Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ora!ora!daemon
From: wdstarr@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William December Starr)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Naval Academy Harrassment
Message-ID: <1990Jun27.180813.27470@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 27 Jun 90 18:08:13 GMT
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: Northeastern University
Lines: 49
Approved: ambar@ora.com

The following Associated Press story was carried in the 6/26/90 Boston
Globe: 

    ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The head of the U.S. Naval Academy, Rear Adm.
Virgil L. Hill Jr., wants new female students to know the institution
will not tolerate incidents like the recent handcuffing of a woman to
a urinal.

    In a letter to incoming women midshipmen, Hill said he wanted "to
extend his personal commitment to the protection of their civil rights
here," Lt. Cmdr. Mark Van Dyke, academy spokesman, said late last
week.

    The letters, dates June 1, were mailed to the women [who] will
begin their military careers at the academy on July 3.  Van Dyke said
the academy had accepted 136 of 170 female applicants this year.

    Male candidates for the Class of 1994 were not sent letters, Van
Dyke said.  About 1,000 students are in the incoming class.

    Van Dyke said Hill was concerned about the adverse publicity the
academy received with the reports of the handcuffing of a former
second-year midshipman 2nd class, Gwen Marie Dreyer.

    Dreyer, 19, resigned in April to protest punishment meted out to
male classmates who dragged her from her room, handcuffed her to the
urinal and snapped photos.  Two male midshipmen were penalized with
loss of leave time and demerits, and six were issued written
reprimands. 

    Van Dyke said Hill's letters congratulated the incoming women on
being accepted to the academy and explained the circumstances of the
Dreyer case, asserting that the male midshipmen responsible were
"severely punished."

    "Hill also indicates in his letter that he does not feel the
news coverage accurately conveyed his disgust over what happened, and
that the academy will not condone this behavior," Van Dyke said.

    The case triggered national media coverage and Naval inquiries
into hazing and sexual harrassment at the academy.

    Last month the academy toughened its rules so any midshipman found
guilty of physical abuse of a plebe will be expelled.  Previously,
midshipmen were expelled for the more narrowly defined hazing.

    In the Dreyer case, a hearing panel found that the male midshipmen
had not planned the action they took and that it therefore was not
hazing.