Transcripts For CSPAN3 Victims Testify On Sexual Assaults In Military Academies 20170504

Cadets and Navy Midshipmen told a House Armed Services subcommittee their experiences when reporting assaults and harassment and the retaliation they faced. This hearing is called to order. I want to welcome everyone to this afternoons military personnel subcommittee hearing. The purpose of todays hearing is to receive an overview on the annual report on Sexual Harassment and violence at military Service Academies and understand the undergoing activities the acad mikacademie taken to prevent Sexual Assault. Well hear from survivors of Sexual Assault who were assaulted while attending a Service Academy. We thank them for being here today. The nation and the military continue to battle the courage of Sexual Assault. These despicable crimes cause deep and enduring suffering to the victims and their families and violate our fundamental values. When these crimes occur in the military, the effects can be even more damaging. Service members must have absolute trust and confidence in their fellow Service Members in order to accomplish their difficult mission. Midshipmen at military Service Academies are told that the only way to succeed at the academy is work as a team and place their trust in each other. When a cadet takes advantage of that trust in order to assault another, the sense of betrayal is profound. And the impact is often felt by the victim and the entire unit. These crimes have no place in our society, much less in our preeminent military Service Academies. Over the last several years the military Service Academies have dedicated numerous resources to improving Sexual Assault prevention and response. Theyve implemented valuesbased training into nearly every aspect of their curriculum, ensuring that the militarys future officers internalize the militarys values before being commissioned. In addition, the Service Academies have worked hard to ensure that all allegations are thoroughly investigated and perpetrators are held accountable. While also ensuring that survivors of Sexual Assault have access to vital resources. Despite all these efforts, there remains much work to be done. This years report shows that prevalence rates have increased at all Service Academies while reports of Sexual Assaults have decreased at one of the Service Academies. In addition, the significant prevalence of Sexual Harassment, a data point that is new to the survey,s so that additional work is needed. We will hear from two panels this afternoon. Panel one, we are honored to have with us survivors of Sexual Assault. I want to thank the witnesses for their bravery in testifying today. And i appreciate how difficult it is to talk about this subject. Your testimony will give all of us important insights into how the Service Academies and the military can improve Sexual Assault prevention and response. In our second panel, we hear from the dod and the superintendents of the military Service Academies. I look forward to hearing their views on the results of the Sexual Assault report and i also look forward to hearing about the new and existing programs at the Service Academies designed to prevent Sexual Assault. But i introduce my first panel, let me offer the ranked member, ms. Spear, an opportunity to make her opening remarks. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and i thank all of you who will be participating in this hearing. I would like to ask unanimous consent that a document from Lieutenant Colonel elizabeth walker, legislative counsel for the investigations and legislative division of the army office of chief legislative liaison, be admitted into the record. Any objection . So ordered. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i thank you for holding this hearing. This is an issue that i care deeply about. Sexual assault in our military and military Service Academies is a scourge on our nation. We depend on our academies to treek a attract and develop our nations future leaders. Even one Sexual Assault against these patriotic young individuals is too many. And we all know that the numbers of assault are far more than that. But women and men are victimized by Sexual Assault, both women and men are victimized by Sexual Assault and harassment at the Service Academies, creating a toxic culture that follows these students straight into military leadership. Survivors of Sexual Assault often lead the academies under their own volition or are forced out, depriving our military of future leaders. Perpetrators of these heinous acts often go unpunished, graduate, reinforcing this criminal and abhorrent behavior. This also emboldens them to continue to assault their fellow Service Members as they ascend up the ranks. In order to break this cycle, we need strong reforms to make clear that this behavior is not tolerated. In fact, the only result in cases like this should be dismissal. Military leadership for literally decades has testified that they are of one mind. They have zero tolerance for Sexual Assault. The tens of thousands of survivors of these heinous acts, subsequent retaliation at times ineptitude of their chain of command makes a mockery of this stated policy. Words alone are just words. If we have any hope of stamping out the systemic issue of Sexual Assault in our ranks, the tone must be set at the academies. This isnt just about right and wrong, but being able to attract the very best to serve and the readiness and unit cohesion within our fighting force. Nothing short of the future of our military depends on us getting this right. The department of defense report for Academic Years 20152016 show a complete failure in addressing this epidemic. 12 of women in the academies experience Sexual Assault. 12 . And nearly onehalf, onehalf, face persistent Sexual Harassment. Simply put, this is disgusting. Since the last report in 2014, fewer students at the Service Academies have reported Sexual Assault and harassment. But the estimated rates of unwanted Sexual Conduct have increased. Both of these are trending in the wrong direction. One reason could be the ostracism of Sexual Assault victims. 47 of those who reported the unwanted sexual contact experienced social isolation and maltreatment. We must foster an environment at the Service Academies in which students who have been sexually assaulted and harassed feel like they can come forward without fear of retaliation. I would like to hear from our second panel of Witnesses Today on steps they are taking to reverse these Disturbing Trends to ensure that young cadets and midshipman enter the military ranks as leaders who bring a culture of respect and dignity to their service. Before we hear from the Service Academies and the department of defense, i want to welcome the courageous survivors who are testifying on our first panel. Annie kendazar attended from 2009 to 2011. Sheila craig currently attends u. S. Naval academy. And Stephanie Gross and Arianna Bullard are former cadets at west point. Some of the stories you will hear today are heartbreaking and revolting. These cadets and midshipmen did nothing wrong by reporting their assaults. And yet, their chain of command failed them. And the chain of command that was supposed to actually protect them failed. We cannot tolerate this lack of accountability in our countrys most prestigious military institutions. I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses Today. And i yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you, ms. Spear. I ask unanimous consent that nonsubcommittee members be allowed to participate in todays hearing after all subcommittee members have been given an opportunity to ask questions. Is there objection . Without objection, nonsubcommittee members will be recognized at the appropriate time for five minutes. We will give each witness the opportunity to present his or her testimony and each member an opportunity to question the witnesses for five minutes. We would also respectfully remind the witnesses to summarize to the greatest extent possible the high points of your written testimony in five minutes or less. Your written comments and statements will be made part of the hearing record. Let me welcome our first panel, sheila crane, United States Naval Academy. Miss Arianna Bullard, did i say it right . Bullard. Bullard, former cadet of the United States military academy. Miss Stephanie Gross, former cadet at the United States military academy. Ms. Annie kenzior. Midshipman second class crane, you may now make your opening remarks. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak of my experiences through this process. I am here as an individual and do not represent the views or opinions of the United States Naval Academy. In the Spring Semester of my freshman year i had experienced unwanted sexual contact. Nat fall semester of my sophomore year i filed an unrestricted report about the incident through the snapper office, of course. I wasnt overwhelm i was overwhelmed by the support i received from the staff of the Naval Academy. The individual was dismissed and is no longer a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy. Its a whole process. The whole process was difficult. I am confident in saying that the resources that were and still are provided to me helped me through the healing process to this day. Thank you. Ms. Bullard, you are now recognized for five minutes. Hello, my name is aryianna bullard. I attended west point from 2013 until i was honorably discharged in 20 is a where i went on to sustained ohio state university. First off i would like to thank congresswoman spear and her staff for having me here. I left west point the day i was discharged from the hospital suffering from stress induced high blood pressure. I found all my belongings had been packed without my knowledge. In the cold of january, i was only left with a pair of shorts, a jacket, and sandals for my return home to indiana. I was only then escorted onto the plane by two mps because my i. D. Was shipped off with my belongings. As soon as i boarded the plane i was escorted off by the mps and was told the capital who had been retaliating against me wanted to speak to me. He asked me if i wanted to return to the hotel. I replied that i wanted to stay but was confused by what i meant since i had no money or clothing. He hung up. I received a call from sue fulton on the board of visitors to west point asking me if i wanted to stay a cadet at the academy. I realized only then why i received a convoluted call from the captain. If i had known, my answer would have been yes. Despite all that had happened to me, i would have rather stayed than been forced out of west point. I was recruited to west point to be on swim team where i continually received sexual and racial harassment. My boyfriend was called jingo because he was in a relationship with me. I was told that nicknames were a tradition on the mens team. In december, the team went to puerto rico were members made lewd remarks about my body and talked openly about having sex with me. I faced escalating reappraisal as a result of talking about this with my coaches. If we are not simply able to swim together, how are we able to fight together to protect this country . The head coach further went on to punish me by forcing me to practice alone for two weeks before our biggest championship meet, the Patriot League. The assistant coach as a result decided to take it upon himself to make sure i was properly trained. Every day i would practical an hour before the rest of the team only to have them ostracize me more because a few thought i was given special treatment. At the Patriot League i broke multiple records. That day the Navy Vice Admiral shook me handed in congratulations and said to me tell kazlan army won this time. But i no longer felt a part of the army team. We are taught in basic and in the army in general to always protect your battle buddy. Never leave them behind. Then how come i was left behind . In march 2014, the equal Opportunity Office substantiated my case of racial discrimination. I also filed a complaint with the sharp office but learned in november 2014 the complaint was substantiated as harassment but not Sexual Harassment. I then became friends with cadet gross. During her second assault case, i was present when a drunk cadet burst into her room. As curfew rolled around, i had to return to my room expecting the cadet, taking account b89, would remove him. A short while ago, cadet gross called me and was hysterical. I immediately went to her room and saw the distraught state that she was in. With new bruises forming on her neck and chest, she told me repeatedly she would never report again as no one would believe her that she had no faith she would be taken care of. Still having trust in the system, i urged her to report. I told her that we needed to do this for others after us. Even though i was left behind, i refused to do the same to her. We needed to set an example. However, the system failed once again, as my friend and i were retaliated against repeatedly. I was forbidden to accompany her to the hospital and was prohibited from socializing with her and forced to sign a confidentiality form stating i will not discuss her case with anyone. I was subjected to arbitrary discipline and filed a whist whistleblower reprisal complaint. Eventually in january of 2015, i felt i had no option but to resign. Although the processing of resignation normally takes a month or so, mine was expedited to one day, and to my detriment. I collapsed in the barracks and was admitted to the hospital suffering from that High Pressure by stress. When stephanie tried to visit me in the hospital, she was confronted by her command and told that the only way she could remain in the hospital with me was if she admitted herself for psychiatric evaluation. I wrote a Resignation Letter in january 2015. This is the letter i submitted to general kazdan. In that letter i write, i dont want to be in place that allows perpetrators to turn on me in their ranks. I dont believe in double standards. West points honor code is abided by the cadets however a few officers themselves arent held to the same standard or arent held at all. I right haesigned to protect my wellbeing. General kazdan, you told me you believed i would be a leader in the army. Although you told me you did not want to sign my resignation, you handed me a resignation and i asked you if there would be any changes if i stayed. You remained silent. Instead the numbers of reports have doubled since i was last at west point. Two years ago the Congress Asked why i was here and the answer was to prevent what happened to us from other cadets. After two years we are back here again and the answer to that question hasnt changed. I hope we can come up with a solution that will amend the system that desperately needs fixed for the sake of our future cadets and officers. With the support of congresswoman spear, i would like to return to the academy to complete what i started. I believe i can be an asset to other female cadets, and i take general kazdan at his word when he said i could be a great leader and officer in the United States military. Thank you. Thank you, ms. Bullard. Ms. Gross, you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you, sir. Hello. My name is Stephanie Gross. Im a former cadet of the United States military academy as well. I would like to first thank congresswoman spears office and her staff for extending an invitation to testify before you today regarding my time as a cadet at west point. In truth i still have a great love for west point and i respect and admire the Training Program for our nations future leaders. I entered west point at 18 years old with the class of 2016 on july 2nd, 2012. I was honorably discharged in 2015. Over the two years, eight months of being at west point, i was switched between companies a total of four times compared to once for most cadets. Because of this, i had little stability in leadership in my time there and this contributed greatly to my difficulties at west point. My first Sexual Assault at west point was reported by medical personnel in spring. I was in the hospital recovering from an emergency Pelvic Surgery that was found to be related to the assault. My surgeon advised me when he walked in that he was unsure due to the potential for scarring if i would ever be able to bare children. I later broke down to a nurse and thus my restricted report was initiated. I felt reporting would only cause further damage emotionally and i requested my report remain restricted without investigation. My case was later recorded by my commander as he became aware of the incident and legally had to report via the unrestricted route. The next day i was pressured for a name, telling me if i was a strong woman with duty and honor i would comply. I again resisted. At this time in 2013, i was without Legal Counsel. If Legal Counsel had been present, i feel my case would have stayed restricted as i decide and my difficulties in reporting such as 13 hours cid interrogations would have been minimal. My report was determined to be unfounded. My second case was founded on the basis of assault but the report concluded there was insufficient evidence to find the higher charge of aggravated sexual contact. The investigators refused to take my clothing for testing and refused to take a blood alcohol test of my assailant the night of the incident. The special victims attorney was increasingly helpful in this case, though. I was subjected to reprisal. Any time i would initiate a report, a few days later i would receive a new punishment. From drug testing that was negative, Mental Health evaluations that cleared me for duty, room inspections and misconduct related insubordination were among the actions against me. As these actions increased i became desperate. And this not surprisingly was damaging to me academically after missing many courses for the investigation and i began to feel i had no other option but to leave the academy. I asked for open door policy meetings with my leaders, hoping i could speak to them in lower tension settings to ask for their mentorship and ask why my situation became so distorted. My entire chain of command team denied me. Lieutenant general kazdan, i emailed you to speak to me privately. You too denied my request. I desired the chance to add contacts to those grim black and white words that you chose to judge me back, prepared by somebody else like those papers you have today. I found that one jag captain had influence over every factor of my case. I wanted to tell you i was sorry for the mistakes i did make and that i looked up to you as a leader. Even with those mistakes, i did not deserve to be treated the way that i was. I later found from a dod agent that you stated you cared greatly for me as a cadet and instructed my chain of command to protect me and aid my success in any way they could. Unfortunately, i never heard these things. From my perspective, each time i reported an action, i received punishment. And in denying my open door policy request you confirmed my suspicions that i was not wanted at your institution. If i had felt my chain of command truly cared for me, i would have felt differently about my situation. It was the idea that the chain of command had given up on me that sealed my decision to leave the institution. I do not blame west point as an institution for my situation. I blame a systematic failure of leadership who relied on Blind Loyalty to make judgments about an individual they had never spoken to. I believe if the open door policy had been a reality and i had been allowed to tell my side of the story to the leadership, i may have been able to stay. A system of investigating and prosecutors complaints of assaults that leaves great power in the hands of one individual or single individual motivated by career and institutional goals is not an effective mechanism for victims. After signing my oath, the first thing given to me was a Small Business card with the cadet honor code. Next written on the board was the soldiers creed. I am an american soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States and i live the army values. I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. And later, i am disciplined and i am a professional. These are the words that inspired me to continue even when i had nothing to gain and everything to lose. When i decided to report to help better the academy instead of following advice to keep my head down and not say anything. These are the reasons that i would also like to return to the academy and complete my time there as i believe actions speak louder than words and simply coming here and stating a problem does nothing to guarantee a solution with no action. With the support of congresswoman spears offices, i have decided to reapply for admission to the United States military academy to finish the education and training i began in 2012. I truly believe that the military and west point has made positive strides to fix this problem and understands that assaults occur on many College Campuses. But the Service Academy specifically should be role models for the nation and the world. Former cadet bullard and i were part of a group of four individuals who were friends who reported Sexual Assault or harassment at the academy. Out of the four of us, none remain. West point and all the Service Academies are the units of change for the future of our armed forces. There is much more work to be done. Thank you for your time. Thank you, ms. Gross. Ms. Kenzior, you are now recognized for five minutes. Good afternoon. In 2008, i was a recruited athlete who was inducted do the United States Naval Academy. My parents were afraid for my safety. During a campus visit we were told by Naval Academy representatives including my coaches and the Athletic Director that the Naval Academy did not have a Sexual Assault problem and that i would be safe. Shortly after the Academic Year began, i experienced two horrible and traumatic events. I was raped not only once but twice. Both times my fellow classmates and my company who i had to face every single day. My emotional state began to deteriorate and i went to the Naval Academy medical facility. During my intake evaluation, i told the treating physician that i had been raped, who did not ask when, did not ask where it had occurred, but simply checked a box on my intake form and prescribed me an antidepressant. These events set the tone for my remaining two years at the Naval Academy. The culture of the academy is that of a boys only club where men are considered superior to women, where women are frequently referred to as doves, which stands for dumb ugly bitch. After two and a half years of sheer emotional hall i broke down and was sent to the psychiatric ward at bethesda hospital. I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder by a nurse practitioner, not a licensed doctor. I made a request every semester to my Company Command who refused to transfer me every semester. I felt my life slipping away and as a final effort, requested mast with captain robert clark. Upon discussing my situation with the commandant, he told me to grow up. And within days began the separation process. In july of 2011, an academic review board was called which i thought was unusual given my overall good academic record. During my hearing, members of the board openly discussed my sensitive personal medical records all of which without my consent. And in the end used my past medical treatments as a basis for my separation. The academy found it easier to label me as having a personality disorder than to treat me for the trauma of being raped. It seems the motto of the u. S. Marine corps leave no man behind does not apply to the men and women who are raped. Instead they are frequently and intentionally left behind to deal with the pain and stress. While the rapists career continues without consequence. The navy continues to defend the evergrowing claims of military Sexual Assaults at the academy as small and those women who reported being raped are just mentally ill. How shameful. Military leaders then and now defend the growth rate as being good, claiming they are glad to hear women are coming forward to report their rapes. What they dont seem to get is that more rapes are bad and that they continue due to the failure by military leaders to address their root cause. There is a small but active group of rapists whose crimes are rarely investigated, len alone prosecuted, and the military finds it easier to destroy the life of the victims. The word is out, if youre a rapist, go into the military. Youll be protected after you rape company. I was processed out of the academy while my rapists are now serving as officers, potentially victimizing more people. People such as myself are not likely to come forward like i did for they know what will be the consequences. Upon leaving the Naval Academy, all forms of medical treatment and counseling ended. I was on my own to fend for myself. Thanks to the support of my family, i got the treatment which i needed, which began with weaning my off the drugs prescribed to me my military doctors. After more than five years of detox, i am off of all prescribed medications and am in ptsd treatment that was developed in fact by a former military green beret. I was denied the opportunity of completing my education at the National Academy given i only had one year remaining. I will never forget the day i had to return the class ring which represented the three years of hell that i had to endure. All i wanted and asked for was to complete my education while getting proper treatment and serve my country as a naval officer. All of which was denied to me by my Naval Academy leadership. Thank you. Thank you, ms. Kenzior. I would like to ask each one of you, ill ask you the same question. What is the policy or procedure that you would most like to see changed in Sexual Assault cases . Midshipman crane, let me start with you, and then ill move to the right. As for a policy change that i would like to see, the policy and the way i reported was so easy for me. It was so effortless. I just had to walk down to the sapper office and tell them my story, that i didnt want i didnt feel the need that there was anything that i would have wanted to change about it, about that process, about the reporting, about the whole, you know the case itself. For me, it just worked out very well. It was a very positive experience in that manner. So i wouldnt be able to provide a good answer on that. Ms. Bullard . So ive experienced Sexual Harassment. The recent report about Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault, the only change theyve done for at least the sports team is what they call a teal team, where cadets will wear tshirts and when they go to this game they get free concessions. This is their awareness for sports for Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault. And i dont believe an its on us shirt is going to fix a problem for cadets. There is a deeper understanding thats missing there. So if there is a policy that i think needs change, i think it has to start from the cadets. And i think there needs to be some sort of understanding, again. Thank you. Ms. Gross, what is the policy or procedure that you would most like to see changed in Sexual Assault cases . Yes, sir. So one of the reasons cited that general kazdan was unable to meet with me please move your microphone closer. Thank you. Sorry. Is that better . One of the reason that general kazdan was unable to meet with me is that he was conflicted because i was under investigation for misconduct. I understand his position requires him to have that oversight and not be in conflict. But if the open door policy is specifically for retaliation for Sexual Assault or harassment, maybe there is some provision that can be made so these victims can go to the superintendent if they need to, if thats the only person left that will talk to them. Ms. Kenzior, what is the policy or procedure that you would most like to see changed in Sexual Assault cases . For me, my first person to report to was a fellow midshipman, i believe he was a senior at the time. I was a junior. And that in my opinion was wrong. I dont think i needed to be telling what happened to me to a fellow classmate or even person who is a year older than me. If you guys dont know, the academy, at least the Naval Academy, is a huge rumor mill. Rumors spread fast. Telling a peer just opens that door up to more rumors. As for another policy, i believe that, you know, they should not be just educating the midshipmen about these things. They should also educate the leadership and the staff of these academies to be able to identify signs of those who are raped, maybe go to them and ask and talk to them about it. For right now, midshipmen are just trained by their peers. Thats what i went through, a training of midshipmen teaching midshipmen. To be honest, nobody took it seriously, at least the classes i attended. Thank you. Midshipman crane, i dont know if you mentioned this, some of the panelists have mentioned retaliation. If you experienced retaliation, was it through social media or in person . And also, if you experienced retaliation, did you report that . So in my case, the person who assaulted me was in the same company as me, which provides a very unique situation in which i have to see that person every single day, we have mutual friends, we were in the same class, the same company. In terms of retaliation, people found out very quickly that something was going on. And he was more liked than me. So what ended up happening is more people people didnt know which side to choose, it became almost like a choose a side situation, in which i was presented the opportunity to leave the company, as to not experience retaliation. So i chose it was either him or me. I decided to leave the company, because i felt more comfortable in leaving the company than having to experience, in case i would have experienced, retaliation if he had left and i had stayed. So in terms of that, thats how thank you. My own time is expiring. If you could all go very quickly, ms. Bullard, i think you mentioned experiencing retaliation. Was it through social media, or in person . And did you report the retaliation in and of itself . Yes, sir. I did report the retaliation, which caused me to receive more misconduct on my part, people retaliating against me, and im having misconduct taken against me. And again, to your first question, i think there are too many hands in the pot for investigations. The investigating officers most times do not have some sort of relations either to someone who is in charge of me or someone in charge of a victim. Its sorry. Im being really emotional right now. But i think there needs to be a third party thats checking on this, is what im trying to say. Ms. Gross . Sir, briefly, with my case, an app called yik yak was very prominent at the academy at this time. Unfortunately a lot of retaliation among my peers occurred on the yik yak app. I walked around campus with very visible bruises on my neck that couldnt be hidden by uniforms. It was public who i was, given the name on the left side of my chest, or the right side. From there i couldnt report it because there was no way to determine who it was, it was just liked by 300 people. Secondarily to that, i was moved four times. And i was asked the first time to move. The second time i was not. Thats usually considered a problem at the academy. Ms. Kenzior . Im sorry, im over my time. For me, it was a lot of rumors. It was rampant. I was labeled an slut who got around. Most of the retaliation happened after peers contacted me and saying negative things about me toward what i did. Ms. Spear . Mr. Chairman, im going to hold my questions to the end and allow my colleagues to my left to ask theirs. I thank you all for being here. This is certainly an issue that this committee has spent a good time looking at. And youre providing additional insight thats much needed. Its so hard to tell your story. I appreciate the determination and tenacity all of you are bringing to your presence here. And to your continued desire to serve your nation. I thank you for that, despite all of this. We focused a bit on the assaults. But im curious about the cultural issues. And i think much of the Sexual Harassment that you all experienced is rooted in a culture that has yet to fully embrace the diversity of the corps, the different corps that youre a part of. What i would like to hear from each one of you is, lets just say from day one, as you made your way into your particular academy, if you experienced things that you would like the academies to take note of as they begin to think more broadly, not just about the particular crimes but how they create an inclusive culture. Well start with you. Thank you. From day one, i would definitely say that it is important to note that the upper class play a huge role in setting the command climate of each company. I was a plebe when this happened. And i came into this and thought this was okay. And that to me was scary. And i knew deep down inside it wasnt okay. So i reported. But i had the support of my roommates at the time and my very close friends. It was good that they supported me in reporting. At the same time, i didnt feel confident in relying in that chain of command of midshipmen at the time. So the culture does have an impact, especially the training and the awareness that the upper class have, especially on plebes, on underclass, in regards to Sexual Assault and harassment. Regarding mine, i would say kind of similar to what ms. Kenzior said. There is a loyalty there. My time remember especially on the sports team, i know very well, every single day i saw him and had to swim with him in the pool. He was a swimmer. Were both swimming in the same place. Theres no way that i could get away from him, especially in that atmosphere, if i wanted to keep up with my sport. So i would say that that along with the fact that as soon as i opened up my case for Sexual Harassment, the whole team battled against me, because you dont tell on the team. You dont get the team in trouble. You dont give negative feedback about the team, because youre drawing attention, and youre getting people in trouble. And so eventually thats what led to me swimming by myself for two weeks before my big championship petmeet. That was the hardest thing, no one said a thing about me swimming by myself. And then they assumed i had special treatment. And thats all i have to say. Thank you. Go ahead. I think this problem begins with the fact that we have different standards than men do. Thats really its needed in a lot of different ways because we are physiologically different than them. The men think were lesser than them because we cant perform to the same level as they do. Thats basic training. Now the women are segregated and sleeping by ourselves on the side. The men are participating in shooting exercises at night but the women are off to the side because they dont want them sleeping to close to the men. That segregation causes the issue. Like midshipman crane said, it starts at the lowest level. When the sophomore cadet teaches the freshman cadet about leadership, when the graduates go out to their first posts throughout the world and show leadership skills for the first time. Thank you. And we dont have much time but i would love to hear from you too. So i also second midshipman crane about how the upper class sets the tone. One of my first Sexual Assault prevention classes as a plebe, we were told a story about how a female had said that a star Football Player had raped her. He was separated accordingly. And in the end, she had actually lied about it. And they finished that story with, dont be that girl. Thats what they tell us, told my class at least, in that Sexual Assault prevention class. Thank you all. I appreciate your being here today. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i thank each of you ladies for testifying today. Midshipman crane, are you familiar crane, are you familiar with the Sexual Assault Response Program . I am. How effective would you say it is in an effort to deal with these issues that you experienced . So, i would say in the terms of training midshipman its definitely come a long way. I definitely saw as a pleeb when i was going through these classes and now as im in the upper class im closer to the fleet and making it more of a positive thing. People are participating, mainly the guys in the class are the ones that participate. In terms of people getting the summer training to become representatives, thats also really huge. Im seeing really positive people taking those positions and im really impressed how its changed. Do you, as a future leader in our armed forces, do you feel that this equips you with the tools to deal with cases like this as you counsel and work with your future sailors or marines, depending upon where youre going to be branked . I do think so to some extent. Ive definitely had some lessons where im just like, thats a little off topic or doesnt really apply. I do see that. If there were a way to incorporate actual midshipman into these classes, it would make a bigger impact. People would see that and be like that is my peer, that is my friend, and people would listen to those classes especially more. And i thank you for that, and i think all of us on the panel agree or in the committee that even one incident is unacceptable, certainly in your military. But as we see the responses in how to deal and improve this situation, its important to get that kind of feedback from each of you. And now id like to switch a little bit to the army. Ms. Bollard, are you familiar with the sharp training . Yes, sir. Do you think thats a useful tool and is helpful or not helpful for cadets . I believe its helpful to an kpen extent. It has to come from the cadets. Just simply having an upper classman present a media file about Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment isnt good enough anymore. It has to come from deeper within. So relating and having a peer come up to another person saying, hey, this is what happened to me, you guys have to understand that, you know, this happens. The funny thing is, the culture, most cadets believe that almost every single report is a lie, when actually almost 90 of it is true. And thats just the culture. Most cadets dont believe in any woman that reports, i mean most of them. Everyone jokes around about that, especially on yik yak that ms. Gross explained. Along the lines to address some of this, ms. Gross, if i may, im not sure if it was in place when you were a cadet, but theres the respect program which targets those who demonstrate a lack of maturity or engage in acts inconsistent with the army values. You had mentioned the army values such as sexual behaviors or sexist behaviors. Was the respect program implemented while you were a cadet there . Yes, sir. It was actually very active. Actually cadet boll ard was subjected to that. So im not completely familiar on that topic specifically. I would like to say that the air force academy, cadet bohler talked about having peers and they have peers that supports those academies and respects mentorship. You three having the most recent experience and ms. Kensler, i was very much moved by your testimony and thank you for that, but do you see these programs getting at the criticality of the issue, its just a matter of massaging the implementation, including more feedback from the cadets or the midshipman. Do you feel that the programs are viable but its a matter of execution . Absolutely sir. Cadet cranes point is great and she said that when she got there the programs were evolving. Two years ago she start the acted me and we were there two years ago and thats when we were leaving. If that einvolved over the last two years it seems like its making good progress. And i really appreciate this feedback. It gives us a unique opportunity to query. But it appears that the leaders in trying to address this very real concern because we all believe in being a former military leader with decades of service, one incident is unacceptable. But it becomes critically important to know are the programs being implemented, do they have value, and so i really thank you for those responses. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Russell. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being so brave and coming forward and informing, educating us and the public. This is not ever an easy easy for anybody, but especially in the lime light. Im concerned from hearing your individual testimonies and please correct me, that there wasnt any education in the entry program, whether youre a pleeb or cadet. Im not too far removed from college but i do remember my freshman orientation we were specifically told what consent meant, what were the consequences of not having consent, and that there was a very defined i did not go to an academy, but theres a very defined process if you were accused of Sexual Assault and that you would be removed from the school and also if possible turned over to the local prosecutor for prosecution. When you all were entering your schools or your academieacademi there a portion within that first week where cadets or pleebs or whatever are explained to them that this is what is considered consent, this is whats not considered consent, and do your classmates understand that . We can start with midshipman crane. Most people agree that during that first month when you get to the academy its all quite a blur, but i do recall there being a brief about a program what is consent. There was a simeo there but at the same time youre busy with the task at hand, but yes, there is that initial brief. When that brief only occurs one time in the career of a cadet . No. That brief happens quite often. Update the midshipmen. I concur with midshipman crane. We do learn about that during our base training. Its just about, i guess, implementation, just like mr. Russell said. I mean, its just cadets, i dont think, are necessarily understanding the severe rationality about whats actually occurring. Most cadets just dont think its real, and thats why i think we all mentioned hearing from your peers and hearing real stories would be a lot of help. I actually have a different experience. My basic was in 2012. I dont remember anything from my basic training about Sexual Assault training. I remember ruck marching for 12 miles, i remember sticking people with needles. I remember running. I remember very impactful honor code speech that spoke with me. I remember respect but i dont actually remember a briefing on Sexual Assault. So obviously it wasnt impactful enough to carry with me through that period. And i pretty much concur with that as well. Im the oldest of the bunch. I entered in 2008. If there was a briefing i dont remember, and or i just wasnt really focused on it at the time. I had so much other things to deal with. Followup question again for the panel. Do cadets actually understand the consequences of their actions . Do they understand that they can be prosecuted under the ucmj and obviously they would be kicked out. I know that sounds like a very silly question, but youre dealing with young men that may not understand because their command has not told them that this is not acceptable or for some reason they somehow think that theyre not going to be prosecuted. Do you believe that the academies you attended did not properly communicate to your fellow cadets and midshipmen, the consequences of such heinous actions . Start with midshipman crane. They were definitely told the consequences briefly, but like anyone, you can be told the consequences but not under what it is to go through the consequences of committing an act as that. I do think there might need to be a little more focus on what would happen to you if you were to do that to someone. But yes. If you dont mind if im just being blunt, if its prosecuted. They understand, i guess, the consequences and its just words. But most times than not, i mean, if its prosecuted. If its searched right, i mean, you hear all our stories and it just it wasnt investigated right. This seems to be a trend, and most people i mean, if you look at our investigations and some of the stuff that some of the men have gotten away with, it causes a trend and it shows people that thats okay, and thats not right. Thank you. Ms. Gross. I concur with what ms. Boll ard said. Our assaults were reported for 14, 15 report. There were 14 reports made that year, only 8 were finished by the end of the report. One cadet was charged for a Sexual Assault of a related offense. Micah debt was discharged administratively for a nonrelated offense. Im not sure why. At that point, maybe they do know what the punishment is but they see that the statistics of them actually getting discharged for that are very low. Ill end with, yeah, they did communicate the consequences but obviously the consequences arent upheld so they dont feel threatened by it, in my opinion. Thank you. I yield back the time. Thank you. Mr. Mcsally, youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thanks, ladies, for your courage to speak to us today and speak publicly. I went to the air force academy. I was in the ninth class with women there, graduated in 1988. These dynamics were going on when i was there and theyre still going on now. I think theres at least been a greater emphasis or desire by the leadership to truly address these issues. But from your stories, obviously theres still a whole lot more and theyre still falling short. You talked a little about culture. Ive spent a lot of time thinking about the lord of the flies sort of culture that we all experienced at the academies where you have and i never thought id be saying this on the congressional record but im just going to go for it. You have 19yearolds in total control of 18yearolds, 20yearolds, 21yearolds. I thought about it later on when i was an officer. We would never have Airmen First Class in total control 24 7 of an airman basic in the air force. You dont do that. We bring them up, they get focused on their skill. We teach them how to supervise and ultimately after several years we allow them to supervise. Thats really in all the services. The only difference those 20yearolds for directed 18yearolds around is frankly your s. A. T. Scores were higher. Youre at the academy. But this dynamic of having 20 and 21yearolds responsible for 18 and 19yearolds and this leadership, we shouldnt be experimenting with human beings. My question, when you talk about the chain of command, the midshipman chain of command, how much of what youre dealing with is the upper classmen making decisions and how much are the real the officers and the senior enlisted that are the ones that are in the air force that are actually the chain of command who are ultimately responsible for this, right . So i just want to be clear to make sure i understand. Do you have 20 and 21yearold midshipman now deciding what to do here . You have a commander officer thats an actual officer so talk to me about the balance of decisionmaking in this environment these days. Midshipman crane. So, it once again depends on the company. I find that i was in a very, like, open company, open door policy with a Company Officer. It was great. Are you talking to the actual officer . Yes. So youre not reporting to a two degree or whatever you guys call them there . You can. So they have shape representatives in the company that have stickers on their door that say you can come tell me anything about this case. They are trained to assist and give that person the resources, but at the end of the day you have to report either through your Company Officer, through the office or through an actual figure. In my case i reported to i didnt report but i had discussed it with my academic adviser, an adult, not in my chain of command, and she directed me to the right resources. Nobody is reporting to another midshipman orca de cade . I just wanted to be clear who the Decision Makers are here. No. The midshipman, at least from what ive experienced, they do not make the report, they do not report for you. You report. They give you the resources. They do not decide it. Do any of the rest of you want to pipe in based on your experiences . Do you mean on sexual ragment specifically . Yes. Regarding the assault itself, at least at west point, there is no peer reporting. Honor boards are reported by your peers and investigated completely by your peers. My command evaluation was initiated by a peer by his room. My room inspections were by peers, my reprisal initially was by peers. So they do have a lot of control. The Sexual Assault process is in the hands of officers and others but when youre dealing with the dynamics, the culture, the potential retaliation, theres a whole lot of peer thats something we need to be paying a little more attention to. Ms. Gross, i want to follow up on this culture thing. We show up as 18yearolds and somehow something happens where resentment builds, and i do want to follow up with you on your perspectives. Any double standards, people make fun of me but i talk about, hey, you need to have your hair cut, too. Right away we shouldnt have resentment building by the men towards the women. We need more integration and not segregation because that builds resentment and youre not my teammate. Thats what we need to get to the bottom of here. Would you guys agree . Yes, maam. Thanks. Im out of time. Thank you ladies. Ms. Rosen, youre now recognized for five minutes. Thank you. And i want to thank you for your bravery in coming forward and speaking to candidly about something so painful and so very wrong. You went to the service to serve our country with honor and respect and you certainly werent treated that way and im very sorry for that. What i want to ask is, theres a lot of other women in the military, so in your experience at your school, were there women leaders, were there focus groups, were there support groups . What were the Women Officers able to do for you, and how can they help change this culture as we go forward . Maybe theyre the strongest advocates because theyve been through this, like representative mcsally, and can focus on that. From my experience in the Naval Academy, there are many, many good women role models. There are officers, senior enlisted, even midshipmen, our Brigade Commander right now is a woman and it is fantastic. I actually never experienced ever backlash for being a woman, never any double standards. Theres always women breaking the barriers and proving themselves and its really fantastic. How can the older women support you younger women, i guess is my question . What can they do or we all do . Just by being great role models, really just interacting with the midshipmen on a daytoday basis, speaking out those roles, seeking out leadership roles, seeking out roles in which they interact with midshipmen on a larger scale. Those really make an impact. You get more facetime with someone whos in a position of authority and then you respect them. Thank you. I actually had a mentor. She was a sark and she was also a former ig. It got to a point where she supported us, supported us and it got to a point where we had so much retaliation that she feared for her job and she had her sneaking around to sneak into her office in order to see us. So i would say there is a support but theres also retaliation against them as well. Throughout the ranks . Yes, maam. Ms. Gross . I think its important to note that that sark was also a grad and was a colonel previously in the army. She was very confident initially and then told us she was reprimanded by the chain of command and was told to sneak into our office and she was later transferred out of the academy to a different position. In addition, we had many leaders that were women and towards the end of our time at the academy when the retaliation increased and congress had begun to get involved in our cases, we started to lose those where they were told not to speak with us. We tried to start a support group and west point does not allow support fwrugroups. They told us it wasnt allowed and we werent able to do that. We ended up forming our informal support group. Weve all since left the academy, are being pushed out or selfdischarged after mental issues. From my experience i didnt really have many female officers. I was mainly surrounded by male officers. A lot of the officers that were Company Officers went there themselves so they kind of fell into the same culture that we are a part of in terms of trying to fit in with i call it a frat, a big frat youre joining. Theres 22 female so youre joining into this boys club or fraternity and you try to fit in and be one of the guys. On another note, the only female officer that i actually did sort of know who was the Company Officer of a company nearby mine was actually accused of inappropriate Sexual Conduct with a male midshipman. It looks like we have a long ways to go to bring this out of the shadows because thats where its been hiding and thats what allows perpetrators to victimize women like you and others like you, and we need to bring them out of the shadows. They should be here talking about why they did the things that they did and letting the world see them on television. Thank you for your time. I yield back. Thank you, ms. Rosen. Mr. Kelly, you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member for having this very important meeting. I want to, first of all, tell each of you im sorry for what you had to endure and i thank you for your bravery in being here today. I want to make sure thats the first and foremost. Secondly, i want to talk a little bit to me there are separate things and we shouldnt be having a hearing on separate things. Harassment and assault are two different things. Harassment is a cultural thing that is bad, really bad. But assault, that is criminal, and people need to go to jail. That more than anything else as a former District Attorney theres nothing i can stand than a criminal act which someone gets away with, and to put them in the same category what happens with leaders is they retract to the easy to defend position so when you Start Talking about assaults and you Start Talking about harassment in the same voice, they always want to talk about harassment and not about the assault. And again, assaults are a criminal act and theyre always a criminal act. Are yall aware of anything that tracks when an individual either has a Sexual Harassment or Sexual Assault, when the purpose traitor, not the victim but when the perpetrator is put into the system . I understand innocent until Proven Guilty but you can mask duis and you have a Public Private record and all those things. Are yall aware of anything that tracks these people who are accused because if a guy has been accused three times or two times or five times, theyre a predator. So even we need to know that even if its not drawn at the conclusion that once that accusation is made, its not in his permanent 201 file. Are any of you aware of anything that privately masks that . That was one of the main reasons that i was pressured to report my first case from unrestricted restricted to unrestricted, was that when i sat down with the sarks office they told me even if my case was unfounded, even if i report it then at least it would be in his file so that if it happened again he would have a pattern. Thats what i was told and from what im hearing from you, sir, thats not the case or it is removed from their file or they cant track that . No. Mine is a question. I think that when it is reported it ought to be in a private file that every other commander sees. If thats the only one that ever happens i dont think there should be any derogatory towards that soldier, sailor or marine. If theres three over a fiveyear period from three different victims, i think the chain of command has a duty to know because you probably have a predator and im not aware of anything that does that. Are yall . There does seem to be a tracking system at least on the reports that were released on the previous reports. They have a section that asks if there had been a previous offense committed or reported against the cadet. I know that its working better now than it has in the past. I was at the air force academy last year for a graduate of two cadets from my district and one from somewhere else. Were talking about the day of graduation within the last two days, was not allowed to graduate because of a sarks complaint, that to me is progress. Thats where you can see that the person who perpetrated this on you is not graduating and not being that. That being said, just very briefly, if you could do any one thing to make this better, what would it be . When i was there in the past or now . If youre the person in charge of the entire dod. Youre secretary of defense and you could do one thing to impact that. What would it be . I think creating an open environment, a safe environment to talk about this, to have a place to go and discuss it that you wont be judged and it wont get out to the rumor mill. To me thats why i held it in for so long before i came forward. I did not feel like i had a safe place to talk about it. Ms. Gross . I really think we need to institute a standard of support groups across the academy. Something that the regular armies does but the academies dont uphold. I had the belief that it was because they didnt want us to group together. If students are able to talk about these problems the leadership can see systematic what was going on and i wouldnt feel like i was the only one. Almost all Investigation Findings were downgraded to find no basis of charge. The leadership is not dinged by the assaults because its not record as sexual. That would go back to my point. I dont think that its being tracked unmasked so that the same perpetrator im sorry, mr. Chairman, if i can indulge midshipman crane. About any changes that i would make, it would be to make sure that the squad leaders and the people that the underclass and the people that you see the most are trained. When i went through my case i didnt really think of the shape advisers and my company first. I thought of the people that were closest to me that were in charge of me. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you, mr. Kelly. Mr. Bacon, youre now recognized for five minutes. Thank you very much. I want to thank each of you for sharing what happened in your life and i just want to make it clear the actions described are disgraceful and unacceptable. I say that as a fivetime commander, serving 30 years in the air force, but also as a husband, father of a daughter, grandfather of three little girls. We owed you better. My thought as an institution of the services but also with the academies, we got to do three things in leadership. One, make the policies clear what the standards are and how to respond when an incident does occur. Two, i think we owe a way to support victims when these things occur so we have to have a very clear support network there and a process. Three, we got to hold people accountable. I decided to look at all those three things as a commander. As a commander, we have a little bit of leeway, how do we prosecute when these things occur. Some folks want the bar set higher, some lower. When i had this situation in my commands and i felt like we needed to take more quick action, i decided to courtmartial folks who the evidence was not as clear. Sometimes it was one persons word against another persons word, but i wanted the victim to have the opportunity to speak in front of a jury, make their case and also the person who is accused. Our convictions went way up when this happened. Id love to have your feedback. Would you have felt comfortable to go to a courtmartial, or is this a process that would have worked for you if you have a commander that was more aggressive and said lets put this person in front of a jury . I guess i dont understand your question fully. I think commanders have some leeway who to courtmartial. Sometimes they want very clear evidence of guilt. Other times its a little less clear. I took the attack as a commander that i would courtmartial people more quickly and let the juries decide. What do you think of that principle . Should we be more aggressive . I believe it should be taken out of the militarys hands in general. Rape and Sexual Harassment is not exclusive to the military so why should the military be handling it when its an epidemic throughout our country, in all colleges. In my opinion, i dont think it should have to go to courtmartial. I think it should have to go to civilian court to handle these cases appropriately. Ill just say for the record, in our case we had a High Conviction rate through the courtmartial. We put people in leavenworth. So accountability does occur. You just need commanders that lean forward and be aggressive at it. Ms. Gross . I think that right now theres actually too much leeway within the institutions. The academy, at least west point has many sanctions they can impose. They gave an administrative sanction instead of regular sanctions. They have article 32s. They can do regular judicial punishment. For that reason, theyre able to lower their numbers of assaults. Its very interesting if you look at the year that i left, 2014 and 15, there was only one case of substantiated Sexual Assault and no cases of Sexual Harassment. My occasicase was classified asl assault. Maybe that leeway is too much. Ms. Bollard . This is a hard question. I say that because i would agree that it needs to go outside of the military. The reason why is i think in me and mrs. Grosss case, at any point the head of the commander could have done something. Thats all i have to say. One comment, too, i found in my experience you are absolutely right, 90 of ail fwallegations true. Thats been my experience as a fivetime commander. I found out when you start court march courtmartial people, they plead guilty. The fact that they were calling you a dub, as you see any efforts to try to correct that . No. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Bacon. Ms. Spear, youre now recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Let me just tell you how extraordinary you all are and how grateful we are that you are here to testify. Im troubled by a number of things that happened. With you, ms. Kenzyor, you were raped twice at the academy and then labeled as having a borderline personality disorder and taken out of the military. Is that correct . Correct. The rapes did not occur at the academy or on the academy grounds, but it occurred at a team house off campus in one occurrence and a hotel at another occurrence. Both of them were by midshipmen. And both continued through their education and became ensons . Correct. There was an ncis investigation on the first rape that happened and he was still there when i reported and he was allowed to graduate. Ms. Gross, you indicated that you were interrogated after the rape or after the first assault, maam. The first rape. And you were interrogated for 13 hours . Yes, maam, thats correct. And then what happened . During that time i think cid had gotten better by my second assault. I will say that. There had been improvement. Im unique in the fact that i did not have a special victims attorney for the first and i did for the second so i was able to see the change between the two. Having that special victims attorney played an integral role to making sure that didnt happen the second time. The first time i had 13hour interviews i think twice before my commander came in after 11 30 at night and said that i needed to go because i had class in the morning and i had missed class all day. You had two 13hour interrogations . Yes, maam. We wonder why victims dont want to report. If i remember correctly, ms. Gross, you had in the second rape or assault, you had bruises on your neck and in your upper torso area, is that correct . Yes, maam. There were photographs taken, correct . Yes, maam. Were these photographs lost . I was told there were certain photographs that were not documented properly or lost within the investigation, yes, maam, and also that they had refuse today take my dloeclothi and the blood alcohol level that was requested. So he was drunk . Yes, maam. And he sexually assaulted you. They were made aware of this and then they chose not to get his blood alcohol or to take your clothing as evidence . Yes, maam. At the directive of the trial counsel at west point, the captain. What was the rationale for not doing that. The military Police Officers told me they received a call and as they told him to take a blood alcohol level because he was obviously drunk and they said the trial counsel captain told them not to take it. My special Victims Counsel felt that because i had an unfounded case that i was no longer credible so he felt that was going to be used against me. Both you and mr. Bullard, even though youve gone through this injustice, frankly, you want to return to the academy and complete your education there. Can you explain to us why . Maam, i think first off, i think it should be noted that i didnt want to leave in the first place. I wanted to stay if there was a change. The fact that i received silence from general kazlan showed me that there wasnt anything to be done at that time. So i immediately had to go. And yeah, i would say that i would love to go back and i think that stephanie and i are probably the best people to help create and help support this cause. I think that ariana and i can agree and we talked about this decision that we admire general kazlan greatly. We saw great leadership from him during our time there in his briefings and believe this his intentions are true. The academys intention are true, they want to fix this problem. We recognize that he made mistakes as well, and so did the institution, like we all do. Because of this i feel like i cant come to congress and talk to you and tell you these problems and not take action to fix them if i was truly passionate about the issue. I cant sit here and say these things are wrong without trying to fix them myself where i can come back as a leader and make a change. Thank you. I yield back. Doctor, youre now recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank all of you for your leadership. And being willing to come here and educate us on problems that clearly exist and help us try and be part of the solution as best that we can. I admire your bravery through all this. Truthfully, the questions i would have asked have already been asked, so i wont put you through it again. Thank you for stepping forward and being the true leaders that you are and brave souls and i appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I certainly did have a lot of questions. Thank you so much to all of you for being here. I think if theres anything i take from this, its that im glad that you can point to a few areas in which theres been some change but clearly not enough. And i think that we all have to be very cognizant of that. Im really more inclined to want to go ahead and move on with the next panel because i hope that you all can stay at least for a few minutes because im certainly interested in some of the reaction. There are a few things i was glad to hear. The special Victims Counsel, i think generally i sense that thats a good thing, and we know that thats also a model thats been picked up at the universities, in some universities. Were pushing for more. I would be interested in knowing how we could progress it even more to speed up the best parts and get rid of some of the problems that might have occurred. The unit climate is also very important, and we talk about retaliation. I think i would love to know more about how we have a zero retaliation environment. My sense has always been that its on whoever is in leadership within that that sets that tone. Weve got to change that. The fact that you could be in a sports environment and not have anybody getting your back, that in addition to the service mentality and that its a family, the fact that you would not have your cosportsmen and women helping you out, that they werent sensitive enough to that tells me that leadership in that environment was such that thats where the changes have to be made. So then the question is, how do we make that happen. Is it the training thats going on, not among the people involved but the leadership, so how should that change. Ill let you answer that. And also the whole idea that anybody who has been leading a group of people, recruits and cassettk cadets and had a case under their leadership that was not handled well, the fact that they would advance in leadership has always been something that i just dont understand. Weve got to get at that. People should have a fair hearing, but we also dont want people to advance, number one, who have been a perpetrator, but number two, who have been in leadership when that kind of crime has taken place. So i think thats sort of where i would hope that perhaps we can discuss a little bit more in the next panel. But please, i have a minute and a half. Could you respond. In regards to command climate, ive never been called a dub or experienced anything like that at my time at the academy. When i took hold of my case and had a confidence and didnt fear anything about it, i received the most support from the midshipmen of the brigade. Id have to agree with you that it comes from leadership. In my resignation i told him that there needed to be new leadership and a new culture and that was the problem. The head coach is a civilian and he doesnt necessarily he understands the gist but doesnt necessarily understand the military very much. Bringing that into an ncaa sport is hard. How do you establish a military environment but also have an ncaa sport . I think its a doubleedged sword, and its kind of like the guys are better than the girls and thats the thought on the team, that they are better than the girls and theyre two separate teams. I dont understand how that is for an army team. I actually have an improvement from my piece that with my special victims attorney and i think i might have been the only one who brings valuable to the Current System and it may have changed since i had been there but they had very limited power. At the time my attorney was new to the academy and he was subjected to my command of leadership and he was being restricted because he had to reported it to his own leadership who was being investigated for my case. That may be something to look into. Im not sure if thats changed. Id go back to what i said earlier, i think its important to train the leadership, the faculty, the coaches. I never received any conversation from my coaches reaching out to me about what had happened. So that would be a good start in my opinion. Thank you all for your testimony today. Its very important. Thank you. Ms. Spear, one question specifically, were you retali e retaliated against, midshipman crane . No. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, ms. Spear. I want to thank the members of the panel for having the courage to step forward today. I think for some of you it is a question of bringing justice to your particular case, and i think by virtue of you being here you will help countless others. I think everybody in this subcommittee is committed to making sure that we do our up mo utmost to make sure the climate and culture changes so we dont experience a panel like this in the future. Again, i want to thank you so much for your testimony today. Youre now dismissed. Were going to recess until after the vote to hear the vote for the various Service Academies. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible back to order. I wish to now welcome our second panel. We would like to respectfully remind the second panel to summarize to the greatest extent possible the high points of your written testimony in five minutes or less. Your written comments and statements will be made part of the hearing record. Our second panelists consist of dr. Elizabeth p. Van winkle performing the duties of assistant secretary of defense for readiness. Lieutenant general robert l. Kazlan, superintendent of the United States military academy. Vice admiral walter e. Carter junior, superintendent of the United States Naval Academy. Lieutenant general michal d. Johnson, superintendent United States air force academy. Dr. Van winkle, you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Chairman coffman and subcommittee members, thank you for having me here to discuss the results of the shaexual harassment at the military environments. Were devoted to promoting an environment where cadets are treated with respect. It has no place in our armed forces and military academies. These problematic behaviors affect our peoples wellbeing and undermine the overall readiness of our military. Just one instance of Sexual Assault can impact the trust between military members, degrade cohesion and takes focus off the mission at hand. The strength of our force relies on the discipline of our military members. These behaviors and tolerance of these behaviors weakens our force. Preventing criminal behavior and misconduct, providing care for Service Members and holding offenders appropriately accountable continues to be a top priority. We also understand that each service and academy have unique environments and we work to ensure they have the flex aebltd to implement change. We are a learning institution and we are continually striving to do better. In the force at large we have seen advancement over the past several years and are key et kaers of progress. Our report released yesterday indicates that Sexual Assault are at their lowest and rates of reporting at their highest. One of the things we have learned since creating our program in 2005 is that context and environment matters. Our approach must be tailored to take into account unique combinations of mission, people and environment. Theres no one size fits all solution to the problem of Sexual Assault. Unfortunately, the rates of unwanted sexual contact increased all three academies during this Academy Program years, returning to levels of what we observed in 2010 and 20 2012. Rates of reporting at the academies has not followed the same trend. Finally, the experience of Sexual Harassment and ta retaliation is far too common. This means addressing how contributing factors such as alcohol misuse, Sexual Harassment, hazing, bullying and other destructive behaviors impact their unique environments. However, the absence of these negative behaviors is only part of the solution. There also needs to be the presence of strong leadership traits among the stuts in this space. Each student must be empowered to be role models in how they behave, treat each other and expect other cadets and midshipmen to be treated. This is not something that can be immediately achieved with a policy. It can only be achieved through a eunified effort in all aspect of their behavior and at all times. The academy is already working to move the needle and they can teach talk to some of the initiatives theyve begun to empower students to take on this charge. The environment at the academies is unique and it has taken us longer to fine tune our approach and our efforts to improve prevention and reporting have not made the gains that we would all like to see. This is not for lack of effort and attention of our surveys indicate the Majority Trust the academies to protect privacy, ensure safety and treat all with dignity and respect. We are confident that we can do more to prevent Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment at our academies. We will not stop until we get this right. We appreciate your concern and support as we work to protect the people who volunteer to keep our nation safe. Thank you for the opportunity to come and speak with you today. I look forward to your questions. Thank you, dr. Van winkle. Lieutenant general kazlan, you are now recognized for your opening statement. Thank you very much, chairman, Ranking Member spear and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Its an honor to be here today representing the United States military academy community. I know that today were here to address the recent Sexual Assault and survey results and to provide the committee with details about the work we continue to do to improve the support we provide to victims of Sexual Violence, but also the very crucial aspect of creating a climate that does not allow these events to happen in the first place. As a starting point i want to say that the experiences that the women shared with you are things that we never want to happen to anyone at west point, i admire both ms. Bullard and ms. Gross for their courage and candor to come forward today and talk about these situations. I share ms. Gross concern about the open door policy and as much as she agonized not talking to me, i share the same feelings that i was unable to talk to her because of pending action that i had to preside over to include a dod investigation for reprisal. But we learned a lot from both of them and from their experience. We learned about special Victim Counsel and the work that a special Victim Counsel does in these investigations. We learned a lot about interview techniques. We learned a lot about advocacy and advocacy methods that build trust as compared to what you heard from ms. Gross and ms. Bullard. We also learned a lot about the cycle that a victim feels as they go through isolation, misconduct and further isolation until the point where they finally bottom out and are ejected. We learned about the commanders responsibility to be able to identify where that cycle occurs to and to prevent that ejection from happening. Our strategy to build and maintain a solid response to Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault addresses prevention, victim advocacy, investigation, assessment and accountability. We believe weve made Great Strides in advocacy, investigation and accountability. This past year our reporting has nearly double. A very positive sign that our work to improve the climate is beginning to take root. However, we must focus more on primary prevention, efforts that stop the crime from happening in the first place. As part of that evereffort we h an external agency to offer r recommendations on how we can improve. We accept that we must accept a climate where everybody is treated with dignity and respect, feels theyre a valued member of the team and everybody feels secure physically and emotionally. Prevention and education must build and maintain conversation and tou. However, education and skill building which are two keys to successful Prevention Programs are also part of the college experience. We therefore continually explore ways to modify our programs to respond to these factors. For example, over the past few weeks, our sharp and cadets against Sexual Harassment and assault hosted a month of activities which included mr. Tony porter, a screening of the movie audrey and daisy, survivor speak out, walk a mile and other events with our local rape crises center. These events raised awareness about Sexual Assault and reinforced our prevention is everyones responsibility. As a member of the board of governors, i was asked to cochair the commission to combat campus Sexual Violence. Because of the military academys recognized programs and initiatives and experience in dealing with these issues. Theres much work to be done to shift the tide of Sexual Violence on College Campuses and it is an honor to be part of the work at the National Level through the ncaa and west point. Finally, we still have a lot of work to do to eliminate Sexual Assault and sexual rationment. We have not stopped working on this issue and we wont. I hope that as i have the opportunity to answer your questions today it will become clear that our mission at west point is to develop leaders of character who are committed to the values of duty and honor and country and are prepared for excellence in service to the nation as an officer in the United States army. Thank you. Thank you, Lieutenant General kazlan. Vice admiral carter youre now recognized for your opening statement. Chairman and distinguished members of this committee. Thank you for inviting me to discuss the Naval Academys Sexual Assault prevention and response efforts. We have a responsibility to ensure that every Single Member of the brigade is afforded an opportunity to develop professionally in an environment which fosters dignity and respect. If we get it right and we have every intention to do this every year, we can be the custodians of the core values of the navy and set the standard for profession professionalism, honor and integrity. We can graduate and Commission Young Junior Officers that will influence the overall culture of the navy and marine corps. Despite dedicated efforts by the naif academy, we continue to experience incidents of unwanted sexual contact. While the recently released report on Sexual Harassment shows a prevalence of unwanted sexual contact in 2016 was below that of 2010 and 2012, there was a significant increase in prevalence from the progress reported in 2014. We can and must do better. We have extensive Sexual Assault Prevention Program at the Naval Academy. Each midshipman participate in over 30 hours of training starting on the first day of fleeb s plebe summer and culminating during their senior year. The heart of our effort is a Sexual Harassment and assault prevention Education Program. A peerled small Group Mentorship program. Our program has evolved over the last several years and based on evidencebased research in the field, data from these annual reports, student and facilitator feedback and best practices of other institutions. Additionally, we have incorporated Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault prevention into our formal education curricula. We recently evaluated our program against the recommendations set forth by the centers for Disease Control guidelines and found that our efforts incorporate all facets of the cdcs education model with the exception of teaching healthy, safe dating and intimate relationship skills. Moving forward, we will be placing further emphasis in the following three areas. Responsible use of alcohol, Healthy Behaviors and relationships, and understanding consent. With respect to our Sexual Assault Response Program, we continue to make steady, positive progress. Sexual assault continues to be one of the most underreported crimes in our nation. That said, reports of Sexual Assaults at the Naval Academy have more than doubled over the past four years. Furthermore, just this past year we had 11 previously restricted reports converted to unrestricted reports, providing not only an opportunity to provide care and for the for survivors but to hold individuals accountable. I believe this continued positive trend reflects increased trust in our system. Despite our committed efforts in a very robust program, we have much work to do to further affect and sustain positive change. We are not where i want us to be. Nor where the navy needs us to be. There is no finish line in our Sexual Assault prevention and response endeavors, but i have full faith and confidence that my team will rise to the challenge. Thank you for your time today and i look forward to your questions. Thank you, vice admiral carter. Lieutenant johnson, youre now recognized for your opening statement. Thank you, chairman and Ranking Member spear and other distinguished members of the committee. The committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the future leaders of our air force the cadets as well as the staff that educates, trains, and inspire these young men and william to become service of character. Thank you for allowing us to attend the first panel today. Issues that are corrosive to our ability to successfully carry out our mission and by extension our impediments to military readiness. Id like to describe some of our work and culture exchange. One Sexual Assault is too many, we expect more of ourselves and rightfully so, because more is expected of our graduates. When they leave our carpous and operate in an unpredictable battle spaces. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard. The result of the 2016 Service Academy gender relation survey and Sexual Harassment and violence reports indicate that as an academy were not yet where we want to be. We want reporting to go up, prevalence to go down and these incidents to go to zero. We believe we are moving in the right direction. The 2016 gender relations survey estimates indicate the number of cadets experiencing unwanted sexual contact in the last year increased from 126 to vr in twourtd to 2150 in 2016. Both efforts are less than those estimated for 2012. We also utilize the military Service Academy Defense Equal Opportunity Climate survey to help us better understand cadets attitudes about reporting, prevention and leaderships approach. We have seen positive trends in these areas. The 2016 military Service Academy equal opportunity Climate Survey showed that more with willing to seek help. An average inclose of 3 across enlisted officer leadership, and the Athletic Department. The Sexual Assault prevention is designed to have a holistic standard. Our current and future initiatives reflect a paradigm shift, focussing more on peertopeer relations and evidence based programs that use meaningful metrics to measure over time. This is from quality to quantity and from response to prevention. St the cadets healthy skills program, an evidencebased program that focuses on prevention of multiple behaviors, including substance abuse, aggressive behavior. Its been implemented as part of the first gave of the fiveyear violence prevention strategy. Cadets will receive this highly interactive training this summer. Weve made significant strides in the Athletic Department where each of our teams participates in small group helgsy relationships training. Victim care is a fundamental priority for our program. We have built a row bus safety net to know their emotional and physical wellbeing, no matter when and wrote it took place, 38 of reports in 2016 were of incidents that occurred prior to military service. Our approach includes medical care, counsellors, chaplains, peer support, Law Enforcement investigation and a special victims county. When a victim asks for help, a victims advocate is present. We want all victims to get the care and help they need. And reach their fullest potential. Thank you for your time. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, lieutenant. General johnson, dr. Van winkle, i understand the Overall Department of defense sexual response prevention and response report was released yesterday. How do the results of the d. O. D. Wide survey compare to the Service Academy report . Thank you for the question. As mentioned in my opening statement, within the active duty we are seeing indications of progress. We saw the prevalence rate. Thats the occurrences of the crime. The estimates of prevalence decreased in the active duty significantly between fourth and 2016. So were seeing a friend lying down. 2014 and 2016. Also 2012 is a trend down across all those years. In addition we have proportionally more people reporting than ever before. Are you speaking to the the active the d. O. D. . Yes, sir. And that includes academies . No. Only the active duty. Right. So the reports, we saw about 32 of active duty members are reporting when theyre experiencing a skmul assault. Thats what we estimate. As opposed to the trends were seeing in active duty, in the academies, we did not see the same progress where we saw Sexual Assault or unwanted sexual contact rates go up between 2014 and 2016. We didnt see the same progress in reporting, either. So it is a different picture. Do you have a breakdown, though, in that survey in the same, i guess, age cohort or the same uhhuh. So if you compare on the active duty side those between 18 and 22 years old with the academies, is there a breakdown in the report that reflects the difference in age, apples to apples in terms of ages . We can provide that breakdown. I can take that for the record. To your points, the 18 to 22yearold presents more risk. Weve just heard compelling stories, survivors of Sexual Assault. Many mentioned that they were his tatp to report their assailance and that when they did they experienced retaliation. Could each of you discuss the programs in place to address these problems . Lieutenant general kaslin. Start with you, please. Thank you very much. Let me first talk about addressing reprisal and retaliation. I think thats a significant issue. So our based on the report that we just had our reprising report was 13 reported professional reprisal which means it was unfavorable first action or some type of action was threatened to be with held. 57 felt os tra simple and isolation. So were trying to understand the depth of the issue. Theres one way to understand it from the professional standpoint but its also important that we understand the os tra simple that occurs. Sure. Because whether you see it or somebody else sees it, the victim and the survivor will see it and feel it. And then how do you protected them, how do you create a command climate that does not allow that. We talk to you our cadets all the time about having a private life that you would display on social media thats consistent with the values you have in public. If you have a private life thats not consistent with your public life thats not the type of values america expects from the leaders who will lead their sons and daughters. We put into place a policy that really denies and does not allow reare prizele to occur. Were taking action against that as well. We continue to support the army regulation. Im running out of time oil vice admiral daecarter, could y respond . Yes, sir. First of all i warm front to respond to the members who were up here earlier, the resources that are at the Naval Academy and the situation we have at the Naval Academy is in a much, much more different space. One of the things weve done first of all where you can report to our Sexual Assault and response is coordinator so its not colocated where they live. Its slightly outside of their Living Spaces but close enough that they feel comfortable going there. The second thing that i would tell you is our Midshipmen Development center is a Mental Health facility that midshipman feel very comfortable with no stig ya going to. We have sexual counsellors there. So they feel comfortable going to them. We also talked about the responsible use of social media and how they need to look out and protect each other. Weve seen good behavior. Although this is a challenge with reprisals weve seen our unrestricted reports going up. 11 have transitioned this year. They showed a propensity to report more than they have in the past. Briefly, im over my own time limit. Please. Just very briefly, we likewise try not to let unanimous environment. Theyve gone from yik yak to yodel so theres always another site. We check on them every month in Case Management groups should cross check entities to make sure theres not an action of reprising taking place. We think were benefitting from more unrestricted report. People have confidence that they wont be retaliated against. We though thats the case. Over the last few years, written reports have been within five. We think were making progress. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Spear. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you to all of you for your leadership. I know that you want to do the right thing. I truly believe that. The numbers as dr. Van winkle pointed out dont support did kind of growth wed like to see. General johnson, i truly enjoyed being with the academy at you last month and i see dr. Dickman was here, whom i observed for about an hour before she presented all the coaches around the country and it was very compelling. Let me start by asking this. Just yes or no. Do you belief that 90 of the reports of Sexual Assault are true . Dr. Van winkle. According to the data in terms of what falls underan unfounded case, that would align where we typically see about 2 in active duty being unfounded, meaning there was evidence that didnt support that the crime occurred. General caslin. I think its true that the experience has experienced something and it was significant and it was emotional to that person and it created a crisis of confidence, a crisis of security, emotional and physical security. When you do the investigation into to determine whether theres significant evidence to further continue with prosecution, the facts at least for us is just under 50 lsh founded, that that was there was enough evidence to continues. Doesnt mean it didnt happen . It just means there wasnt sufficient education. On roll, carter . Yes. Yes. One of the statements that was made earlier by the first group of witnesses was a recommendation by someone who is counselling them that basically dont be that girl. And it was about the reference to a Football Player who was administratively removed and it came it was found out that the victim was not telling the truth. So that message has to change. I mean, i think part of what we need to train everyone is that most of those who file reports are telling the truth. So i just wanted to make that point. Admiral carter mentioned that Sexual Assault survivors to the Naval Academy now can take sa bat kals, which i think is really healthy. Do each of you offer that opportunity . General . Yes, we do. We do it under the consultation of all the Mental Health support in the chain of command. General johnson . Yes, we have administrative turnbacks and they may go for one or two semesters to make sure theyre ready to come back. Its not necessarily just at their request. It has to be in consultation with medical personnel. We may want the look at that. Ms. Gross mentioned that she was interrogated for 13 hours one day and 13 hours another day. General, is that still going on at the military academy . No. Maam, if you remember from my opening statement, we learned a lot. God forbid if we ever do Something Like that again. So this report, dr. Van winkle made a note of it, shows that in 47 of those who were polled said that they were sexually h harassed at the military bases, which is astonishing. We know that Sexual Harassment leads to Sexual Assault. Why is it that almost half of the victims felt alone . The number of cadets, midshipmen, the number thats experiencing Sexual Harassment is too high. We learned from it and theres ranging from sexual quit pro quo to those behaviors, inappropriate jokes. Most of our members, cadets and midshipmen are experiencing. And i think the department is really focusesing on beginning to mobilize and empower the cadets and midshipmen themselves. As i mentioned in my opening statement, to really empower them to start to be more invested in this area and to start to step in if he see something and be more engaged in this so we can start to address some of these issues. Any other comments . General caslin. Yes, maam. We do recognize and acknowledge that people talk to each other disalmostfully. We have created programs so you can talk about the values of our organization, duty, valor, country and the values of our agency. I think you heard mr. Russell ask the question about the respect Mentorship Program that some cadets go through, that if a cadet is found to be disrespectful in any area, it would go through a Mentorship Program and they must successfully complete it. Its a sixmonth sorry. My time has expired. I just wanted to get the last answers. Yes. The number is acceptable. I would say there is a glimmer of hope. Our midshipmen indicated even in the survey that 27 of the men would corrects somebody who made an appropriate joke. Weve held midshipmanship, even though the numbers dont match that thats out there. We hold them accountable either through remediation or separation. We have to do better. The culture and climate of this is very pirated this. Theyve had to talk through some of these things. It goes beyond sexual harassm t harassment. What they worry about back home, theyre from some place, theyre from ferguson, jewish communities, theyre from other communities where theres concern that they need to come in and make sure they all feel safe with that. We just hired a dwisity officer to help bridges across our program as well. If we can have this culture and respect and dignity, we can check all these things. Thank you. And the chairman will return he had to take a an important call but i will now recognize myself who was next in the order for five minutes. Thank you, dr. Van winkle. Its good to see you again and thank all of you for the important work you do building leaders. While its a sensitive topic and we agree with that, we cant lose sight of the fact that our nation relies upon the product you produce chblgts one incident is too many. But the trend is down over the last seven years. We can take a snapshot 2014. However, what we do see is a bit of decline since these new programs and incidents have been implemented. Lieutenant General Johnson, you made mention that a third of the victims support is from incidents prior to military service, so would the statistics include that reporting or is that something all together separate . Sir, there are various documents but the one when we say we have 32 reports including it the reports are structured when the report happens, not when the incident happens. Based on that comment, it is possible that the actual incidents in the academies would be lower than the statistical reporting, is that correct . They could be, but were glad the victims come to us for care. No. I understand. That was an important insight that i didnt realize before. What weve heard in the Previous Panel and even in some of your comments. I think we see that attention being done. I also want to point out as i look at the dates that these programs have been implemented and i look at your tenures at the academies. They seem to coincide with the implementation of these programs and i think its important that we get that on the record. University statistics are far worse by comparison. It doesnt make any of the behaviors acceptable, but it is worth noting. I think it speaks not only to the failure of the military in addressing this problem but also actually that it has a 36 better performance rate over universities and colleges nationwide. While each incident is particularly in the ncaa field with and youd spoke to that General Johnson about the teams as they are out competing and yet their performance and behavior is almost without flaw when compared to other ncaa teams, and i think that that is also worth noting. So while the military has a culture of identifying problems and it has a culture of bringing these to light, because that is the culture, we cant lose sight of the fact that we see at our colleges and universities a much greater degree of a problem. Effectiveness of academies are unique steeped in tradition 1678951 recipients from the Service Academies. All of the iconic leaders that weve seen in our nations history come from the academy. Thats why its important that we get this right. But i am satisfied, as i look at some of this, that we need to learn from those who have experienced this. We need to take this. But im not ready as some of my colleagues may be to say that the military is completely broken and that those that are in uniform as leaders have no compassion, no understanding, have no clue about what harassment is or that its some culture thats going to innocent lig target civilians or its going tofr an requirements where our men and women in uniform are not respected. I think its important that we bring these facts to bear. And with that, i will now recognize the lady from arizona. Oh, im sorry. I got out of sequence because of the sitting in the chair. And i apologize to ms. Songas. Please, five minutes. Thank you, and thank you to all of you here today. And for all the very challenging work you have to do in preparing leaders for the future. I think what makes what you do so unique is that you are preparing people for a particular profession, which is why we bring, i think, such increased scrutiny to some of these issues, and i do believe its only appropriate. And i like racetracking member spear and others on this committee do remain concerned about how the high number of female cadets and midshipmen who reported experiencing sexual haurmtd. Its a broader issue but it was 48 of female cadets who reported that and 29 of those phillies who reported experiencing gender discrimination and for male cadets were the 12 for Sexual Assault and 5 for gender discrimination was committed by another academy students. Given that, we had these remarkable women here today who are willing to tell their stories, and i felt it was important to ask them what they experienced in the culture that they felt made these numbers possible. And i thought it was really interesting what we heard from them. So one reference to code of silence. You incull indicate a sense of loyalty among these young people. Its parts of what they are to do to do their job well. It comes with a downside, which is the code of silence which seems that youre being disloyal if you came forward to report a crime or harassment. Another run mentioned that there was a sense from the outset that women were unequal, that the physical standards for women were different, that women are segregated. So much of what youre talking about is the oneonone issues and how to symptom some of the worth behavior, id like to ask how youre digging down deeper so that you think about the up side and down side at the same time and you deal with it at that level rather than as it permanent yates the culture and makes it so much harder to deal with. I know this is not simple. These are institutions that have been primarily home to men for generations. We all are part of institutions in which change does not come easy. But id really like to hear how each of you are thinking as ever more women are coming into your academies how youre thinking about getting it right from the outset. Some of these numbers just dont rise to the level. I know the survey covered a lot of different behaviors, none of which are appropriate in a professional environment. Thats the bottom line. None of chh which are appropria and how to think about you dont have to deal with them as they happen. They just dont happen. Ill start with you gem caslin. I havent left you very much time so each of you get a brief opportunity to comment. Ill go quick, maam theres a lot there. First of all, thank you very much for your question. I think were making progress on the code of silence because our reporting this year nearly doubled. That means theres a command climate where people feel theyre trusting the system better. If youre going to change a culture, you have to change behavior. And if you change behavior it really is through the way we look at that is through our learning program, our educational program. I i this the entire process is the area that needs most of the attention. What i failed to doon and weve asked a lot thought a lot about this is the root causes of sexual snault our learning programs. We are now redoing our Education Program to reduce the causes of Sexual Assault and have better conversations about them. Admiral carter . I have some similar answers so i wont go over the same things that general ca. Slin mentioned. Part of this is who you are. If dah nothing fi has changed. Almost 26 of the brigade of midshipman are women today. Its a merit accra si and theres no issue about that across the brigade. Last years Graduation Rate for women was 95 point 5 and the men graduated at 98 . The education is important, gettings county to as general caslin and thats how we have to do it. Quickly, General Johnson. In might of your time, marges ill be brief. But gender forms in constitutions sometime being able to level with themselves. Have you if not just one gender. Those kind of things are mature in bearing fruit. A practical level to something she said earlier. And so until last year. Maybe it was ahead of us in the 90s. Now congresswomen box. Its the confidence you get, the equilibrium. We can all be warriors. Thank you. And i thank you for your service. I was fortunate enough to work with you and by appreciated those years that i was able to thank you. Now recognized for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman and thaj yall for your leadership and service. I want top continue on that line. I think most of you were at the last panel and weve had long discussions about this culture and the root cause issues. Ive experienced it. Ive lived through it. Ive witnessed it and i dont have a ph. D. In sociology but i still to this day believe we are incull indicating a generation of cultural buys. Its counterintuitive. If youre trying to address these issues, the last thing you want to do is look at a double standard. I get that. Im advocating that you take a hard look and the to see where we have any double standards. Anything that was well intended but in fact then breeds resentment. Anything that makes it look like women are getting a break, it forms resentment. You form this resentment and you let it took. The adults go home at night and you wonder how theyre responding. Its the underlying culture issue that somehow we are incull indicating this potential resent jmtd that are the root cause of these issues. I encourageup and i want to partner with you. I know these are potentially hard conversations. But i want to be a part of that. Again sometimes were doing kneejerk additional training, you have a guys waste then it pisses them off more and that as to more resentment and creates the environment. Ive lived through it so i feel pretty passionate about it. I think what were seeing in the effective training were getting at for culture, people start leveling about how to interact with each other. Theres a lot of survey fatigue. Thats why id like to step back and look at it holistically. The confidence people have that they can go tell someone who is an officer enlisted or another cadet, even the cadet leaders were more confident. Those things arent just from surveys but instead of making more surveys, just leveling with them and being frank. I think thats what weve tried not to do. The conversations are taboo sometimes. Especially with this generation. They just want us to answer them. The answer is complicated as weve talked about. You have to find pockets where success exists. And be able to know what type of program you want to drive the behavior. Just take a dpresh look at the culture and what we are incull indicating from day one. Thats where i was going, maam. Yeah. We did this across the whole spectrum of the athletes, this is a thirds of the bringing aid. We knew that was a toe hort that we needed to Pay Attention to them. So we issues them a code of conduct which was no different. Read that and understand. We also made it happen at the team level. Bepicked the best leaders and take those athletes, men and women together for gettysburg for a twoday in deptd experience. We stalk about these issues, whats fair and equal for everybody. We have seen in this survey changing behavior in our Division Senior athletes. We have other teams approaching us as to ho were getting after that. I havent been able to put all of that across but we do enjoy some success. Chairman . Did culture of gender bias. We call toxic masculinity. Its an issue that our Prevention Programs will introduce. Locker room talk, its the person who talks about his experience and it creates an expectation that is everybodys got to replicate and recent an experience like that. Coming coupled with that is coercion and forced coercion. He keeps pressing for sex, sex, no, no, and when they stop and theres no consent and a rape occurs. Pornography is prevalent in at least at west point among the core cadets. It creates objectivity of the other gender and gives expectation of what the sex life ought to be like. Great. Thanks. I am out of time but i want to follow up with the first panel, when it skumgs to disciplinary potential rethe tal yags, from my view, 19 and 20 year olds being in charge of 18yearolds. I think just because weve done it this way doesnt mean its good to keep it this way. Well have a second round if that helps. Ok. Thanks. Thank you all for being here and to the first panel as well. I stated a boy years and years and years ago at the aksd any at west pientd i have to say that im disappointed and shocked at where weve gone and where our culture has gone for this, that its just so visible and so pref lentd and theres like witnesses without commenting or coming forward telling these stories and i recognize, ive heard the military say this before, that youre reflecting the culture at large and i have sympathy for that but i also recognize just from my college days that that is a different culture where you have a lot more authority. I can remember when this boy i was so excited about getting out, we lost the day together. I remember thinking wow, thats really amazing. So you have that power and authority and they know that. They know that. And so im wondering how youre using that. You dont want to always be in the discipline mode. I understand that. But it is a core issue about discipline, so im going to ask you to tell me just two things. First of all, when many is applying for these schools, what conversation do you have about what happens if they sexually hare harass or sauchlt what happens with when there is a conveys at the school . Does everybody get called in . Is this something where its a Group Understanding that this guys out or this womans out . And youll be out next reinforcing that kind of discipline . What will happen to them . Were still not seeming to be able to scare them enough. And sometimes that fright part i went to Catholic School as a kid. I think theres an element to that as well. Were missing something still. I see you all struggling exactly when you talk about the corps stuff. Do they have a statement they have to sign saying you will be out and all that hard work you did will be for nothing and your family and community will know that you lost everything because you did this. Id like you to address that please. Ill go first. In the cadets or the candidates application there is no question in the application that says did you commit a Sexual Assaulter did you were you found theres not a question in that. Of course all of our candidates are nominated by congress. Right. And i know congress in their nomination process goes through the same sort of thing to try to assess the character of the person whos going to be nominated to military academy miss. We require an es say on character. If we get the sense of an issue we go back and explore that. Thats the best way to gain an assessment of their character. When a kriemg occurs or if theres an allegation of a crime we then begin an investigation. The investigation is with rcid, and they do a thorough investigation and thats assuming that you have a victim thats willing to cooperate. If you have a victim that wants to report and then as you know, report restricted instead of unrestricted. Theyre a different thing. We dont bring everybody in and talk to them. I understand that. I didnt if you didnt understand. Let me change the way i asked that. If theyre removed, if it turns out you know, not they have the same right to privacy until they figure out what exactly happened, but if its determined that this happened and you remove them, do you tell the school . Because i know that happens in lots of places as we just lost our ceo and heres why. We just lost a man from congress and heres why. Do you do that . I think writing an essay maybe on what they consider to be Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault before they come in just so you get a sense of it. Education is important. Im not saying education is not important and awareness and i understand culture and i absolutely agree with my colleague who made remarks about resentment. All that matters but ultimately, cant we go to the front of it and say, you know, write us something about what you think constitutes Sexual Harassment and tell us, you know, what you think would be crossing the line. And heres what we think so that they know when they come in. I just think were not driving it hard enough when they show up. Ultimately, if theyre removed, w why. So i welcome the viesz admiral. We do do a character assessment before they come in. We dont ask for an essay of Sexual Assault or harassment. If we have some indication that the person has been involved in Something Like that, we get to the bottom of that. From day one, they know what the penalties are. They hear that within the first day of arrival. In terms of what education they get, we do training and present cases to the midshipman. They are historical cases, the caveat to that is if theres a victim in which the case is involved is is still at the Naval Academy, we wait till that person has graduated or left before we bring those cases forward, to include fleet cases so they can see examples of, you know, what happens to those that go through the full legal process. Thairng. Just very quickly, we also have them write r character essays. They may not know, so we hit it right away in basic training and said look, we dont know how things were where you came from but this is what we expect. Then we follow up. And because we do hit it from day one and all the way through every year its a fouryear Developmental Program trying to reinforce the consequences. In addition to the challenges of privacy, theres just understanding the judicial system. With cadets, they dont understand that if the theyre not convicted, there are other we need to sit down with our commanders and talk to the squadrons and say heres what happened. They dont understand it. Because of plooifsy things may seem as if things havent been answered but in fact it wasnt communicated well enough. All right. Well, i know that most of them are tremendous men and women working very hard to serve their country. But i think we need to think outside the box and put a little more into that mixer. I thank you all for your service and your work trying to eradicate this. I yield back. Thank you. Sir, youre now recognized for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here. I was on the house floor speaking on this very subjects, to sorry for the late arrival. We want safe academies. We want a respectful environment. I know were working together on that. I wanted to ask, this may have been asked already, i want to make sure i understand. Is there any legislation that we can pass through the hassing and congress that would support your efforts to combats this. Ill go down the line. Dr. Van winkle. Thank you. I think were looking at all of these issues carefully, particularly focussing on prevention efforts as well as the issues around retaliation, Sexual Harassment. Weve learned a great deal from this report including the emphasis that leadership has had and the cadets and midshipmen have indicated that they see their leaders as role models. We see some indications where we could move the needle a little bit more. So were really working to understand this issue better and how to combat it. Youre our partners in this and we would like to continue to discuss with you how we can move this needle, and appreciate your support on it. Id defer to dr. Van winkle and support her comments. What im frustrated with quite often is the elements of reprisal and the elements of Sexual Harassment and some inconsistency between different various regulations and legislation. And i think if we just weve had this conversation. We just collectively need to make sure that we define it properly and for what is philadelphia occurring and that we take the has appropriate accountability. Admiral carter. I actually feel like i am resourced and have the right policies and tools to be able to adjudicate where necessary hand also drive the culture to where it needs to be just a moment thank you. General johnson. Sir, likewise, i think were resourced and we have the tools as we look at the data we have, we can do a better job of understanding what its really saying about where we are rather than chasing just the numbers, but to look at the trends and understand whats really effective in these programs. Were going to be your wingmen in this effort. So if you see anything that can help, let us know. Last month we heard there was some ambiguity in the sharing of intimate si. We want to take away some of that ambiguity. You see things like that, let us know and well try to help. Do you have any metrics that show that were having some positive results . Well start off with General Johnson. Well, stir i think what were so at the air force academy, our department was really row whether i arrived and because of this healthy relationships programming its holding the athletes to standards. Our Athletic Departments become really the champions in terms of confidence and them doing the rights thing. Not just the cadets but the coaches. Theyre leaders of character and the leadership of Athletic Director have helped with that along the way. I think the culture of culture and climate, trust in the mid to mid 90s percentages and the in Permanent Party do the right thing because of a Sexual Assault and for the other cadets. Those kinds of trends of trust are encouraging that were in the right direction. Obviously, we have to stay aafter it. Thank you. The significant jump are 11 reports in 15 and 16. Our focus on the division one and Club Sports Athletes showed a significant change in their propensity to be in the perpetrators side and that was a distinct effort that we made. Thank you. Like the Naval Academy our reporting is almost double. That is really a strong metric and were pleased to see that because it Shows Confidence in the brahms and the systems and that climate. Our stash yags rate of investigations is one of the highest in the army were very proud of that. Im concerned about cases that fall into the u. S. Magistrate. I cant get them to take a case to save my life. Im glads to be able to have the tools that we have as a commander. Thank you. Dr. Van winkle. Yes, briefly, the infrastructure that we have right now within the academies and very good. We continue to get good feedback on that. The training and education process, the infrastructure we have is very sound and the data that we get back supports that as well as trust in the leadership and willingness to intervene if they see 134g. Thank you. Ill close my portion by saying i know it takes leadership at every level. Continue communications. You cant just say it once. Ive learned that as a five time commander. You need to say it and continue to do it. Hold them accountable and lets them know this guys going to jail and dont let it happen to you. Thank you. I yield back. Youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. I have a couple of quick questions. Im going to try to get this all in. Alcohol is a component of Sexual Assault in 50 to 60 of the cases. Half of the academy, student body is underage. There have been lots of examples where theres a reluctance to report for fear that you will reluctance to report a Sexual Assault for fear that youll get hit for underaged drinking. Have we done anything to address that at the three academies . If you could be very brief in your responses. Ill jump in. Maam, what we try to take into account is the egregiousness of the offense and balance that with the trauma it might cause to the victim and to sort it out. So in fact, a case that you talked to when you visited us, i think, had a letters of counselling so that shed been underage drinking. We have to up grade the standards. A letter of counselling is different than ajude indicating in another way. It says you need to uphold standards but its not as severe as it might have been on its own. There are times you could consider imprude consider. I think thats what we all try to do. We wont litigate that until their case is completed. We dont often look at an immunity unless it makes sense. Well come back and look at that afterwards on whatever level we have to do on the victims side. Ok. We know thats an impediment to reporting and an impediment to coming forward to support the investigation. We take, like the air force and the navy said, we take it all in balance. Thank you. Dr. Van winkle, im not going to ask you to speak now but if you could give me your thoughts at some later point in time, id appreciate it. Ok. There have been cases where victims of Sexual Assault at the military academy were then given antidepressants or other drugs to help them deal with the ptsd and because they were on drugs, were not commissioned. What are we doing about that . Ill answer first. Part first of all, one of the reasons we have a Sabbatical Program is to allow somebody to heal so they can come back and be healthy so they can go through and go forward in a commission. So weve already had two midshipmen depart. One of thems coming back and thats proceeding successfully. In some cases where somebody has had to go to drugs weve had the opportunity to wave them or hold them, so we take that into account. Similar at the other academies . Yes. This helps balance against retaliation to make sure theres another look when someones departing. I am not fam with the case at west point. Doesnt mean it did not occur but ill take it for the record and get back to you. Midshipman crane indicated that she moved. Usually its the victim thats moved, not the perpetrator. Are we looking at whether or not thats the appropriate action . Id like to take that. We leave that first of all up to the victim first as she pointed out, it was her choice to move. Our first reaction is if theyre the perpetrator is in the same company, we want to move the perpetrator while that persons either going through a legal review or some other process but oftentimes the victim says no, i would like to move or i would like to take the sabbatical. We make that offer and thats their choice. All right. To finish off with midshipman crane. There was a chance for that to go to all court marshal. The litigants said no, well accept that perpetrators removal from the academy and was good for both survivors. Women with higher in the upper classes than the freshman. Theres something going on where upper classmen believe that they can sexually assault lower classmen and there was some talk earlier about this role that upper classmen play in managing the plebes and freshman. Dr. Van winkle, request you comment on that in three seconds . I can try. That is the data point were looking at. Over the years what we traditionally see is that sophomores are the class that have the highest rates, particularly as they go from freshman year, where theyre fairly locked down. So we have this sophomore year effect. It was different this year with the juniors and seniors. Well take a close look at that to understand it better. We think theres two reasons why that is. Thats got my attention and im very concerned about it. Reason number one is now youre of age to drink alcohol and because alcohol is such a high prevalence to potential Sexual Assault at 50 to 60 , as you mentioned, youre 21 years of age occurs when youre normally a junior or smr. Those would have been in the program or had higher prevalence, theyre not producing what we want to produce. Thats where we need to address the root causes with the upper class. I yield back. Thank you. Mr. Russell youre now recognized for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. Each of you in your testimonies have spoken about stash yags rates and the validity of those. General caslin you mentioned about the magistrate not taking cases. This seems to convey a confidence in the justice or the military system. Could each of you please explain this Service Academy chiefs, could each of you please explain the importance of a commanders query, 156 ig, cid investigations, you know, as a body of work and if you believe that the ucmj provides the best tool as opposed to civilian courts that we see in our universities and yet the academies have the better performance rate. Every time these cases come up immediately the uniform code of justice comes under some type of fire. Yet what weve heard in the testimony today is that the stash yags rates are pretty solid. So if each of you could comment on the commanders of cools. General kesner . Its in the chain of command and the chain of command will do the official investigation to see if theres something there. If its a potential crime were going to turn it over to the cid and the cid will begin the investigation. Im give you some statistics here of our jurisdiction, some of the our stashation rates. Looking at our cid cases over the last four years, to include this year, weve had where ive had jurisdiction weve had 47 cases. Of the 47, 21 were founded, and charges were preferred for p seven of the 21. The the other and able to of the 21 had misconduct administrative investigations with administrative action that includes separation. If i look at the cases where i did not have jurisdiction, there were 24. And although rcid may have done the investigation, hakt of them were founded but once was charges deferred. Its a significant difference from a case that i have case that i have jurisdiction for and the actual results and stashation and punishments were higher. Absolutely. Admiral carter . The first thing i would say is our Naval Criminal Investigation Service increased the number of agents for not only the navy but to also help apt the h place like the Naval Academy. Their time line to get through investigations has improoufld just in the sometime ive been a superintendent. They turn those results over to us. Over the last two years, 32 unrestricted reports, 19 of which were under my jurisdiction. Ten were advised by outside judge add cat general to my lawyers to move forward for preliminary hearings, and of those, seven either went to p general courtmartial or left the naval aksd any. Four of those actually went to general courtmartial. Those statistics, i think, are significant and shows that wer right authorities. Thank you. Likewise, we have two of the 24 Worldwide Special victim investigation and prosecution capabilitie capabilities. When the osi agents talk to the victims, they know how to do it when someone is traumatized they know how to discuss it with them to make it easier to report. Nine of the 11 agents are graduates of the sex Training Program. We have the specialized training to do these investigations. And what weve seen is the accou accountability has increased. We had 19 completed investigations, three courtmartials and 6 cadets were enrolled. A 50 rate. And within the last two years weve had 16 completed invest gagss, five in criminal charges and four adverse administrative actions. This last year it was 86 . Because of the different tools we have we have take it to court and use other disciplinary tools to follow through based on the investigatio investigations. Thank you for that. It seems to convey that the usmg is sound with these cases and with that i yield back. I wish to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony this afternoon. This has been a very informative hearing. There being no further business, the subcommittee stands adjourned. This weekend on American History tv. On cspan3. Saturday at 8 00 on lectures in history, a College Professor on the people and ideas that shaped the 1776 pennsylvania constitution. The continental congress, right, the representatives from all of the coloniecolonies, hav instructed after the july 4th declaration, instructed all of the colonies, now states, to form new governments. Sunday at 4 30 p. M. Eastern, secret service and fbi agents reflect on protecting president reagan following the 198 is assassination attempt. I recognized the shots had gone off. So then it was i only had seconds obviously to determine where the shots were coming from. By that time, you know, you saw the smoke from the weapon youb saw individuals moving toward the potential assailant and i move toward him as well. At 8 00, on the presidency, the relationship between thomas jefr sorn aferson and if enslav hemmings family. People could be bought and sold. That was a thing that many members of the hemmings family, they always lived with the spector or the possibility that that could happen because the law construed them as property and jefferson construed them as property. For the complete schedule, go to cspan. Org. Now a forum on Child Poverty programs and whether the u. S. Should implement a universal child allowance program. Experts look at the