006: 3;
Total: 55.
Air Force Academy; Unrestricted;
2003: 11;
2004: 16;
2005: 7;
2006: 5.
Air Force Academy; Restricted;
2003: Not available[A];
2004: Not available[A];
2005: Not available[A];
2006: 5;
Total: 45.
Total:
2003: 33;
2004: 34;
2005: 39;
2006: 38;
Total: 145.
Source: GAO analysis of unrestricted and restricted reports of sexual
assault provided by the DOD academies' Sexual Assault Response
Coordinators.
[A] The DOD-wide restricted reporting option did not go into effect
until academy program year 2006; however, the Military Academy employed
a restricted reporting option in academy program year 2005 and the
Naval Academy employed a restricted reporting option in academy program
years 2003, 2004, and 2005.
[End of table]
As tables 2 and 3 illustrate, the data will vary based on the source
providing the information. Given that data collected by the Sexual
Assault Response Coordinators are victim based, and data collected by
the military criminal investigative organizations are incident based,
the numbers reported by these organizations will not always correspond.
For example, an incident involving one subject and three victims would
be reported as one incident by the military criminal investigative
organization and as three incidents by the Sexual Assault Response
Coordinator.
Student Perceptions Gathered from Surveys Administered in 2006 Suggest
That Sexual Harassment and Assault Data May Be Underreported, and That
the Academies Do Not Have Visibility over the Total Number of Cases:
Responses of students to recent surveys conducted at each of the four
academies indicate that incidents of sexual harassment and assault may
be occurring at higher rates than are being reported, suggesting that
the academies do not have full visibility over the actual number of
cases. The first survey to measure academy students' experience with
sexual harassment and assault while at the academies was conducted in
2004 by the DOD Inspector General. Responsibility for subsequent
surveys was transferred to the Defense Manpower Data Center. The
results of the most recent survey of DOD academy students, which was
administered in March and April 2006, are that an estimated 8.2 percent
to 10.5 percent of females and an estimated 1 percent to 1.4 percent of
males experienced "unwanted sexual contact."[Footnote 34] Based on the
total number of men and women enrolled at the academies at that time,
the DOD survey estimates suggest that approximately 200 female and 100
male students may have experienced unwanted sexual contact in the
previous year alone.[Footnote 35] Although the term unwanted sexual
contact includes a range of activities that the Uniform Code of
Military Justice prohibits and thus cannot necessarily be directly
compared to reported cases of sexual harassment or sexual assault,
survey results nonetheless suggest that cases may be underreported and
that the academies may not have full visibility over the total number
of incidents of sexual harassment and assault involving academy
students. Nearly all of female respondents who indicated experiencing
unwanted sexual contact reported that their offenders were male
students at the academy. Furthermore, of the same group of females,
roughly 75 percent from the Military Academy, 45 percent from the Naval
Academy, and 47 percent from the Air Force Academy reported that their
experience of unwanted sexual contact occurred on academy
grounds.[Footnote 36] Results regarding offender identity and the
location of incidents are not reportable for male respondents. Results
from the same survey indicated that an estimated 51 percent to 60
percent of female respondents at the three DOD academies, and an
estimated 8 percent to 12 percent of male respondents, experienced
sexual harassment,[Footnote 37] which, like the previous measure, is
higher than the 8 sexual harassment incidents recorded by the DOD
academies for the 2006 academy program year.[Footnote 38]
Although the survey results suggest a disparity between the number of
reported sexual harassment and assault cases and the actual number of
incidents, this is largely an expected result of anonymous surveys.
Whereas formal reports, whether restricted or unrestricted, involve
some level of personal identification--and therefore a certain amount
of risk on the part of the victim--the risks and incentives for the
students making anonymous reports are very different. Hence, anonymous
survey results tend to produce higher numbers of alleged incidents of
sexual harassment and assault. In addition, academy officials will
likely never have complete visibility over sexual harassment and
assault incidents--particularly those that are never reported or those
that are reported to individuals who are not required to disclose these
incidents, such as clergy, counselors, civilian victim care
organizations, friends, or family. Figure 2 depicts various reporting
options open to victims and highlights those options over which the
academies may likely never have complete visibility.
Figure 2: Sexual Harassment and Assault Reporting Options:
[See PDF for image]
This figure presents graphical illustrations of Sexual Harassment and
Assault Reporting Options. The following data is depicted
Sexual harassment reporting options:
Sexual harassment complaint:
Complainant may file formal sexual harassment complaint to these
entities or seek advice only; Complaints made to these entities are
included informal reports to the academy:
Chain of command[A];
Military Equal Opportunity Office.
Complaints provided to these entities may not result in a formal sexual
harassment complaint; therefore the Academy has limited to no
visibility; Complainant may seek advice from these entities without
filing a complaint or report:
Chaplain;
Counselor;
Peer resources;
Civilian organizations;
Friends and family.
Sexual assault reporting options:
Sexual assault victim:
Victim must file an unrestricted report/mandatory reporting; Complaints
made to these entities are included informal reports to the academy:
Chain of command[A].
Victim may file restricted or unrestricted report; Complaints made to
these entities are included informal reports to the academy:
Health care provider;
Sexual Assault Response Coordinator.
Sexual assault complaints provided to these entities may not result in
an unrestricted or restricted report; therefore the Academy has limited
to no visibility; Complainant may seek advice from these entities
without filing a complaint or report:
Chaplain;
Counselor;
Peer resources;
Civilian organizations;
Friends and family.
[A] Chain of command responsibilities differ depending on whether a
student wishes to report sexual harassment or assault and is
represented as such in these figures.
[End of figure]
The Coast Guard Academy Is Not Required to Report Sexual Harassment and
Assault Data but Does Record Incidents:
The Coast Guard Academy is not required to assess its students;
however, it does administer its own surveys of academy students, and
these surveys show similar disparities in the results. In 2006, for
example, 43 females and 20 males of the 793 student survey respondents
reported that they had experienced an incident of sexual harassment or
assault between October 2005 and October 2006.[Footnote 39] The Coast
Guard Academy combined its assessment of students experiencing sexual
harassment and assault into a single measure, which makes it difficult
to compare survey responses to reported data. However, the combined
sexual harassment and assault measure still exceeds the 10 recorded
sexual assault incidents and 0 recorded incidents of sexual harassment
at the Coast Guard Academy in the 2006 academy program year.
Additionally, the DOD and Coast Guard academies' survey results cannot
be compared because they used different measures in their surveys.
Table 4 presents the total number reports of sexual assault that were
reported to the Coast Guard Investigative Service, the Coast Guard's
military criminal investigative organization, from academy program
years 2003 through 2006. The Coast Guard Academy did not receive any
sexual harassment complaints from academy program year 2003 through
2006.
Table 4: Unrestricted and Restricted Sexual Assault Incidents at the
Coast Guard Academy for Academy Program Years 2003 through 2006:
Coast Guard Academy;
2003: 1;
2004: 1;
2005: 0;
2006: 10;
Total[A]: 12.
Source: GAO analysis of unrestricted and restricted reports of sexual
assault provided by the Coast Guard Academy.
[A] The total number of sexual assault cases includes both restricted
and unrestricted reports.
[End of table]
The Coast Guard Academy, unlike the DOD academies, is not required to
submit annual reports to Congress on incidents of sexual harassment and
assault. The Coast Guard Academy does record these data, but like DOD
academy sexual harassment and assault data, it is difficult to draw
conclusions about the effectiveness of Coast Guard Academy sexual
harassment and assault programs just by analyzing those data.
DOD's Oversight of Its Academies' Sexual Harassment and Assault
Programs Has Not Been Integrated and Comprehensive, and Coast Guard
Headquarters Has Not Established an Oversight Framework:
DOD has established an oversight framework for its academies' sexual
harassment and assault programs, but the department has not clearly
articulated data-reporting requirements or established performance
measures for evaluating the data collected from the academies, and it
has not taken the opportunity to assess the overall health of academy
sexual harassment and assault programs as part of its annual report to
Congress. However, DOD has recently taken steps to address these
concerns. Furthermore, although Coast Guard headquarters has performed
a limited assessment of the academy's sexual harassment program, it has
not established any oversight framework for either the sexual
harassment or sexual assault programs at the Coast Guard Academy.
DOD Has Issued Guidance Establishing an Oversight Framework for Its
Academies' Sexual Harassment and Assault Programs:
DOD has issued guidance establishing an oversight framework for its
sexual harassment and sexual assault prevention and response programs
that assigns oversight responsibility within the Office of the Under
Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, provides oversight
expectations to the military services, and defines statutory reporting
requirements.
DOD Sexual Harassment Program Oversight:
DOD's Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity has
oversight responsibilities for DOD's sexual harassment programs, and
DOD provisions regarding sexual harassment are contained in various
equal opportunity documents. These documents include DOD Directive
1350.2, Department of Defense Military Equal Opportunity Program, dated
August 18, 1995, and DOD Instruction 1350.3, Affirmative Action
Planning and Assessment Process, dated February 29, 1988. Office of
Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity officials noted that the
directive and instruction are currently under revision and will include
separate instructions to describe a diversity management program, the
military equal opportunity program, and the equal employment
opportunity program.
Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity officials stated
that they assign sexual harassment oversight responsibility of the
academies to the service headquarters. DOD's affirmative action
instruction focuses on the DOD policy for the military services to
monitor and report on selected dimensions of their personnel programs
(including the academies' programs) to ensure equal opportunity and
fair treatment for all service members through affirmative actions and
other initiatives.[Footnote 40] The instruction also assigns
responsibilities and establishes minimum reporting requirements. The
officials also noted that the service academies are subject to the
provisions of DOD Directive 1350.2 as well as their respective service
operating instructions and regulations and academy-specific guidance.
Each military department prepares its service-specific operating
instructions based on the guidance contained in the DOD directive.
Similarly, the service academies prepare guidance based on their
specific service instructions and regulations.
DOD Sexual Assault Program Oversight:
DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office was established
following concerns raised in early 2004 regarding sexual assault within
DOD. On February 5, 2004, the Secretary of Defense directed the Under
Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to undertake a 90-day
review of all sexual assault policies and programs among the services
and DOD. Subsequently, the Task Force Report on Care for Victims of
Sexual Assault was published in April 2004, and it identified
significant problems with military prevention and response to sexual
assault. The task force recommended for long-term action that DOD
establish institutional sexual assault program evaluation, quality
improvement, and oversight mechanisms. Since the issuance of the task
force report and the passage of recent legislation, DOD has made a
number of changes to its sexual assault program. From 2004 to 2006, DOD
refined and initiated a new policy on sexual assault first through a
series of directive-type memorandums to the services--including the
academies--and subsequently through DOD Directive 6495.01, Sexual
Assault Prevention and Response Program. The directive established a
comprehensive DOD policy on prevention of and response to sexual
assaults and assigned responsibilities for many tasks, including, but
not limited to, the development of overall policy and guidance for the
DOD sexual assault and prevention program, the monitoring of compliance
with the directive, the collection and maintenance of sexual assault
data, the development of metrics to measure compliance and the
effectiveness of sexual assault prevention and response training, and
the oversight of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office to
the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. In
addressing one of the key recommendations of the task force, DOD
established the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office as the
department's single point of responsibility for sexual assault policy
matters, except for criminal investigative policy matters assigned to
the DOD Inspector General.
The office monitors the effectiveness of the academies' sexual assault
prevention and response programs through required academy assessments
and has overseen surveys and focus groups at the DOD academies. Sexual
Assault Prevention and Response Office officials noted that they are
working collaboratively with the services to create standards for
evaluation in order to continue to effectively monitor sexual assault
prevention and response programs.
DOD Has Not Clearly Articulated Sexual Harassment and Assault Data-
Reporting Requirements:
Although it is hard to know the total number of actual sexual
harassment and assault incidents, DOD's previously issued annual
reports to Congress may not effectively characterize incidents of
sexual assault at the academies because the department has not clearly
articulated data-reporting requirements, such as requiring common
terminology or consistent methodology for reporting incidents.
Inconsistencies in the way sexual harassment and assault data have been
collected and the academies' dissimilar methods for reporting data in
the annual sexual harassment and violence report could be misleading or
confusing. As a result, congressional decision makers have lacked a
clear picture of the incidence of sexual harassment and assault
involving academy students and, therefore, may have difficulty judging
the overall successes, challenges, and lessons learned from the
academies' sexual harassment and assault prevention and response
programs. For example:
* Reported numbers of substantiated claims are inconsistent.
- DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office requires DOD's
academies to provide data on reported sexual assaults that have been
"substantiated," but each academy has been defining the term
differently because DOD has not provided clear definitions in its data
request to the DOD academies. For example, the Naval Academy considers
an unrestricted report of sexual assault to be substantiated if any one
of the following three events occurs: an investigation can be
conducted, an investigation results in a guilty verdict, or a minor
case of sexual assault occurred and is handled administratively. This
definition is much broader than that of either the Air Force or the
Military Academy. The Air Force Academy's definition of substantiated
unrestricted reports excludes cases that are still under investigation,
false reports, and reported incidents that do not meet the DOD standard
definition of sexual assault. The Military Academy defines
substantiated cases as those for which criminal investigators have
determined probable cause that a subject has committed a criminal
offense. Based on these differences in the interpretation of DOD
reporting requirements, there has been inconsistent reporting among the
academies of substantiated incidents.
* Reported data from different offices on restricted and unrestricted
sexual assault reports have not been compared or aggregated.
- DOD has not been generating a total number of restricted and
unrestricted reported incidents of sexual assault. The offices
providing the data measure incidents of sexual assault differently and
in ways that are inconsistent, thus making it difficult to aggregate
the data. Although the academies' Sexual Assault Response Coordinators
collect data on both restricted and unrestricted cases, DOD's Sexual
Assault Prevention and Response Office asks the coordinators to report
only the number of restricted incidents, because it asks the criminal
investigative organizations to provide data on unrestricted reports of
sexual assault. The Sexual Assault Response Coordinators, who focus on
victim care, collect and report data based on the number of victims
involved. The criminal investigative organizations, however, report on
"incidents," which they define as events that take place at the same
time and same place, regardless of the number of victims or subjects
involved. Thus, the lack of a shared definition for what constitutes an
incident for reporting purposes in DOD's annual report on sexual
harassment and assault has limited the ability of readers of the
reports to draw conclusions based solely on reported numbers.
* Academy methods for collecting and reporting informal sexual
harassment complaints are inconsistent.
- Our study further found that the academies have different procedures
for collecting and reporting data concerning informal sexual harassment
complaints. The Air Force Academy tracks informal complaints, and Air
Force policy requires academy officials to report these numbers to the
Air Force military equal opportunity headquarters on a quarterly basis.
The Military Academy and Coast Guard Academy maintain some data on
informal complaints but do not report these numbers, and the Naval
Academy does not track informal harassment complaints at all. Since
each of the academies encourages students to use the informal approach
to address sexual harassment issues, the absence of a systematic way of
tracking such complaints results in reduced visibility over the vast
majority of incidents.
All of the DOD academies collect data on formal complaints of sexual
harassment. The Military Academy and Air Force Academy report these
data in quarterly military equal opportunity reports to their
respective service military equal opportunity offices. However, DOD has
not required the academies to provide sexual harassment incident data
in the annual sexual harassment and violence report, although the
reports have included survey and focus groups results on the topic. DOD
officials began to include data on formal complaints of sexual
harassment starting with the 2007 annual report on sexual harassment
and violence at the military academies.
DOD Has Not Established a Mechanism for Evaluating Academy Data:
DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office and Office of
Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity have been fulfilling only
the minimal requirements to fully evaluate the effectiveness of the
academies' programs because DOD has not established evaluative
performance measures with which to conduct a comprehensive and
integrated analysis of sexual harassment and assault incident data,
survey and focus group results, and information on programs implemented
at the academies. Our prior work has demonstrated the centrality of
outcome-focused performance measures to successful program oversight.
Although we recognize the difficulties in achieving full visibility
over incidents of sexual harassment and assault and that the problem
may never be completely eradicated, any attempt to transform the
culture of an organization like the service academies demands that top
leadership set implementation goals and a timeline to measure
progress.[Footnote 41]
In June 2006, DOD issued guidance for implementing the sexual assault
prevention and response program directive. DOD Instruction 6495.02,
Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program, establishes oversight
responsibilities and states that the Sexual Assault Prevention and
Response Office is responsible for establishing institutional sexual
assault program evaluation, as well as quality improvement and
oversight mechanisms, to periodically evaluate the effectiveness of
DOD's sexual assault prevention and response programs. In the absence
of such measures, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office
officials told us that the office currently determines the
effectiveness of the sexual assault prevention and response program
based on how well the services are complying with the program
implementation and requirements identified by DOD. Officials in DOD's
Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office did state that the office
is working on the development of performance measures to gauge program
effectiveness and intends to revise its oversight and evaluation
activities as policy implementation matures. However, they noted during
our review that the office did not have a timeline for developing these
performance measures or for developing any program wide assessment tool
for evaluating sexual harassment and assault programs at the academies.
DOD Has Not Conducted Its Own Assessment of Academy Sexual Harassment
and Assault Programs as Part of Its Annual Report to Congress:
DOD has not performed its own analysis of the information contained in
the DOD academies' annual reports or provided its assessment of the
academies' programs before forwarding their reports to Congress, in
part because it is not explicitly required to include this type of
assessment in its annual report on the academies. As a result, however,
it is difficult to gain an understanding of the overall successes,
challenges, and lessons learned from the academies' sexual harassment
and assault prevention and response programs in previously issued
annual reports. Throughout the course of this review, we held
discussions with officials at DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and
Response Office to discuss their oversight responsibilities. The
officials stated that their statutory reporting requirements are still
relatively new, acknowledged that their role has been progressing from
policy implementation to program oversight, and expressed their views
that their oversight program has not yet matured to the point where it
needed to be. Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office officials
shared a draft of their most recent academy annual report, which was
finalized in December 2007. We reviewed the draft report, which
revealed a more comprehensive assessment of academy sexual harassment
and assault programs than previous annual reports. For example, the
draft 2007 annual academies report that we reviewed contained the
status of each service academy with regard to program implementation,
an assessment of service academy compliance with DOD program
requirements, and discussions of the incidence of sexual harassment
during the 2007 program year at each academy.
Coast Guard Headquarters Has Not Established an Integrated Oversight
Framework for the Coast Guard Academy's Sexual Harassment and Assault
Activities:
Although Coast Guard headquarters has performed a limited assessment of
its academy's sexual harassment and assault programs, it has not
established guidance, program requirements, or other aspects of an
oversight framework for these programs at the Coast Guard Academy. The
Coast Guard headquarters oversight of academy sexual assault programs
is limited to the collection and maintenance of incident data.
The Coast Guard headquarters' Civil Rights Directorate, which is
responsible for policy and oversight of the sexual harassment program
in the Coast Guard, conducts equal opportunity reviews of all units
within the Coast Guard, including the academy that consists of an
assessment of the environment through surveys and focus groups and
interviews with program officials. The directorate conducted its last
review of the Coast Guard Academy in May 2003 and noted that the Civil
Rights/Equal Opportunity climate, which includes the sexual harassment
program, was in very good to excellent condition.
Coast Guard headquarters recently chartered a task force to assess the
Coast Guard Academy's effectiveness in instilling Coast Guard core
values and in producing future officers who employ those values in
achieving mission excellence. The task force reported its findings in
February 2007 and noted that while the actual number of sexual
harassment and assault incidents continues to fluctuate, the proportion
of incidents to numbers of women at the academy has decreased as the
number of women enrolled at the Coast Guard Academy has increased. The
task force also recommended that oversight be established to measure
the alignment of Coast Guard Academy programs to Coast Guard
objectives.
While there is no statutory reporting requirement for the Coast Guard
Academy, the academy voluntarily participates in DOD's annual reporting
requirement by submitting data, although in a more limited format, to
DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, and internally
administers climate surveys and focus groups on an annual basis.
Conclusions:
The Military, Air Force, Naval, and Coast Guard academies are expected
to provide a safe academic environment for their students. In addition,
the academies strive to produce leaders of character and integrity who
will help guide servicemen and servicewomen. Sexual harassment and
assault, however, are fundamentally at odds with the obligation of men
and women in uniform to treat all with dignity and respect. While each
of the academies has taken positive steps to prevent, respond to, and
resolve incidents of sexual harassment and assault, the fact that
current data collection instruments suggest that incidents of sexual
harassment and assault may be underreported points to the need for
enhanced oversight. Because of the difficulty in eradicating sexual
harassment and assault, appropriate and effective oversight is
critical.
In the absence of common data, standard terminology, and performance
measures with which to evaluate results, DOD is unable to make crucial
analyses and associated adjustments to its programs to ensure that the
academies are doing their utmost to ensure the health and welfare of
their students. Moreover, it is difficult to determine if its efforts
have improved the situation at the academies. DOD has not previously
provided Congress with its own assessment of academy programs in its
annual reports and has missed opportunities to assess the overall
successes, challenges, and lessons learned from the academy's
harassment and assault program initiatives. It does however, appear
that the department is beginning to formally take steps to analyze and
assess the effectiveness of academy programs, but until these changes
are formalized, DOD will not be in a position to provide congressional
decision makers with meaningful information.
Although the Coast Guard Academy has taken the initiative to establish
a sexual harassment and assault prevention program, despite not being
statutorily required to do so, Coast Guard headquarters lacks a
comprehensive framework to oversee the academy's efforts. Until Coast
Guard headquarters establishes data collection, maintenance, and
reporting requirements and develops goals, performance measures, and
milestones for the Coast Guard Academy's program to strive toward, it
will not be able to assess the effectiveness of its program.
Matter for Congressional Consideration:
Congress may wish to consider requiring the Coast Guard Academy to
submit sexual harassment and assault incident and program data for the
annual report on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military
Academies and to participate in surveys and appropriate qualitative
methods that produce results that are methodologically comparable to
those required of and administered by DOD. Including the Coast Guard
Academy in these annual reports and reviews will provide Congress with
a more comprehensive integrated and uniform assessment of sexual
harassment and assault programs at all of the U.S. military academies.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To improve visibility and oversight of reported incidents of sexual
harassment and assault at the DOD service academies, we recommend that
the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of Defense for
Personnel and Readiness to take the following three actions:
* Clearly articulate data reporting requirements to include common
terminology.
* Establish evaluative performance measures that effectively assess
academy sexual harassment and assault programs.
* Provide Congress with a comprehensive integrated assessment of the
successes, challenges, and lessons learned from academy sexual
harassment and assault programs in future annual academy sexual
harassment and violence reports.
To improve Coast Guard headquarters' oversight of reported incidents of
sexual harassment and assault at the Coast Guard Academy, we recommend
that the Commandant of the Coast Guard establish a management oversight
framework for the Coast Guard Academy to include data collection,
maintenance, and reporting requirements, management goals, performance
measures, and milestones to evaluate progress made toward addressing
the incidence of sexual harassment and assault.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred or
partially concurred with our recommendations to improve the oversight
of sexual harassment and assault programs at the DOD academies and to
ensure consistent capturing and reporting of data. DOD also provided
technical comments and we have incorporated them in the report as
appropriate. DOD's official and supplemental comments are reprinted in
appendix II. In its written comments on a draft of this report, the
Coast Guard concurred with our recommendation to improve oversight and
establish a management framework to address the incidence of sexual
harassment and assault. The Coast Guard provided technical comments and
we have incorporated them into the report as appropriate. The Coast
Guard's formal comments are reprinted in appendix III.
DOD partially concurred with our recommendation that the Secretary of
Defense direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and
Readiness to clearly articulate data-reporting requirements, to include
common terminology. DOD agreed that there are challenges with
maintaining consistent terminology in the data reporting-process, and
added that it has initiatives under way to address this matter. The
department acknowledged our report's reference to the lack of a common
definition for the term substantiated in its annual academy sexual
harassment and violence reports, and stated that it has contracted with
the RAND Corporation to research this issue and to increase data
collection standardization. DOD also asserted in its comments that case
disposition data that DOD reports are consistent across the military
services. We question this assertion because it is difficult to
determine if disposition data are used consistently across the
academies without first ensuring that the academies are applying common
terminology. We specifically highlighted the inconsistent use of the
term substantiated, given that Congress used this in the National
Defense Authorization Acts for fiscal years 2004 and 2007. In order for
DOD to provide a uniform message to Congress, we continue to believe
that it is critical that data-reporting requirements are clearly
articulated and that all terminology related to reporting requirements
is consistently defined.
DOD concurred with our recommendation that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to
establish evaluative performance measures that effectively assess
academy sexual assault and harassment programs. The department stated
that this is an important issue and that it is in the initial stages of
creating servicewide performance metrics for the Sexual Assault
Prevention and Response programs, to include the U.S. military service
academies, and has identified the establishment of these metrics as a
priority item for the upcoming year. DOD also noted that it will share
this task with the Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity
so that sexual harassment and sexual assault are evaluated in like
manner.
DOD partially concurred with the recommendation in our draft report
that the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of Defense for
Personnel and Readiness to provide Congress with a comprehensive,
integrated assessment of the health of academy sexual harassment and
assault programs in future annual academy sexual harassment and
violence reports. Specifically, DOD requested clarification of the term
health, asserting that the term does not clearly define what is to be
assessed. Through this recommendation, we are expressing our finding
that DOD, at the departmentwide level, has been missing the opportunity
to provide its own assessment of the successes, challenges, and lessons
learned from the academies' sexual harassment and assault programs. We
changed our recommendation to reflect this language. DOD also expressed
concerns about our finding that the department was only minimally
addressing congressional interest in academy programs, stating,
correctly, that the department has complied with congressional
requirements. DOD added that it completed a comprehensive, integrated
assessment of the academies and included its findings in the annual
academy sexual harassment and violence report, which it submitted to
Congress on December 7, 2007. While we recognize that DOD has complied
with congressional requirements, we continue to believe that the
department should have taken steps to conduct its own assessment of the
academies' sexual harassment and assault programs beyond the
requirements established by Congress. We recognize, and note in this
report, that DOD does perform specific analyses of academy programs
that include surveys and focus groups to assess student perceptions of
academy sexual harassment and assault programs, and that DOD's most
recent report to Congress presents additional steps taken by the
department to improve its analyses of academy data and programs.
However, we also note that this has been a long-standing issue. As we
stated in our report, incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault
at the service academies are not a new concern. In addition, Congress
has directed the department to take certain actions through various
pieces of legislation to address these issues. While we recognize that
DOD has recently begun to provide more comprehensive analyses, we
continue to believe that these efforts will not fully capture, nor
accurately portray, the condition of academy sexual harassment and
assault programs until the uniform reporting requirements and
performance metrics, called for in our previous recommendations, are
established. A comprehensive, departmentwide, integrated assessment of
academy sexual harassment and assault programs will provide
congressional decision makers with better assurances that they are
being provided high-quality information.
DOD provided additional written comments to supplement its official
response to our recommendations. Specifically, DOD raised concerns that
in our Results in Brief section, we had implied that no action was
taken against 117 subjects who had been identified by the military
criminal investigative organizations in sexual assault cases. We did
not mean to imply that no action was taken. Rather, our report states
simply that these individuals were not formally charged with sexual
assault. As DOD's comments point out, we do discuss other disposition
options in the body of this report. DOD also raised concerns about our
statement that the DOD academies' military equal opportunity offices
and the Coast Guard Office of Civil Rights investigate formal
complaints of sexual harassment. The department's primary concern was
that military equal opportunity offices are not empowered to conduct
formal investigations. DOD provided a suggested change, which we
accepted. Additionally, DOD commented on the challenges associated with
the fact that data collected by military criminal investigative
organizations are incident based while data provided by sexual assault
response coordinators are victim based. We recognize this dilemma and
the reasons for it, and did, in fact, discuss this point in our report.
However, we found that the department's reliance on different units of
measurement for purposes of the annual academy report does not provide
clarity and can be confusing to the recipients of the report. DOD also
noted that sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes in
America, due in part to the nature of the offense, and given that most
sexual assaults are not reported, stated that the use of the number of
reports of sexual assault as a metric would not be a reliable or valid
measure of program effectiveness. We acknowledge in our report that it
is hard to know the total number of sexual assault incidents. However,
we also stated that the fact that current data collection instruments
suggest that incidents of sexual harassment and assault may be
underreported points to the need for enhanced oversight. Finally, DOD
commented on our statement that there is lack of a shared definition
for what constitutes an incident, saying that our statement is
incorrect and that definitions are in place. We note in our report that
different definitions are in place and the reasons why, but continue to
believe that a common definition for purposes of the annual academies'
reports would, as previously stated, provide clarity for the readers of
these reports.
The Coast Guard concurred with our recommendation to improve its
oversight of reported incidents of sexual harassment and assault at the
Coast Guard Academy and establish a management framework for the
academy to include data collection, maintenance, and reporting
requirements, goals, performance measures, and milestones to evaluate
progress made toward addressing the incidence of sexual harassment and
assault. The Coast Guard noted that the academy has made strides in
recent years by internally administering climate surveys, and that its
Coast Guard Commandant Instruction on the Sexual Assault Prevention and
Response Program (SAPRP), dated December 20, 2007, will provide the
necessary framework and oversight recommended in our report. We
reviewed this instruction and it addresses many of our concerns. The
Coast Guard also noted its willingness to work with the DOD Sexual
Assault Prevention and Response Office to ensure that standardized
definitions, metrics, and performance measures are developed and
reported to Congress annually through the annual academy sexual
harassment and violence report.
As we agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the
contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution of it
until 30 days from its date. We will then send copies to other
interested congressional committees; the Secretaries of Defense,
Homeland Security, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force; and the
Commandant of the Coast Guard. We will also make copies available to
others upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no
charge on GAO's Web site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staff has any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Contact points for
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found
on the last page of this report. The GAO staff members who made key
contributions to this report are listed in appendix V.
Signed by:
Brenda S. Farrell:
Director:
Defense Capabilities and Management:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
In order to assess the sexual harassment and assault programs as the
service academies, we visited each of the service academies: the United
States Military Academy (Military Academy) at West Point, New York; the
United States Naval Academy (Naval Academy) in Annapolis, Maryland; the
United States Air Force Academy (Air Force Academy) in Colorado
Springs, Colorado; and the United States Coast Guard Academy (Coast
Guard Academy) in New London, Connecticut.
To evaluate the extent to which academies' programs address the
prevention, response, and resolution of sexual harassment and assault
cases, we reviewed legislative requirements and current Department of
Defense (DOD), service, and academy policies, regulations, and
procedures regarding sexual harassment and assault. We also reviewed
the academies' training and response programs. We examined relevant
reports, studies, and surveys that included previous findings and
recommendations related to sexual harassment and assault at the
academies. We also interviewed DOD, service headquarters, and academy
officials responsible for the programs and reviewed how each academy
defines sexual harassment and assault. We conducted one-on-one
structured interviews with students at the academies to assess student
perceptions on sexual harassment and assault issues. We interviewed a
total of 70 students at the academies (approximately 17 students at
each academy). These include 36 male and 34 female students. Working
with academy officials, we randomly selected this nongeneralizable
sample of students with more than 1 year at the academy from lists of
students who were available between academic commitments during our
site visits. Our questions did not address specific incidents of
alleged sexual harassment or assault at the academies. We also
interviewed nationally recognized individuals in the area of sexual
harassment and assault to determine their views on the elements of an
effective sexual harassment and assault program.
To evaluate the academies' visibility over sexual harassment and
assault incidents, we reviewed and analyzed data collected from the
academies, service headquarters, and DOD on reported incidents of
sexual harassment and assault occurring at the academies between
academy program years 2003 and 2006. We assessed the reliability of the
academies' sexual harassment and assault data by interviewing
knowledgeable officials and comparing data collected from different
sources, and found inconsistencies. When we found discrepancies with
the data, we followed up with academy officials to attempt to reconcile
these differences. We did not analyze sexual harassment and assault
data prior to academy program year 2003 because the data were either
unavailable or we determined that they were not reliable. We included
all incidents reported to academy officials involving students as
victims, subjects, or both. We interviewed academy officials to
determine how the academies collect and maintain data on sexual
harassment and assault and compared these practices with statutory and
programmatic requirements. For the DOD service academies, we also
compared the reported incidents with information provided by students
on surveys and focus groups, administered by the Defense Manpower Data
Center, to identify information gaps between sexual harassment and
assault incidents reported by the academies and what is reported
anonymously by students in climate surveys. The Defense Manpower Data
Center administered the climate survey to students of all three DOD
military academies in March and April 2006. The sampling frame included
all students in class years 2006 through 2009 stratified by academy,
gender, and class year. Males were sampled based on a single-stage,
nonproportional stratified random procedure; the entire population of
female students was selected for the survey. The overall weighted
response rate for eligible respondents was 86 percent. Data obtained
from the survey results were weighted to reflect each academy's
population as of March 2006. Estimates presented are based on responses
to the following climate survey questions.
Unwanted Gender-Related Experiences[Footnote 42]
Question 19: In this question you are asked about sex/gender related
talk and/or behavior that was unwanted, uninvited, and in which you did
not participate willingly. How often since June 2005 have you been in
situations involving persons assigned to your Academy, including
students and military/civilian personnel, where one or more of these
individuals (of either gender) . . . Mark one answer in each row.
Response Categories:
* Indicate the frequency (e.g. very often, often, sometimes, once or
twice, or never) for each situation below:
- Repeatedly told sexual stories or jokes that were offensive to you?
- Referred to people of your gender in insulting or offensive terms?
- Made unwelcome attempts to draw you into a discussion of sexual
matters (e.g., attempted to discuss or comment on your sex life)?
- Treated you "differently" because of your gender (e.g., mistreated,
slighted, or ignored you)?
- Made offensive remarks about your appearance, body, or sexual
activities?
- Made gestures or used body language of a sexual nature that
embarrassed or offended you?
- Made offensive sexist remarks (e.g., suggesting that people of your
gender are not suited for the kind of work you do)?
- Put you down or was condescending to you because of your gender?
- Continued to ask you for dates, drinks, dinner, etc., even though you
said "No"?
- Made you feel threatened with some sort of retaliation for not being
sexually cooperative?
- Touched you in a way that made you feel uncomfortable?
- Intentionally cornered you or leaned over you in a sexual way?
- Treated you badly for refusing to have sex?
- Made unwanted attempts to establish a romantic sexual relationship
with you despite your efforts to discourage it?
- Implied better leadership positions or better treatment if you were
sexually cooperative?
- Made sexually suggestive comments, gestures, or looks (e.g., stared
at your body)?
- Made you feel like you were being bribed with some sort of reward or
special treatment to engage in sexual behavior?
- Attempted to have sex with you without your consent or against your
will, but was not successful?
- Had sex with you without your consent or against your will?
- Other unwanted gender-related behavior?
Unwanted Sexual Contact:
Question 32: Since June 2005, have you experienced any of the following
sexual contacts that were against your will or occurred when you did
not or could not consent where someone:
* Sexually touched you (e.g., intentional touching of genitalia,
breasts, or buttocks) or made you sexually touch them?
* Attempted to make you have sexual intercourse, but was not
successful?
* Made you have sexual intercourse (e.g., sex, anal sex, or penetration
by a finger or object), but was not successful?
* Made you perform or receive oral sex, anal sex, or penetration by a
finger or object?
Response Categories:
* Yes, once:
* Yes, multiple times:
* No:
If "Yes" to Question 32:
Question 34: Where did the incident, that had the greatest effect on
you, take place? (Mark One):
Response Categories:
* On academy grounds, in dorm/barracks/living and sleeping area:
* On academy grounds, not in dorm/barracks/living and sleeping area:
* Off academy grounds, at an academy-sponsored event:
* Off academy grounds, not at an academy-sponsored event:
If "Yes" to Question 32:
Question 37: Was the offender(s)? (Mark One):
Response Categories:
* One person (a male):
* One person (a female):
* More than one person (all males):
* More than one person (all females):
* More than one person (both males and females):
* Not sure:
The U.S. Coast Guard 2006 Cadet Human Relations Survey was administered
in October 2006. The sampling frame included all students in class
years 2006 through 2009. The entire population of cadets was surveyed.
Approximately 793 of 996 cadets completed questionnaires for an overall
response rate of 80 percent. Results shown are counts based on
unweighted survey responses. Results presented are based on responses
to the following question:
Question: In the last 12 months (upperclass) or since reporting to CGA
(4th class), have you been subjected to sexual harassment or sexual
assault?
Response Categories:
* Yes:
* No:
Each academy has a preparatory school. However, we did not collect or
assess sexual harassment and assault data for these schools because the
DOD academies do not include data on these schools in their annual
reports to Congress.
To evaluate DOD's and the Coast Guards' oversight of academy sexual
harassment and assault programs, we interviewed DOD and Coast Guard
officials and examined their oversight policies and programs. We
assessed the extent to which the oversight policies and programs exist
and have been implemented. We interviewed DOD and Coast Guard officials
responsible for the programs about how they oversee the programs, how
they compare performance with expectations, and what actions they take
when performance does not match expectations. We obtained and reviewed
applicable oversight reports and assessed the extent to which the
reports included key data, trends, and discussion of any performance
concerns. We also reviewed prior studies related to sexual harassment
and assault at the academies and examined DOD and Coast Guards'
responses to any recommendations pertaining to oversight resulting from
these studies. Additionally, we examined DOD's response to recent
legislation requiring DOD to annually report on incidents of sexual
assault, and policies, procedures, and processes implemented in
response to sexual harassment and assault at the academies. We also
interviewed DOD and Coast Guard officials responsible for the programs
on any adverse consequences that may result from failure to exercise
appropriate oversight of the academies' sexual harassment and assault
programs.
We conducted this performance audit from February 2007 through November
2007 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Under Secretary Of Defense:
Personnel And Readiness:
4000 Defense Pentagon:
Washington, D.C. 20301-4000:
December 31, 2007:
Ms. Brenda S. Farrell:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street. N.W.
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Ms. Farrell:
This is the Department of Defense (DOD) response to the GAO draft
report. GAO-08-296, "Military Personnel: The DoD and Coast Guard
Academies Have Taken Steps to Address Incidents of Sexual Harassment
and Assault, But Greater Federal Oversight is Needed", dated December
3, 2007 (GAO Code 350993). I appreciate the opportunity to review and
comment on the draft GAO report.
The Department concurs with the overall draft report. However, specific
responses for each of the three recommendations have been provided to
support each position and for your consideration.
There was one technical change noted by Air Force that was forwarded
separately to the GAO staff.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
for David S. C. Chu:
Enclosure: As stated:
GAO Draft Report – Dated December 3, 2007:
GAO Code 350993/GAO-08-296:
"Military Personnel: The DoD and Coast Guard Academies Have Taken Steps
to Address Incidents of Sexual Harassment and Assault, But Greater
Federal Oversight is Needed"
Department Of Defense Comments To The Recommendations:
Recommendation 1: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) to
clearly articulate data reporting requirements to include common
terminology.
DOD Response:
DoD partially-concurs. The Sexual Assault Prevention and Response
Office (SAPRO) agrees that there are challenges with maintaining
consistent terminology in the data reporting process. The SAPRO has
initiatives underway to address this matter. The term "substantiated"
in particular, may differ in usage among law enforcement agencies. The
Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office has contracted with the
RAND Corporation to research this very issue to increase data
collection standardization across Military Services. However, the case
disposition data that DoD reports are consistent across the Military
Services because cases that do proceed to disposition are
differentiated from cases that do not proceed to disposition.
Recommendation 2: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) to
establish evaluative performance measures that effectively assess
academy sexual harassment and assault programs.
DOD Response:
DoD concurs. This is an important issue. The Sexual Assault Prevention
and Response Office is in the initial stages of identifying/creating
service-wide performance metrics for the Sexual Assault Prevention and
Response programs, to include the U. S. Military Service Academies. The
Sexual Assault Advisory Council Research Subcommittee has established
performance metrics as a priority item to be addressed in the upcoming
year. The subcommittee is comprised of representatives from a number of
federal agencies with a great deal of experience in program evaluation
research (National Institute of Justice, Center for Disease Control.
National Institutes of Health, among others), as well as members of the
DoD Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. DoD will share this
task with the Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity Office so that
Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault are evaluated in like manner.
Recommendation 3: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) to
provide Congress with a comprehensive integrated assessment of the
health of academy sexual harassment and assault programs in future
annual academy sexual harassment and violence reports.
DOD Response:
DoD partially-concurs. DoD requests clarification of the term "health"
as it does not clearly define what is being assessed in the programs.
This recommendation needs to be clarified.
DoD has concerns about the following language on page 7, "Moreover, DoD
has been only minimally addressing Congressional interest in academy
programs because it has not been conducting a comprehensive and
integrated analysis of the information contained in the DoD academies'
annual reports, or a meaningful assessment of the academies' programs
before forwarding the academies' reports to Congress." And, "DoD has
very recently taken steps to address these concerns."
DoD has complied with all Congressional requirements. Academic Program
Year 2006 - 2007 (June 1, 2006 – May 31, 2007) was the first year in
which the DoD Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO) and
the Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity Office were mandated to
conduct an integrated assessment of the Military Service academies.
Ironically, DoD and GAO were simultaneously conducting assessments.
This report was delivered to Congress on December 7. 2007, and has been
officially released to the public. There is no need for additional
legislation or programming in this area, as the John Warner National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 requires a process that
comprehensively evaluates the academies with alternating strategies. In
academic program years beginning with an odd number, DoD conducts an
anonymous climate survey that is supplemented with an academy report of
self-assessment. In academic program years beginning with an even
number, DoD follows the process it did this year (an on-site program
assessment by DoD combined with cadet focus groups). DoD's Assessment
Team consists of DoD SAPRO staff, a Diversity Management and Equal
Opportunity representative, and Defense Manpower Data Center staff. DoD
reported on its assessment of the effectiveness of' the Military
Service academies' policies, training, and procedures with respect to
sexual harassment and violence involving cadets and midshipmen.
Qualitative analysis was based on the following: (1) results of cadets
and midshipmen focus groups; (2) academy personnel perceptions of the
program and climate; policy implementation and compliance; program
effectiveness; (3) review of investigative and Judge Advocate General
case files; and (4) DoD related surveys. The assessment team also
examined progress made in implementing congressionally mandated
recommendations from previous reports.
A comprehensive, integrated assessment of the academies was performed
and a report was delivered to Congress on December 7, 2007. DoD
recommends that GAO update its report to reflect the results of the
most recent DoD assessment.
DOD Additional Comments On Gao Draft Report:
Page 5 - The report states, "Nine of the subjects identified in the
unrestricted reports of sexual assault that we reviewed from the DoD
and Coast Guard military criminal investigative organizations in
academy program years 2003 - 2006 proceeded to a court-martial and, of
those tried, two subjects were acquitted and seven were indicted. The
remaining 117 subjects identified by the military criminal
investigative organizations were not formally charged with sexual
assault because the evidence was unsubstantiated, unfounded, or
insufficient as determined by the academies' staff judge advocates."
This language implies that no action at all was taken against those 117
subjects. DoD recommends and respectfully requests that the explanation
of other options for punishment which is contained on page 20, be
repeated here in order to give a complete and accurate explanation of
these cases.
Page 19 - second paragraph, [now on p. 19, first paragraph] describing
procedures for filing a formal sexual harassment complaint, recommend
the words "begin an investigation" and "investigative" be deleted from
the third sentence. The revised sentence would then read as follows,
"If a student chooses to file a formal complaint, the DoD academies'
military equal opportunity offices (and the Coast Guard Academy's Civil
Rights Office) will interview any witnesses, collect data, and create a
report with findings and recommended actions." The reason for this
recommendation is to prevent the perception that military equal
opportunity offices "investigate" complaints. Military equal
opportunity offices gather the relevant facts, provide that information
to the appropriate commanding officer, and the commanding officer
determines whether an investigation should occur. Following
investigations of formal complaints, military equal opportunity offices
provide an equal opportunity technical review (similar to a review for
legal sufficiency) to ensure all aspects of the alleged offense are
addressed. The words "investigation" and "investigative" imply the
formal procedures of an appointed officer, sworn testimony, and legal
review.
Page 25 [now on p. 24] - The unit of measurement for the Sexual Assault
Prevention and Response Office annual report to Congress is "reports of
sexual assault." Unrestricted Reports of Sexual Assault, which are
incident based, arc collected by the Military Criminal Investigative
Organizations. Unrestricted reports ultimately provide the number of
subjects and victims involved in sexual assault reports investigated by
the Military Criminal Investigative Organizations, as well as the
number of cases proceeding through prosecution and other forms of
disposition. If these reports were victim-based, DoD would not be able
to adequately track subject disposition, as offenders can have more
than one victim per incident. Counting victim-based reports could lead
to duplicate reporting for the same reason. Restricted Reports, being
confidential. can only be provided by the Sexual Assault Response
Coordinator and is a victim-based report. Since the Sexual Assault
Response Coordinator's job is to coordinate care for the victim, the
Sexual Assault Response Coordinator cannot accurately collect/report
data on the criminal justice or legal system. The Sexual Assault
Prevention and Response Office discusses these reports separately, only
giving a "grand total" of "reports" -- otherwise a combined total is
not discussed. It appears that the basis for this misunderstanding is
that the unit of measure for the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response
Office is "report," while GAO is looking as the unit of measure as an
"incident."
Page 32 [now on p. 31] – Sexual assault is one of the most under-
reported crimes in America, due in part to the nature of the offense.
Therefore, DoD know that a substantial number of victims will never
come forward, regardless of their trust in or awareness of the services
available from the system. The most recent 2007 National Institute of
Justice study tracking over 2000 college women found that only 12
percent of women who had experienced a sexual assault reported the
crime to authorities. Consequently, an effective sexual assault
response program strives at best to remove barriers to reporting and
make care for victims easier to access. Given that most sexual assaults
are not reported due to factors that are non-modifiable by policy, the
use of the number of reports of sexual assault as a metric would not be
a reliable or valid measure of program effectiveness.
Page 34 [now on p. 32] – The statement "lack of a shared definition for
what constitutes an incident" is incorrect. There are definitions in
place. Unrestricted and Restricted Reports will, by nature, differ.
Although Unrestricted Reports can have more than one subject or victim,
DoD tracks the subjects and victims separately in another section of
the report – Unrestricted Reports are incident based. However,
Restricted Reports must be victim-based since it is confidentially
reported by a victim and cannot be supplemented with investigative
activity. Each Restricted Report is a single "report", which is the
unit of measurement.
[End of section]
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security:
U.S. Department of Homeland Security:
Washington, DC 20528:
January 9, 2008:
Ms Brenda S. Farrell:
Director:
Defense Capabilities and Management:
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Ms Farrell:
Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the Government
Accountability Office's (GAO's) draft report GAO-08-296 entitled
Military Personnel: The DOD and Coast Guard Academies Have Taken Steps
to Address Incidents of Sexual Harassment and Assault, But Greater
Federal Oversight is Needed. Technical comments have been forwarded
under separate cover.
Sexual harassment and assault violates the Coast Guard's core values of
Honor, Respect and Devotion to Duty, and are not tolerated. The Coast
Guard has focused renewed efforts to ensure that these types of
violations are prevented and when not, are addressed by leadership
fairly and swiftly. Within the past month, a revised Coast Guard
Commandant Instruction, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program,
was signed and promulgated providing guidance in the event of sexual
assault. This instruction encompasses the entire Coast Guard, including
the Coast Guard Academy (CGA). As noted in the report, the Coast Guard
Academy has had a Superintendent Instruction in place since May 2006.
This instruction is expected to be updated based upon the latest CG
Headquarters Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program
instruction, particularly in the areas of restricted reporting and
monitoring. The Coast Guard plans to work closely with the Department
of Defense (DOD) Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO)
to ensure standardized report metrics, goals, performance measures, and
milestones are developed in order to meet the intent of the report to
provide congressional decision makers with meaningful information as
well as allow the Coast Guard to assess the effectiveness of its
program and make improvements alongside DOD.
The draft report's fourth recommendation is directed to the Coast
Guard. The Coast Guard's response to this recommendation is as follows:
Recommendation: To improve Coast Guard Headquarters' oversight of
reported incidents of sexual harassment and assault at the Coast Guard
Academy, we recommend that the Commandant of the Coast Guard establish
a management oversight framework for the Coast Guard Academy to include
data collection, maintenance and reporting requirements, goals,
performance measures, and milestones to evaluate progress made toward
addressing the incidence of sexual harassment and assault.
Response: Agree. The Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Academy appreciate
the need to improve programmatic oversight of the Sexual Harassment and
Assault Prevention activities service-wide and at the Coast Guard
Academy. Although the Coast Guard Academy has made strides in recent
years as noted by its internal climate surveys, the recently released
Coast Guard Commandant Instruction, Sexual Assault Prevention and
Response Program, will provide the necessary framework and oversight
recommended in this report for a more robust education, reporting and
tracking system in the Coast Guard. A copy of that instruction has been
provided under separate cover. In addition, the Coast Guard will work
with the DOD SAPRO to ensure standardized definitions, metric, and
performance measures are developed and reported to Congress annually
through the SAPRO report.
Thank you again for the opportunity to comment on this draft report and
we look forward to working with you on future homeland security issues.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Steven J. Pecinovsky:
Director:
Departmental Audit Liaison Office:
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Commissions and Initiatives to Study Sexual Harassment and
Assault:
The summaries below detail numerous congressional and DOD initiatives
examining sexual harassment and assault issues in DOD since the early
1990s.
Congressional Initiatives:
October 1997. Hearing on the Department of the Army's reports on and
corrective actions related to recent cases of sexual misconduct and
related matters:
The hearing took place before the Subcommittee on Military Personnel,
House Committee on National Security.
June 1999. Academy's Panel on Military Investigative Practices:
Congress directed the National Academy of Public Administration to
conduct a study to examine felony sex crime investigations within DOD.
The panel examined sex crime issues, competencies and deficiencies of
military criminal investigative organizations policies and practices,
and actions the military criminal investigative organizations, DOD, and
Congress can implement to improve their ability to address the
investigation and management of sex crimes cases. The Academy's Panel
on Military Investigative Practices recommended major changes in DOD's
policies, practices, and organizations to improve the conduct of sex
crime investigations in its report Adapting Military Sex Crime
Investigations to Changing Times. The recommendations made by the panel
apply most directly to the military criminal investigative
organizations.
July 30, 1999. Congressional Commission on Military Training and Gender-
Related Issues:
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998, Pub. L.
No. 105-85, established a Commission on Military Training and Gender-
Related Issues to review requirements and restrictions regarding cross-
gender relationship of members of the Armed Forces, to review the basic
training programs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, and
to make recommendations on improvements to those programs,
requirements, and restrictions. The commission was composed of 10
members selected among private citizens. The final report was issued in
four volumes that included findings and recommendations, transcripts
and legal consultants' reports, research projects, reports, and
studies.
September 2003. Fowler Panel:
Section 501 of the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act,
2003 (Pub. L. No. 108-11 (2003)) required DOD to establish a panel to
review sexual misconduct allegations at the Air Force Academy. The
first meeting was held in June 2003, and the Report of the Panel to
Review Sexual Misconduct Allegations at the U.S. Air Force Academy was
released in September 2003. The panel was chaired by former
Congresswoman Tillie K. Fowler. The statute requires the panel to study
the policies, management, and organization practices and cultural
elements of the academy that were conducive to allowing sexual
misconduct, including sexual assaults and rape, at the academy. The
panel made recommendations, including a review of the accountability of
the academy and Air Force leadership, and implementation of new
policies, plans, and legislative proposals to improve oversight at the
academy, among other things.
December 2004. Department of Defense Inspector General Report:
In February 2003, recognizing that the Secretary of the Air Force had
"launched an investigation," the Chairman of the Senate Committee on
Armed Services requested that the DOD Inspector General review the work
conducted by the Air Force and provide findings and conclusions. The
Inspector General report evaluated the quality and timeliness of
criminal investigations of attempts of sexual assault since 1993, the
impact of the Fowler Panel's work on the Air Force Working Group, and
findings associated with individual responsibility for sexual assault.
The work resulted in the release of the Inspector General report, The
Evaluation of Sexual Assault, Reprisal, and Related Leadership
Challenges at the United States Air Force Academy in December 2004.
June 2005. Department of Defense Task Force on Sexual Harassment and
Violence at the Military Service Academies:
Section 526 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2004 (Pub. L. No. 108-136 (2003)) directed the Secretary of Defense to
establish a DOD task force to examine matters relating to sexual
harassment and violence at the Military Academy and the Naval Academy.
The task force consisted of six member from the four branches of the
armed forces and six members from the civilian community. The task
force addressed the prevention of sexual harassment and violence and
made recommendations to improve prevention and response at the
academies. The task force issued the Report of the Defense Task Force
on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies in
June 2005.
DOD and Service Initiatives:
May 1995. Task Force on Discrimination and Sexual Harassment:
The Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense requested that the
Secretary of the Air Force and the Under Secretary of Defense for
Personnel and Readiness co-chair a task force to review the military
services' discrimination complaint systems, and recommend
departmentwide standards for discrimination complaint processing, where
necessary, to ensure the fair and prompt resolution of complaints. The
Report of the Defense Equal Opportunity Council Task Force on
Discrimination and Sexual Harassment was released in May 1995 and made
48 recommendations to address discrimination and harassment.
July 1997. The Secretary of the Army's Senior Review Panel on Sexual
Harassment:
The Secretary of the Army directed that a Senior Review Panel on Sexual
Harassment be established to conduct a review of the Army's policies on
sexual harassment and processes currently in place, to recommend
changes needed to improve the human relations environment with the
specific goal of eradicating sexual harassment, and to evaluate how
Army leaders view and exercise their responsibility to prevent sexual
harassment. Over 40 military and civilian personnel conducted an
extensive policy review, collected data at 59 military installations
worldwide, and analyzed the data. The Secretary of the Army's Senior
Review Panel Report on Sexual Harassment was released in July 1997.
December 1997. Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training
and Related Issues:
The Secretary of Defense announced in June 1997 the appointment of the
Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training and Related
Issues to evaluate and determine how to best train the gender-
integrated, all-volunteer forces of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and
Marine Corps. The panel explored and made recommendations covering the
full training cycle, including recruitment, basic, and advanced
training.
March 2003. Walker Working Group:
In 2003, the Secretary of the Air Force instructed Mary L. Walker, the
General Counsel of the Air Force, to establish the Working Group
Concerning the Deterrence of and Response to Incidents of Sexual
Assault at the U.S. Air Force Academy. The main objective of the Walker
Working Group was to investigate cadet complaints. Based on the
preliminary work of the working group, the Secretary of the Air Force
and the Air Force Chief of Staff issued An Agenda for Change in March
2003.
April 2004. Embrey Task Force:
In February 2004, the Secretary of Defense directed the Under Secretary
of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to undertake a 90-day review of
sexual assault policies and programs, and make recommendations to
increase prevention, promote reporting, and enhance the quality and
support provided to victims, especially within combat theaters. The
Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness established an 8-
member task force to undertake the task. The Director of the Embrey
Task Force was Ellen P. Embrey. The findings and recommendations were
released in April 2004 in the Task Force Report on Care for Victims of
Sexual Assault.
[End of section]
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Brenda S. Farrell, (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov:
Acknowledgments:
In addition to the individual named above, David Moser, Assistant
Director; Sara Cradic; Susan Ditto; Nicole Harms; Susannah Hawthorne;
Suzanne Heimbach; Ron La Due Lake; Kimberly Mayo; Kathia Niewiadomski;
and Sharon Reid made key contributions to this report.
[End of section]
Related GAO Products:
Military Education: Student and Faculty Perceptions of Student Life at
the Military Academies. GAO-03-1001. Washington, D.C.: September 12,
2003.
Military Education: DOD Needs to Enhance Performance Goals and Measures
to Improve Oversight of the Military Academies. GAO-03-1000.
Washington, D.C.: September 10, 2003.
Military Education: DOD Needs to Align Academy Preparatory Schools'
Mission Statements with Overall Guidance and Establish Performance
Goals. GAO-03-1017. Washington, D.C.: September 10, 2003.
DOD Service Academies: Comparison of Honor and Conduct Adjudicatory
Processes. GAO/NSIAD-95-49. Washington, D.C.: April 25, 1995.
DOD Service Academies: Academic Review Processes. GAO/NSIAD-95-57.
Washington, D.C.: April 5, 1995.
DOD Service Academies: Update on Extent of Sexual Harassment. GAO/
NSIAD-95-58. Washington, D.C.: March 31, 1995.
Military Academy: Gender and Racial Disparities. GAO/NSIAD-94-95.
Washington, D.C.: March 17, 1994.
DOD Service Academies: Further Efforts Needed to Eradicate Sexual
Harassment. GAO/T-NSIAD-94-111. Washington, D.C.: February 3, 1994.
DOD Service Academies: More Actions Needed to Eliminate Sexual
Harassment. GAO/NSIAD-94-6. Washington, D.C.: January 31, 1994.
Air Force Academy: Gender and Racial Disparities. GAO/NSIAD-93-244.
Washington, D.C.: September 24, 1993.
Military Education: Information on Service Academies and Schools. GAO/
NSIAD-93-264BR. Washington, D.C.: September 22, 1993.
Naval Academy: Gender and Racial Disparities. GAO/NSIAD-93-54.
Washington, D.C.: April 30, 1993.
DOD Service Academies: Status Report on Reviews of Student Treatment.
GAO/T-NSIAD-92-41. Washington, D.C.: June 2, 1992.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] Pub. L. No. 108-136, § 527 (2003). In Section 532 of the John
Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007,
Congress revised and codified the requirements for the establishment of
policies, programs, and procedures, annual reports, and yearly
assessments, and directed that the assessments should be completed by
conducting surveys of academy students in odd-numbered years and focus
groups for any year when surveys are not required.
[2] "Academy personnel" refers to academy students, faculty, staff, and
permanent party personnel.
[3] Pub. L. No. 108-136, § 526 (2003).
[4] In a second report that will be released later in 2008, we will
examine sexual assault in the military services, including the Coast
Guard. That report will also address incidents occurring during
overseas deployments.
[5] DMDC is a support organization within DOD that reports to the Under
Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. DMDC's mission is to
deliver timely and high-quality support to its customers and to ensure
that the data it receives from different sources are consistent,
accurate, and appropriate when used to respond to inquiries. DMDC
customers include DOD organizations such as the armed forces, the
Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Staff, as well as
external organizations, such as Congress. These organizations rely on
data supplied by DMDC to help them in making decisions about the
military.
[6] "Subject" refers to the alleged perpetrator in a sexual harassment
or assault case.
[7] The overall weighted response rate for the most recent survey was
86 percent; indicating that 5,275 of the 6,049 students who were asked
to participate responded.
[8] See 10 U.S.C. § 4361 for requirements applicable to the Military
Academy, 10 U.S.C. § 6980 for requirements applicable to the Naval
Academy, and 10 U.S.C. § 9361 for requirements applicable to the Air
Force Academy.
[9] DOD's military equal opportunity offices are required to collect,
maintain, and report data on formal complaints of sexual harassment to
DOD's Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity.
[10] The Sexual Assault Response Coordinators are required to collect,
maintain, and report data on restricted reports of sexual assault to
DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office.
[11] The military criminal investigative organizations are required to
collect, maintain, and report data on unrestricted reports of sexual
assault to DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office.
[12] Pub. L. No. 94-106, § 803 (1975).
[13] Department of Defense Directive 1350.2, Department of Defense
Military Equal Opportunity (MEO) Program (Aug. 18, 1995). Workplace is
an expansive term for military members and academy students and may
include conduct on or off duty, 24 hours a day.
[14] Pub. L. No. 108-375, § 577 (2004).
[15] Department of Defense Directive 6495.01, Sexual Assault Prevention
and Response (SAPR) Program (Oct.6, 2005).
[16] Pub. L. No. 108-136, § 527 (2003).
[17] Pub. L. No. 109-364, § 532 (2006). See 10 U.S.C. § 4361 for
requirements applicable to the Military Academy, 10 U.S.C. § 6980 for
requirements applicable to the Naval Academy, and 10 U.S.C. § 9361 for
requirements applicable to the Air Force Academy. See the note
following 10 U.S.C § 4361 for information regarding focus groups.
[18] GAO, DOD Service Academies: Status Report on Reviews of Student
Treatment, GAO/T-NSIAD-92-41 (Washington, D.C.: June 2, 1992).
[19] GAO, DOD Service Academies: More Actions Needed to Eliminate
Sexual Harassment, GAO/NSIAD-94-6 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 31, 1994).
[20] GAO, DOD Service Academies: Further Efforts Needed to Eradicate
Sexual Harassment, GAO/T-NSIAD-94-111 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 3, 1994).
[21] GAO, DOD Service Academies: Update on Extent of Sexual Harassment,
GAO/NSIAD-95-58 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 1995).
[22] GAO, Military Education: Student and Faculty Perceptions of
Student Life at the Military Academies, GAO-03-1001 (Washington, D.C.:
Sept. 12, 2003).
[23] Department of Defense Instruction 6495.02, Sexual Assault
Prevention and Response Program Procedures (June 23, 2006).
[24] See 10 U.S.C. § 4361 for requirements applicable to the Military
Academy, 10 U.S.C. § 6980 for requirements applicable to the Naval
Academy, and 10 U.S.C. § 9361 for requirements applicable to the Air
Force Academy.
[25] Department of Defense Directive 6495.01, Sexual Assault Prevention
and Response (SAPR) Program (Oct. 6, 2005).
[26] Department of Defense Directive 1030.01, Victim and Witness
Assistance (Apr. 23, 2007).
[27] In this report, we state that DOD reported 96 incidents of sexual
assault from academy program years 2003 to 2006. The number used here,
108, is the 96 unrestricted DOD cases of sexual assault in addition to
the 12 Coast Guard Academy cases of sexual assault, for a total of 108.
In those 108 unrestricted cases, we identified 126 subjects because
some cases contain multiple subjects.
[28] DOD's military departments are required to report data on formal
complaints of sexual harassment to DOD's Office of Diversity Management
and Equal Opportunity.
[29] The Sexual Assault Response Coordinators are required to report
data on restricted reports of sexual assault to DOD's Sexual Assault
Prevention and Response Office.
[30] The military criminal investigative organizations are required to
collect, maintain, and report data on unrestricted reports of sexual
assault to DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office.
[31] See 10 U.S.C. § 4361 for requirements applicable to the Military
Academy, 10 U.S.C. § 6980 for requirements applicable to the Naval
Academy, and 10 U.S.C. § 9361 for requirements applicable to the Air
Force Academy.
[32] An academy program year corresponds to an academic year as well as
the summer training period that precedes it and is defined by DOD as
June 1 through May 31.
[33] The 2005 Report on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military
Service Academies was compiled by the Joint Task Force on Sexual
Assault Prevention and Response. The Joint Task Force on Sexual Assault
Prevention and Response transitioned into a permanent office on October
1, 2005, and became the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office.
[34] The estimates for the three military academies are for the
Military Academy, 10.5 percent of females and 1 percent of males; the
Naval Academy, 8.2 percent of females and 1.4 percent of males; and the
Air Force Academy, 9.5 percent of females and 1.2 percent of males.
These estimates from DMDC's surveys are based on a 95 percent
confidence level with a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent.
[35] This approximate number of females and males is based on the
academy populations at the time of DMDC's survey: the Military Academy,
596 females and 3,444 males; the Naval Academy, 753 females and 3,555
males; and the Air Force Academy, 744 females, and 3,428 males.
[36] These estimates from DMDC's surveys are based on a 95 percent
confidence level with a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent.
[37] In analyzing survey results, the Defense Manpower Data Center
defines sexual harassment as crude or offensive behavior, unwanted
sexual attention, and sexual coercion.
[38] The estimates for the three military academies are for the
Military Academy, 60 percent of females and 8 percent of males; the
Naval Academy, 52 percent of females and 12 percent of males; and the
Air Force Academy, 51 percent of females and 12 percent of males. These
estimates from DMDC's surveys are based on a 95 percent confidence
level with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent.
[39] The Coast Guard Academy administered the 2006 Cadet Human
Relations and Climate Survey to cadets in October 2006 and received
approximately 793 completed questionnaires out of 996. For more details
about the Coast Guard Academy Survey, see app. I.
[40] Department of Defense Instruction 1350.3, Affirmative Action
Planning and Assessment Process (Feb. 29, 1988).
[41] GAO, Results Oriented Cultures: Implementation Steps to Assist
Mergers and Organizational Transformations, GAO-03-669 (Washington,
D.C.: July 2, 2003).
[42] "Unwanted Gender-Related Experiences" includes a measure of sexual
harassment.
[End of section]
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