Video: 1st Female Superintendent Appointed to Lead USMMA as Academy Continues to Deal with Fallout from Midshipman-X and Captain John Merrone Sea Year Rape Scandals.
U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Appoints 1st Female Superintendent as School Continues to Deal with the Fallout of the Midshipman-X & Captain John Merrone Sea Year rape scandals.
November 12, 2022
The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point has appointed its first female superintendent.
Joanna Nunan is expected to start her new role in a few weeks. According to Maritime Administrator Ann Phillips, Nunan is a listed mariner who served in the Coast Guard for over three decades in addition to being a member of the sexual assault prevention, response and recovery committee.
This announcement comes as the Academy deals with allegations of sexual assault and harassment surrounding a Sea Year Program.
A 19-year-old female cadet claimed she was raped by a supervisor during the program on a commercial ship in 2019. Nine other female students enrolled at the academy have also claimed they were raped during their Sea Year. The program was reinstated last December after being suspended twice in five years.
Phillips believes Nunan’s leadership will have a positive impact on the academy.
“Her skills in that field are going to help her move forward so many issues that we've been working on, sexual assault, sexual harassment and changing the culture. She has the tool kit to be able to do that,” she said.
“Everyone is taking a step forward. We just need to work on prevention, response and education. I think we're on a good path,” said 1st Classman Senior Meghan Malone.
Robert Maersk Uggla, Chairman, A. P. Moller–Maersk Addresses Mass Maritime Class of 2022: “I am Ashamed Sexual Assault, Harassment, Discrimination & Bullying Occur in our Company.”
Text of Speech via A.P. Moller-Maersk. Speech text also available here.
June 18, 2022. Buzzards Bay, MA.
Good morning! And congratulations to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy’s class of 2022.
I am deeply honoured to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest maritime academies in the world. And I am thrilled to be a shipmate with this esteemed class.
It is said that the human brain processes more than 10 million bits of information every second from our five senses, but that our conscious mind computes only about 40 to 50 of these bits of information.
Am I happy with my life?
Do I have a meaningful job?
Do I make any difference?
There are few objective criteria to evaluate these questions. To a large extent, the answer to these questions is a function of your own interpretation of the few information bits that end up as thoughts, impressions and feelings in your brain.
The great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius said ‘The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts... Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking’.
So in your quest for a meaningful, happy work life, let me share three of my own thoughts, three pieces of advice, on what I think matters.
My first thought and advice to you is about the importance of a purpose.
As you graduate, you may be reflecting on your longer term career plan. It’s no easy task to forecast a job market. My great great grandfather became a master of a barque, after having learned how to use rope and sails, only to see his profession be disrupted by the steam engine. And my great grandfather invested in steam ships only to realise such propulsion technology was soon outdated by the combustion engine.
And now we find ourselves embarking on change yet again. We have as a Group in many ways benefited from oil as a source of energy, only to realise the pressing need to set a new course – to embrace green transportation solutions to reverse climate change.
Of course, new technologies don’t just transform our environmental footprint, but they also change how we, in profound ways, operate our ships, ports, trucks and warehouses.
So for a good reason, in an uncertain and changing world, most students tend to be quite anxious about their career choices and plans. And yes, the nature and requirements of a job will change over time. Be mentally prepared for it. But the good news is that many of you will work for what I consider to be one of the most purposeful industries in the world – and the importance of that purpose, to connect communities around the world, is more pressing than ever.
Global supply chains are the backbone of the world economy: they enable businesses to source, produce and sell in an effective manner, they enable people to achieve a higher living standard and they connect people, building relationships across society. Global trade has taken hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people out of poverty. And trade provides relief when local communities, whether rich or poor, are struck by misfortune. During the lock down stages of the Covid pandemic, many of us were dependent on some of the 2 million seafarers serving the world’s merchant fleet, and many more people at shore, to enable the transportation of vital goods, from food to medicine to energy.
As the Israeli author and historian Yuval Noel Harari stated: to feed people it is not enough to harvest grain. You also need to transport it, often thousands of miles.
So, as you pursue your career, find and cherish a great purpose of what you do.
My second advice is about the importance of collaboration.
You are likely joining a work place, which by design, is all about collaboration. Collaboration is essential for your personal success, the maritime industry’s success and the success of the customers and communities we serve.
Lately, some leaders have given the impression that shipping lines are to be blamed for the challenges, delays and costs we are witnessing with transported goods. Let me be blunt, there are plenty of ships on water and plenty of shipping lines at hand. Container import volumes to the US are up 35% compared to pre covid levels, partly driven by a big stimulus program.
Carriers have responded by moving massive amounts of capacity into the Pacific. In our own case, we have 50% more capacity than we had pre-Covid. However, the quality and cost of a transportation network is a function of how all parts of the network operate. The onshore capacity has not been able to scale in the last two years. For long periods, we have not been able to operate all of our cranes in Pier 400 outside of Los Angeles.
And many US ports, I am afraid to say contrary to many ports in Europe and Asia, still don’t operate 24/7. Also the lack of truckers and limited rail capacity have created congestion. We experience challenges of similar nature in other countries as well. The net effect is that around 10% of the global container ship capacity is waiting outside ports. And this brings me back to my own thought about collaboration.
Everyone working on a ship or in a port, in a warehouse and in other parts of the supply chain are connected and dependent on each other, across different countries. Our supply chain is not national, it’s not foreign, it’s simply global.
As we have seen lately, if any node of such network is unable to keep up, it will impact everyone dependent on such network. There is only one solution – to work closely together. And in this respect, the global supply chain mirrors the world. When we work together, across communities and across borders, tackling profound challenges such as climate change or the supply chain disruptions of food, we end up with better outcomes.
Such principle certainly also applies to your own work. Whether you compete in Americas Cup, sail a ship along the coast, or work in an office, your success will depend on others. Figure out how to become a better member of team, of a community and even of a global network, and you will likely thrive. And so will the people you serve.
My last advice is about leadership, stewardship and allyship. To be more precise, the importance of your leadership, your stewardship and your allyship. And here I come with an ask.
As you progress your career from this pivotal moment in your development, you may be very focused on the ‘what’.
What job to take? What house and car to eventually buy?
These are all important questions. But to me, for every year that passes, life seems less about the what and more about the how. When successful colleagues retire from Maersk, after long service, there is usually some kind of farewell ceremony.
The speeches held in such person’s honor are typically not about their financial achievements, but about stories of such person’s leadership and values. How they supported colleagues and enabled careers, how they stepped up at times of crisis, how they promoted a great culture, how they became a catalyst for positive change.
The maritime industry serves a highly diverse market across the world. We serve women and men of all walks of life, whether they are based in Qingdao, Lagos or Boston. Those working in our industry, on ships and on shore, are typically highly honourable, hardworking women and men who often share a fairly unique bond and passion.
However, there are exceptions.
I am ashamed to say that sexual assault, sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying occur in our industry – and regretfully also in our own company. This needs to change.
As a newcomer to a traditional and hierarchical work place, you may find it difficult to challenge experienced and senior colleagues. But anyone turning a blind eye or deaf ear to the problem, becomes part of the problem.
So, I ask you, as the next generation Buccaneers, in the spirit of brave alumni like Captain Phillips, to have the courage and integrity to become visible allies to those who are at risk. And to become part of the needed
cultural change.
Don’t be a bystander, be an upstander. And be transparent with what you witness or experience. Speak up. And
always report it.
Albert Einstein allegedly said that not everything that counts can be counted. That’s probably an understatement. What really matters in life cannot be counted. Such as the impact of your leadership, your stewardship and your allyship.
This brings me to the end of this speech.
It’s debatable what happens when we die, but I think most people, regardless of religious beliefs, agree on one simple fact: those who love us, will miss us.
Our time on this planet is limited, so let us use it to make it a better place. I am sure you will.
Thank you for your service and commitment to this great country, to our communities and to our industry. You have my deepest respect.
I wish you all fair winds.
Robert Maersk Uggla, Buzzards Bay, June 18 2022
2017 Report: 'Us Versus them' Mindset & ‘Culture of Fear’ Shaping U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Student Experience
January 6, 2017
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). A key element of the USMMA curriculum involves the academy’s Sea Year program, during which midshipmen gain hands-on experience serving aboard U.S. naval Military Sealift Command vessels or commercial U.S. flagships.
In June 2016, MSCHE issued a report directing USMMA to take steps to build a climate of mutual respect and trust on campus and during the Sea Year program. Specifically, the MSCHE evaluation team noted that the campus climate — and in particular, incidents of sexual assault and sexual harassment — has been a serious and recognized problem for over 10 years; to be in compliance with MSCHE accreditation standards, USMMA must improve the safety and climate of respect for midshipmen during Sea Year.
In reaction to these findings and the persistence of indications of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) Service Academy Gender Relations (SAGR) surveys and focus groups, DOT and MarAd directed USMMA to stand-down the Sea Year Program on commercial vessels. DOT then selected LMI to conduct a 60-day independent culture audit with two primary objectives:
• Identify the current institutional climate at USMMA and any contributing subcultures.
• Analyze the nature and scope of the problem of sexual assault and sexual harassment on campus and at sea, derived from recent reports, research, survey data, policies, and interview.
To perform the audit, LMI reviewed literature, conducted interviews of academy stakeholders, analyzed and compared data, and developed findings and recommendations…DMDC SAGR surveys show that 63 percent of women respondents indicated experiencing sexual harassment or similar behaviors and 17 percent of women respondents indicated that they had experienced sexual assault in the previous year. These numbers for sexual harassment are almost one-third higher than the military service academies’ average of the same statistic, 48 percent, and these numbers for sexual assault are double the 8 percent military service academies’ average proportion. In addition, 11 of 162 interviewees indicated they had experienced sexual assault or sexual harassment while at the academy or during Sea Year.
Although the academy has taken actions to address sexual assault and sexual harassment, the underlying climate contributing to these issues remains. This climate has been shaped by the strong cultural influences of the military and the maritime industry. While these dual influences have helped to enable an academy culture focused on service, self-sacrifice, self-reliance, discipline, and teamwork, they also have caused a split identity at the academy. As a result, midshipmen straddle between regiment and limited oversight at sea.
Academy culture
In addition to its split identity, the academy is fragmented in other ways. We found an “us versus them” mindset shaping academy culture across various dimensions, including male versus female midshipmen; midshipmen versus the leadership, staff, and faculty; and uniformed versus civilian faculty. The academy is also marked by a sense of victimhood, with some staff and faculty members and midshipmen feeling that they are treated unfairly and are unable to improve the situation. Fear, in multiple forms, also plays a strong role in shaping attitudes and behaviors at the academy — fear for the future of the Academy and the maritime industry in general; fear of being “blacklisted” by industry or jeopardizing chances of graduation; and fear of retaliation, ostracism, and bullying.
Alcohol use is another important component of the academy’s culture. Academy disciplinary records confirm that alcohol is one of the most common serious disciplinary offenses, and many interviewees cited alcohol as being a factor in incidents of sexual assault.
Finally, the Sea Year program is an important part of the academy’s culture. Sea Year, a key experiential learning component of the academy’s curriculum, enables midshipmen to obtain technical, professional, and development skills that they can carry forward into their careers. It is integral, but it also exposes cadets to a world far different from regimental life. This exposure, and ship life in general, changes midshipmen. A male faculty member said, “Students come in as nice people but change after Sea Year. The brothels socialize the white male majority. It is the way they become a man.” In addition, reintegration has led to “trickle down” effects from older midshipmen returning from sea to the third- and fourth-class midshipmen on campus. Sea Year, fragmentation, fear, and alcohol, among other cultural dimensions, intersect and intertwine, creating barriers and limiting the academy’s ability to combat sexual assault and sexual harassment and address the underlying root causes.
We identified lack of respect for personal dignity and personal differences, lack of trust, and lack of personal ownership of issues as the root causes shaping the current climate. These root causes then create barriers (victim blaming, denial of the problem, etc.) and manifest in behaviors such as ostracism and inaction. Understanding these barriers and not tolerating behaviors that manifest from them are critical to enabling culture change.
Key findings and recommendations
Beyond identifying root causes and barriers, understanding the current state at the institution is critical for preventing and addressing sexual assault and sexual harassment and changing the culture. Our key findings and gaps relative to the current organization and operations include the following:
• Academy leadership and management does not present a unified message regarding sexual assault and sexual harassment.
• Current sexual assault and sexual harassment programs tend to be reactive rather than based on a unified, strategic approach.
• The emphasis on the academy’s core values is understated.
• Fear of retaliation and victim blaming that hinders intervention and reporting impedes progress toward addressing sexual assault and sexual harassment.
• The academy and MarAd lack a program to ensure that shipping companies have adequate policies and procedures in place during Sea Year.
• Academy policies, guides, and programs require improvements to fully prepare and support midshipmen for Sea Year.
To close these gaps and address the root causes of sexual assault and sexual harassment, we recommend that the academy undertakes a strategic approach that includes the following:
1. Build and align academy leadership and management team across all levels of the institution.
2. Develop a comprehensive and integrated Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Prevention and Response Strategic Campaign Plan that will integrate all actions to bring about mutual respect and zero tolerance for sexual assault and sexual harassment.
3. Build shared ownership between the academy, MarAd, and industry, with a sustained public commitment to improve the culture and bring about zero tolerance for sexual assault and sexual harassment.
4. Infuse core values into all aspects of academy life.
5. Change the paradigm from blaming the victim to advocating for and protecting the victim.
6. Instill a sense of personal responsibility for preventing and addressing sexual harassment, sexual assault, and retaliation at all levels within USMMA to build and institutionalize a culture of trust, respect, and accountability.
To improve the Sea Year program, we recommend that USMMA and MarAd establish a process for credentialing shipping companies for participation in Sea Year, make improvements to more fully prepare and support midshipmen in the Sea Year program, and establish a robust, continual feedback process from Sea Year.
To read the complete report, click here.
Culture of fear at U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Silences Students Who Say They were Sexually Harassed and Assaulted
Via: CNN.com
By Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken
February 16, 2022
On a 1,000-foot cargo ship in the middle of the ocean, the 19-year-old student felt trapped. Trapped by the crew member she said sexually harassed and groped her, and trapped by the academy that sent her there.
She still had at least 40 more days at sea. If she left the ship before completing "Sea Year," a mandatory training program at the US Merchant Marine Academy where students are placed on commercial or government ships to gain "self-reliance," she risked derailing her graduation and worried she would be shut out of a career in the shipping industry.
She also knew it would be impossible to stay anonymous if she decided to come forward because she was the only female student on the ship, and returning to campus early would be a dead giveaway. If her predominately male classmates and teachers found out she reported something that could hurt the elite academy's reputation and put the coveted tradition of Sea Year in jeopardy, she thought to herself, she would be blamed -- or not believed -- and the rest of her time on campus would be torturous.
On top of all that, she had been drinking when the crew member touched her, and even though it was a single beer, she worried the school could use that to undermine her report and kick her out for violating the academy's strict alcohol policy. The government covers the cost of tuition at the academy, and she feared she could owe hundreds of thousands of dollars if she were expelled or tried to leave.
So she stayed silent.
The woman, who graduated in 2016 and went on to work in the military, received permission from her supervisors to share her experience with CNN anonymously. She is hoping to become an attorney to represent sexual assault victims in the maritime industry.
She and others in the school community told reporters that sexual assault and harassment are disturbingly common at the academy, but a culture of fear has silenced victims for years. They spoke out in the wake of an explosive account from a current student who wrote that she was raped at sea in 2019 by her supervisor. As her allegations spread throughout the maritime industry and federal government last fall, lawmakers slammed the academy for failing to keep students safe. Government officials then temporarily suspended Sea Year and rolled out new safety measures for ship operators and the academy.
But this is not the first time the academy has promised to better protect students, and government data reveals how rarely alleged assailants have been held accountable both on campus and at sea, despite previous reforms. A CNN review of school policies, meanwhile, shows that victims still face significant barriers to reporting sexual assault and could jeopardize their education and careers by coming forward.
Fierce loyalty
Founded during World War II, the prestigious Merchant Marine Academy sits on the north shore of Long Island in Kings Point, New York, directly across the sound from New York City.
While less widely known than some of its counterparts such as West Point and the Naval Academy, it is one of the country's five federal service academies and the training ground for future military officers, ship engineers and captains aboard the country's fleet of government and commercial vessels transporting cargo and passengers around the world.
Merchant mariners are not part of the military, but they can be called on during wartime or following natural disasters. They delivered millions of tons of cargo to support troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, and assisted in the aftermath of 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy.
Women were first admitted to the school in 1974, and the number of female students has been increasing over the years, to a record of 74, or just over 26%, in the class of 2023. But the school's own reports and surveys show how difficult it is for female students to speak up when they routinely face misogyny, discrimination and abuse.
Even when they do, academy and government data show how rare repercussions are.
Only one merchant mariner has had his credential suspended or revoked for sexual misconduct involving an academy student at sea in the past five years, the Coast Guard said. In that case, the crew member was accused of sexually harassing and groping a female deck cadet and his credential was suspended for three months as part of a settlement agreement.
Of the 22 official reports of sexual assault received by the academy between the 2017-18 and 2018-19 academic years, the most recent data available, four resulted in investigations at the school level. When alleged assaults occur on commercial ships during Sea Year, the school doesn't have the authority to investigate unless both people involved were students, meaning it is typically up to the shipping company or the Coast Guard to pursue investigations and take any action. Government officials said they are aware of only one criminal prosecution of a sexual assault case involving a student at the academy and it was more than two decades ago.
And the official reports of sexual misconduct are just a fraction of the incidents that occur. When permitted to be anonymous in a 2018 survey, less than half of those who said they experienced unwanted sexual contact during the academic year said they officially reported the incidents.
"There is a toxic culture," said an academy employee, who requested anonymity to talk freely about student allegations. The employee told CNN that in the last year alone, seven current students said they were sexually harassed during Sea Year. None of them made formal reports. "They don't want to betray the academy and hurt their careers ... you're almost trapped. You're getting a great education, but there is an air of indentured servitude."
'They just don't trust anybody'
Amid the historic buildings scattered across the 82-acre campus sits an old gray house, right next to the running track and an outdoor gym where students go in large groups to lift weights and socialize.
This is where academy officials took Michelle Underwood and told her she would be living when she was hired to head up the school's sexual assault prevention efforts in 2017.
The school publicizes that the sexual assault response coordinator "lives on campus and is available 24/7 should anyone need assistance with reporting a sexual assault." But Underwood knew as soon as she carted her luggage into the house that its high visibility would make it likely no student reporting misconduct would seek her out there.
"This is like a bad, bad dream," Underwood remembers thinking upon seeing the location of her residence. "I complained and said I really think this is prohibitive, a barrier from coming to talk to me."
She started working at the school not long after the infamous "Sea Year Stand Down" of 2016. That was the first time the academy suspended the sea training program amid reports of sexual assault and harassment at higher levels than any other federal service academy -- prompting media coverage about the academy's failures and specific sexual misconduct allegations. Before reinstating the program the following year, officials pledged to implement changes reflecting a zero-tolerance policy for sexual assault and harassment.
Given the increased scrutiny, Underwood assumed the academy would be truly committed to creating a safer place for students, but she said it soon became clear this was not the case.
Instead of seeking advice and opinions from outside experts to help the academy improve its policies, she said the school only worried about protecting its reputation -- denying her the resources and staffing she needed and turning down recommendations she made such as auditing ships during Sea Year to make sure students felt safe.
The office where she and other victim advocates worked sits in a highly trafficked location in the middle of campus as well. And while students can also either call a 24-hour phone line to make reports or request a meeting in their barracks, Underwood said the prospect of her walking down the hallway and arriving at a victim's door was just as mortifying. As a result, she resorted to finding a dark alley off campus where she would walk at night with the few students who did come to her to talk.
"They just perpetually created roadblocks for creating safe space," said Underwood, who resigned in 2019. She filed two complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, one for a hostile workplace and one for retaliation after making the first complaint.
Both were substantiated, she said. The academy declined to comment.
The Accidental Advocate
An academy graduate and merchant mariner himself, 39-year-old Ryan Melogy never imagined he would become a one-man watchdog for the maritime industry.
But that's what happened. From his studio apartment in Los Angeles and even while working on a ship, he has spent the past two years battling the federal government for information about sexual misconduct at sea.
As he posted updates, memes and criticism of the academy and the Coast Guard on social media and his blog, he gained a following and began hearing from mariners all around the world. Some blasted him for scaring women away from the industry, while others rallied behind his mission.
Then, one day in early September last year, he received a message from a current student at the US Merchant Marine Academy. The woman wrote, in painstaking detail, how she was repeatedly sexually harassed and eventually raped at sea by her boss in 2019 when she was 19 years old. She described waking up to find blood on her sheets after being pressured to take repeated shots of alcohol the previous night, and said that since returning to campus, she learned of nine other female students at the academy who said they had also been raped during their Sea Year.
At the end of her message to Melogy she wrote, "You can publish this."
Under the pseudonym "Midshipman X," Melogy posted the woman's account, which would go on to spark the current reckoning inside the academy and industry.
Melogy knew firsthand the consequences of reporting sexual assault.
Back in 2015, while working as a second mate aboard a container ship, he reported a senior crew member he said sexually harassed and groped him and two cadets from the Merchant Marine Academy. His alleged assailant continued working on the same ship, however, and the shipping company, Maersk, didn't notify the Coast Guard of the complaint as required by law, according to an agency letter reviewed by CNN. A spokesman for Maersk Line, Limited said that while the company was initially fined for failing to notify the Coast Guard of Melogy's complaint, it appealed and said those charges were dismissed.
When Melogy discovered, years later, that the crew member he accused of misconduct had been promoted, he said he finally decided to take his allegations to the agency himself. The Coast Guard launched a criminal investigation in 2019, finding evidence corroborating Melogy's allegations, records show. Nonetheless, Melogy said, nothing happened to him and more students were sent to train on a ship where the man worked.
The US Maritime Administration, which oversees the academy, did not dispute this claim but said the academy does not assign cadets to vessels where personnel are known to have "outstanding allegations of sexual misconduct against them" and that if this changes while students are already on board, they are removed as soon as possible.
In an effort to hold the federal government -- and perpetrators -- accountable, Melogy started his blog, Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy and posted about his own case. Soon, he said other students came to him with new allegations and information about the man Melogy said groped him and others. As the evidence mounted, the Coast Guard filed a complaint against the alleged abuser in 2020, seeking to suspend or revoke his mariner credentials. More than six years after coming forward, Melogy is awaiting the final determination. The Coast Guard did not comment on the case.
Much like publishing his own ordeal, Melogy suspected that posting Midshipman X's account would force the academy and the maritime industry to take notice.
And it did.
In the days and weeks following the blog post, Maersk, one of the biggest shipping companies in the world, suspended and then fired five crew members, though it said this month it was "unable to make any findings with respect to the rape allegation" because certain employees refused to cooperate with the investigation. The Coast Guard launched an investigation into the rape as well, and the academy suspended its landmark training program for the second time -- just weeks before students were set to board ships and embark on their Sea Year voyages.
A Need for Accountability
"When is it going to stop?" Stephanie Vincent-Sheldon asked herself as she read the headline about Midshipman X.
When she graduated more than two decades ago, she tried to put her time at the academy behind her -- leaving New York, changing careers and starting a family. But all these years later, she felt a flood of anger as she pictured this 19-year-old student going through the same backlash and mental anguish that she did.
Vincent-Sheldon is the only student at the academy known to have had a sexual assault case criminally prosecuted, and that was back in 1997, when she reported an older male student barged into her room and molested her in her bed.
School officials told her to keep what happened quiet, she said, but she ignored this advice and went to local police, and her assailant was eventually found guilty and sentenced to prison.
Her remaining time on campus was excruciating because of how isolated and ostracized she was.
"It's basically a firing squad," she said. "How many bullets are you going to take before you disenroll?" She said she was subjected to intense psychological exams to determine whether she was fit to participate in Sea Year because she had reported she was a victim and was told that if she left the school, she would have to pay around $225,000 for the cost of the years she had already been there. The academy did not comment on her account or legal case.
Vincent-Sheldon said the only way to change the school's culture and for perpetrators to actually be punished is for more students to follow in Midshipman-X's footsteps and speak up, despite all the reasons to stay silent.
"It's a personal sacrifice to come forward," she said. "But would you really want another woman to go through this because you're too afraid?"
'Critical We Get this Right'
When Midshipman X's account made its way to officials at the Maritime Administration, they knew they needed to act quickly.
Under pressure from lawmakers demanding that students be kept off ships until they were safe, the agency halted Sea Year, a decision it told students was "one of the most difficult we have faced."
Then a top-to-bottom review of academy policies began and the agency solicited input from students, employees, ship operators and others in the maritime industry to figure out how to move forward.
"All of us have agonized over this; it's just simply horrific," Lucinda Lessley, the acting administrator of the Maritime Administration, said in an interview with CNN. "That's why it is so critical that we get this right. It's a long-term process and it has to be a culture change and it has to be owned by every single actor in the space."
In December, almost three months after Midshipman X spoke up, the agency rolled out a series of reforms it hopes will be the first step in this process. Students will be given satellite phones while at sea, for example, and a new alcohol amnesty policy states that victims, bystanders and witnesses won't get in trouble if alcohol or drug use policies were violated at, or near, the time of an alleged assault. Ship operators, meanwhile, must meet a number of requirements before they are allowed to carry students during Sea Year, such as prohibiting crew members and cadets from entering each other's rooms and immediately reporting any incidents of sexual misconduct to the school if the ship is carrying an academy student, whether or not the student was involved.
Given the academy's troubled history and past pledges to change, some in the school community are skeptical the new reforms will make a difference.
"Until they confront their history they're never going to move forward," said Ann Sanborn, a captain and lawyer who worked for the academy for 27 years before retiring at the end of 2020.
Sanborn said that as an associate professor and assistant dean for three years, she and others voluntarily mentored victims at the school until 2012 when a sexual assault expert was hired by the academy. After that, she continued to be disappointed to see the school's reports each year showing how many students said they had been victimized. Though she said she believes recent leadership has genuinely wanted to better protect students, progress has been painfully slow. The school needs to learn from past attempts and failures and find new approaches, she said.
Several of the reforms Sanborn and others said sounded the most promising, such as implementing more video monitoring on ships, are considerations, and not mandated at this point. And the requirements only focus on the Sea Year program even though most alleged sexual assaults have occurred on campus.
Students also enter the broader industry as soon as they graduate, and Midshipman X wrote in a November blog post that more needs to be done to address the "toxic culture of unpunished sexual harassment and sexual assault that plagues the U.S. maritime industry."
Lawmakers proposed legislation last fall aimed at addressing sexual assault both within the industry and specifically at the academy, though its future is uncertain. Underwood, the school's former sexual assault response coordinator, said she was heartened by this bill but that more avenues are still needed for victims to report sexual assault to someone outside the academy given the distrust of school officials.
Denise Krepp, a former chief counsel for the Maritime Administration, said the academy has had plenty of chances to change. She said she tried to ring the alarm back in 2011 when she requested an independent investigation into a "credible report" of multiple sexual assaults being covered up by the school. Instead of looking into the allegations, she said officials forced her to resign.
"There's been no accountability," she told Congress in 2019. Krepp also pointed to a $1.4 million settlement agreement the agency entered in 2020 with a student who alleged he was sexually assaulted, leading her to question what is stopping more settlements in the future.
The agency didn't comment on the criticism, but Lessley did agree there is more to be done and that barriers preventing students from speaking up still exist. She emphasized that the new plan includes a requirement that the agency continue to evaluate whether additional changes are necessary.
When asked about victims who may be concerned they won't be able to graduate or find a job if they report sexual assault or harassment and have to get off a ship early, fail Sea Projects or receive a negative evaluation from a crew, a spokesperson for the Maritime Administration said the agency understands these are issues and will continue to look into them. "Fear of being unable to obtain the requisite sea time has been a barrier to reporting," the spokesperson said, explaining that new policies also stress the school will do whatever it can to help students obtain the required time at sea and finish their projects so they can graduate.
In terms of students being required to repay the government or enter active duty if they leave the school after two years, the agency said the maritime administrator has the discretion to waive this in cases of hardship.
Lessley, the acting administrator, said it is unacceptable for any students to feel unsafe at the academy or at sea.
"It's not enough for us now to say that we are making a change," Lessley added. "What's critical is that we make the change."
A Merchant Marine Academy Cadet Says She Was Raped at Sea. Her Story Has Washington Looking for Answers
By: Ian Duncan
October 14, 2021 at 3:43 p.m. EDT
The crew members cheered when the 19-year-old cadet — the only woman on the ship — walked into the cigarette-smoke-filled stateroom. Drink with us, she recalled them saying, and you can have tomorrow off work.
The cadet, a midshipman at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, became intoxicated. Two engineers brought her to her room, then put her into the shower while clothed, trying to sober her up. After one engineer left, the cadet recalled, she remembers being naked in the shower and being sexually assaulted by the other engineer.
She awoke the next morning, her sheets bloodied, struggling to remember details but realizing she had been raped. She spent weeks more on the ship, stuck at sea and routinely crossing paths with the man she said attacked her.
“It was literally like hell, living in hell,” she told The Washington Post. The Post generally does not identify victims of alleged sexual crimes.
She tried to resume her studies after returning to the academy but said “I was destroyed inside.”
For two years, the midshipman told almost no one about what happened. At the time, she feared officers on the ship would doubt her and worried that the academy staff would fault her for drinking — a violation of ship rules. Then last month, she wrote an account of the attack for a website that advocates for victims of sexual assault at sea.
The midshipman said she hoped her story would force changes within the academy and industry.
The detailed post has shocked leaders in the shipping industry and members of Congress who oversee it. It also put the Kings Point, N.Y., school’s practice of sending cadets onto private vessels for training thousands of miles from home under scrutiny, five years after the federal government overhauled the program because of alarm over rates of sexual assault and harassment.
The Maritime Administration, the branch of the Transportation Department that oversees the academy, said that it referred the allegations to the Coast Guard’s investigative unit the day after the account was posted and that it plans to review measures designed to ensure ships are safe. The Coast Guard confirmed it has opened an investigation.
“We write today to express our unwavering support for the individual who has shared her story of a sexual assault,” Deputy Transportation Secretary Polly Trottenberg and acting maritime administrator Lucinda Lessley said in a letter to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy community after the midshipman’s account was published. In a separate statement, the Maritime Administration said it is “committed to her safety and well-being, along with that of all students at USMMA, and we stand ready to provide our support to her and to all survivors.”
In a joint statement Wednesday, Reps. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), chairman of that panel’s maritime subcommittee, called recent accounts of assault “devastating.”
“This pattern of abuse in the maritime industry and the Sea Year program in particular has gone on far too long — we must reform the toxic culture that has allowed this problem to fester, and not stop until our seas are safe for everyone,” they said.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the Senate Commerce Committee, wrote Lessley on Tuesday seeking details on sexual assaults over the past 10 years and any subsequent investigations.
“The despicable accounts put forth by brave young women and men just starting promising careers in the maritime industry are frightening and unacceptable,” Cantwell said.
The midshipman’s account was anonymous — and doesn’t name the alleged attacker — but offered enough detail that Maersk Line Limited, the operator of the ship, identified the vessel and crew members. The company, the American arm of the Danish shipping giant, said it launched its own investigation and has suspended five crew members.
Bill Woodhour, chief executive of Maersk Line Limited, described the account as “heart-wrenching and devastating.”
Maersk and an affiliate have trained more than 700 cadets from the academy in recent years. In 2018, one of its crew members was accused of harassment by a cadet, disobeyed an order not to be alone with the cadet and was discharged at the next port. The Coast Guard investigated and the crew member had his credentials suspended for six months, the company said.
Woodhour said such incidents on the company’s ships are isolated: “In reviewing the total number of incidents that we have files on, I saw no reason or cause for widespread alarm.” Maersk said Wednesday it planned to halt activity on ships at the end of the month to provide additional sexual assault and harassment training to crew members.
Don Marcus, president of the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots — a labor union that represents mariners — said one of the suspended employees, who belongs to the union, learned of the allegations for the first time when they were posted online.
Adam Vokac, president of the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association, said the union has no tolerance for sexual misconduct and was cooperating with Maersk’s investigation. Four of the five suspended crewmen were members of the union.
“We ask all parties to withhold final judgment as to the culpability of particular individuals until the material facts are authoritatively established,” he said in email. “M.E.B.A. will tailor individual consequences to each individual’s precise conduct and urges Maersk and other entities to do likewise.”
The individual accused of assaulting the midshipman did not respond to requests for comment. He has not been charged with a crime.
Ally Cedeno, who is president of the advocacy group Women Offshore and has worked with the academy on efforts to support female cadets, said she suggested steps the school should take. Those include reinforcing an existing alcohol amnesty policy — designed to encourage victims to come forward even if they have been drinking — and providing mentorship for female cadets at sea.
“More needs to be done to routinely check the pulse of vessel cultures, especially the ships participating in Sea Year,” Cedeno said. “By harshly punishing inappropriate behavior in our industry, by encouraging more victims to come forward and by training all mariners how to be allies aboard, we can isolate and stamp out negative micro-cultures on our ships.”
Sal Mercogliano, a maritime historian and an associate professor at Campbell University, said that when things go wrong on board, “there’s no helicopter coming out to the rescue.”
This year, the midshipman who was assaulted qualified as a victim advocate, working with other midshipmen, and said she knows of at least four other members of her class who were raped at sea. The academy’s most recent report to Congress on sexual assault and harassment said that during the 2018-2019 academic year, four midshipmen reported being sexually assaulted at sea. But according to a survey of students, only half of women who experienced “unwanted sexual contact” made a report, while just over one-third said they trusted the academy to protect their privacy.
“Many women clearly see the alternatives to reporting as less costly or more beneficial than reporting,” the report’s authors wrote. The report indicates about one-quarter of midshipmen are women.
In September, the midshipman saw a post on the Instagram account of Maritime Legal Aid and Advocacy about a cadet who was groped by his captain on Sea Year in the 1950s. She decided it was time to share her story.
“I was speaking for all the girls,” she said.
The midshipman became interested in a military career while growing up and decided to pursue the Merchant Marine Academy, thinking it would open the most doors after graduation. The school is a less-famous cousin to the three military academies and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy but occupies a prominent spot in the shipping industry through its network of alumni. Midshipmen earn a degree, a sailor’s license and a commission in the Navy Reserve.
In 2016, before the midshipman was inducted into the Class of 2022, the Transportation Department ordered a “stand down” of the Sea Year program to address reported sexual assault incidents — a step that proved controversial among students and alumni because the training is a graduation requirement. The school differs from other service academies in that it puts responsibility for students in the hands of private shipping companies. The vessels can be as big as a skyscraper, with about two dozen crew members.
After about nine months, the program restarted with requirements that ships provide sexual assault training to crews and a mandate that companies provide a debriefing on sexual assault and harassment after hosting cadets. Cedeno said the changes were ineffective.
“Women were being told they don’t belong in the industry,” she said.
After the midshipman finished her finals in 2019, she was soon on her way to join a ship, sailing first across the Atlantic Ocean and through the Suez Canal.
“Kings Point takes you from literally having classes and finals and then the next couple of days you’re joining that ship,” she said. “You just learn to embrace it and hope for the best.”
She said the atmosphere on the ship turned after it arrived in the Middle East. The vessel was supposed to be dry, but the crew brought alcohol aboard.
The day after the alleged assault, the midshipman recalled her attacker repeatedly asking her to visit him. She went, putting a knife in her pocket and telling another cadet to get her if she had not returned in 10 minutes. The midshipman recalled him saying he wanted to go over what had happened, because things were “fuzzy.”
“I said, ‘No, you forced yourself on me,’” she said.
For the rest of her time at sea, the midshipman tried to avoid working alone with him, she said. The one time she did, she said, he told her she had a pretty smile.
“I believe the academy fails everyone,” the midshipman said. “They throw us out into a situation where we are the bottom of the bottom and we’re made to feel like it’s normal to be treated the way we are treated.”
MARAD Leader Ann Phillips Commits to Investigating and Exposing the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy’s Dark History of Sexual Abuse
New York, NY
By: MLAA
During an April 27, 2022 hearing before the House Transportation Committee’s Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, MARAD Deputy Administrator Lucinda Lessley committed Ann Phillips, her agency’s new leader, to a full accounting of the horrific history of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse endured by generations of students who have passed through the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and its Sea Year program.
In Lessley’s prepared testimony, she said in addition to implementing the new “EMBARC” Sea Year standards, MARAD is “also committed to a comprehensive review of sexual harassment and sexual assault incidents experienced by cadets, both on campus, and aboard commercial vessels during Sea Year.”
This is the first time MARAD has committed itself to confronting the dark history of sexual abuse it has enabled over the course of generations, and many questions remain about the scope of the “comprehensive review” and whether or not MARAD intends to release its comprehensive review of every single SASH incident that has ever been experienced by a USMMA student (whether on campus or at sea) to the public.
Given MARAD’s history of secrecy, deception, coverups, and outright lies regarding how the agency has handled incidents of sexual abuse committed against its students, its seems likely that MARAD will attempt to hide the results from the public and prospective students of the USMMA. It is also possible that MARAD will never actually complete its Comprehensive Review or even begin work on it.
Many in the USMMA community have stated that the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and MARAD will never be able to move forward and truly create culture change that will make students safer without first confronting the dark history of abuse Academy students have endured on campus and at sea.
In an article published by CNN in February titled “Culture of fear at Merchant Marine Academy silences students who say they were sexually harassed and assaulted,” Ann Sanborn, a captain and lawyer who worked for the USMMA for 27 years before retiring at the end of 2020, said “until they confront their history they’re never going to move forward.”
In the article Sanborn expressed skepticism that any of MARAD’s new policy changes would actually protect students, and said that in order to find new and effective approaches to the SASH problems, “the school needs to learn from past attempts and failures.”
MLAA is committed to forcing MARAD to complete the Comprehensive Review as well as obtaining and publishing the results.
Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy Nominates & Endorses Former MARAD Chief Counsel DENISE RUCKER KREPP to the Newly-Forming USMMA Advisory Council
Denise Rucker Krepp
Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy, Ltd.
May 20, 2022
VIA E-MAIL to: maradpressoffice@dot.gov
Attn: Ann C. Phillips
Maritime Administrator & Commandant, U.S. Maritime Service
Re: Nomination and Endorsement of Denise Krepp to USMMA Advisory Council
Commandant Phillips,
Today, on behalf of our organization, and via the procedures outlined in the Federal Register concerning nominations of members to the United States Merchant Marine Academy Advisory Council (the “Council”), I nominated former U.S. Maritime Administration Chief Counsel Denise Rucker Krepp to become a member of the newly-forming Advisory Council.
Denise is a former officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, and an expert in sexual harassment and sexual assault, especially in the military and quasi-military context.
She also possesses zero financial or reputational ties to the corrupt U.S. maritime industry power structure, and is beholden to no one.
Denise has one category of interest, which is preventing USMMA students from being sexually assaulted, both at sea and on campus.
We believe the Advisory Council needs at least one member who is dedicated to speaking for all of the many victims of the USMMA and the Sea Year program, and dedicated to speaking up for all of the future victims.
We understand that people don’t want to hear the victims’ stories and we understand that these stories of rapes, druggings, sexual abuse, and torture will make the other members of the Council uncomfortable, but we don’t care if they are uncomfortable.
We want that Advisory Council to be uncomfortable, and we want someone on the Council who will speak for those victims and who will make the other members listen to their horror stories.
We are nominating and endorsing Denise Krepp because we believe that if appointed the Council, she will be that voice of the victims.
Denise is one of a very small number of people who have openly, publicly, and aggressively fought for the victims of the USMMA. All of those people have their battle scars, and Denise is no exception. Another person in that small club is Thomas M. Grasso, Esq., a graduate of the USMMA and an attorney who has represented numerous USMMA students who were victims of sexual assault at the Academy and at sea. Mr. Grasso has also nominated and endorsed Denise Krepp for a seat on the Council.
As you will soon learn, the Academy’s history of sexual assault and its systematic coverups of those crimes is very dark and very gruesome, and many people have been harmed. We believe it is inevitable that this history will be exposed.
When that day of truth comes (and we don’t think it’s very far off) you will find yourself desperately searching for a bridge between our organization, Thomas Grasso, and others who are fighting for and representing the many victims of the USMMA and MARAD.
Denise can also be that bridge, and she is someone that you work with.
We have no doubt that you will be told by many of those career MARAD and DOT employees who will be “advising” you that nominating Denise is a horrible idea. But maybe they’re all wrong, and maybe they’ve been wrong about almost everything for a very long time…and maybe that’s why there are so many victims?
It’s time for bold action and new ways of thinking. Please don’t be afraid of people who tell the truth and speak truth to power. Especially those who aren’t afraid to speak truth to your power. Instead, embrace them.
Acta Non Verba,
J. Ryan Melogy
Founder
Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy
Message to the Kings Point Community Regarding The Sea Year Stand Down (from the President of the USMMA Class of 2012)
This public statement by James Patrick O’Connor was originally posted to a USMMA Alumni Facebook page on July 13, 2016 during the 1st “Sea Year Stand Down.” This version has been edited for length. The full statement can be read here in its entirety.
Dear Kings Point Community,
Pick a Kings Pointer friend, whoever comes to mind first. Now you’re with them on their first sea year, ghost of Christmas past style, when he or she was 18 or 19 years old. You see this friend of yours sleeping in bed on their first ship and there’s a figure above about to rape him or her. Now as you watch this unfolding you are holding your MMD and diploma in your hand and if you throw it into a fire it would stop this from happening. Every one of you would do it.
The vast majority of people make it through sea year and USMMA unharmed. I did. I had great adventures for which I am deeply grateful, I wouldn't trade my experience for any other college and I love Kings Point. I’m also 6’1, 190lbs and a fool’s target. Unfortunately not everyone is as lucky as me and I'm astounded at the willful ignorance, dismissiveness and cynicism by some surrounding this conversation. It's certainly not the majority but we all know there are crazy and predatory people out at sea and abroad and even at school and anyone of any size can be drugged or gotten very drunk with the intent to take advantage.
Do you think that a male dominated industry as isolated as the merchant marine, where there is a ship with limited potential sexual partners in the middle of the ocean with reliably a few very strange, unpleasant or sometimes downright psychotic, un-monitored sailors isn’t an environment likely to facilitate sexual assault? The ship is your work, your home, your whole world. There is no 911, an email with a safety word can’t immediately save someone, there is no onsite HR, one can’t jump off and swim home and the targets are any combination of young, naïve, low ranking, isolated, outnumbered and vulnerable. The merchant marine is a unique environment that calls for unique, tailored protections for midshipmen and I’m glad this subject is being discussed openly.
Perhaps yours was fine but stop and think about the people whose sea years were not fine, whose stories you may not know about. Why aren’t we angrier at ourselves for our failure to speak up for and defend these students? I am personally aware of at least 7 separate sexual assault stories from my time at Kings Point both at sea and on campus. Is seven too many for you? I had to increase the number four times as I wrote this and remembered yet another or as I spoke with a few friends who shared their stories. Some were very violent and all were disturbing and in one instance a friend’s bruises were visible in uniform. One individual received a class 1 restriction after the ordeal and was bullied into a retraction. The offender went on to rape someone else at school. He wasn't kicked out for his actions either. This guy, wherever he is today, hasn't been prosecuted. Those 7 were just the ones that I heard of and most occurred on campus.
The pool has silently been growing larger and it’s larger than any of us will ever really know. Most people, especially men, don’t report and a lot gets swept under the rug. There are sometimes false claims and accusations and that adds an extra layer of complexity and difficulty that must be approached with great judiciousness but do you want the real survivors who did report, or the next ones to feel guilty or alone or to feel like the cause of the sea year suspension for having spoken up? Will you brush aside their traumatic experiences as an isolated incident, an inconvenience? Should they not rejoice that someone did something to help? Should we not support them? Too easily do we hastily dismiss this as a political stunt, coddling and administrative incompetence. If you don't treat the matters at hand seriously you are providing a disincentive for victims to come forward, enabling the bad guys and the cycle of silence, taboo and shame will continue.
We live in a time when none of us should be able to ignore the presence of predators and evil-doers out there due in large part to mass media coverage, but we still do. Our culture maintains a strong taboo, digs its head into the sand and turns a blind eye to rape. We can’t sugar coat it and pretend it’s not a big deal, it will just happen anyways, that it’s none of our business or that it doesn’t exist. It's not even the only problem being addressed. Our alma mater is a US Federal Academy and it must be a shining example of how things should be done for the world.
I want Sea Year back fast, too. Student safety, however, is PARAMOUNT and our words and actions in response to this temporary measure do not convincingly communicate that it is our number one concern. Sending a class out there in peace time knowing that one or two students could reasonably be expected to drown would never, ever be allowed to happen. It is needless. Should rape and assault be treated any differently? The cure is worse than the disease? Tell that to the people who have been assaulted.
A video interview of Kings Point women advocating for the reinstatement of sea year, none of whom have or choose to discuss experiences of sexual assault is less worthless than the eye witness account of a blind man. I’ve seen every iteration of these arguments and rationalizations:
They can get over it. They should have been tougher or smarter. They should have had the guts to fight. They didn’t belong out there in the first place. They should have reported it. They shouldn’t have drank. They should have known better. They should be adults by now. They’re probably just lying to get their way. They should be exposed to reality. They shouldn’t have dressed that way. How should I know or care if I don’t hear about these assaults? It didn’t/wouldn’t happen to me or to my son or daughter. It’s not my problem. It will take too long. Only women get raped. They knew the risks. They were asking for it. We shouldn’t baby people. We don’t know the numbers exactly. It’s just politics. MARAD is out to get us and shut the school down and this is a cover up. When I was a cadet I survived. I kinda sorta think it happens just as much everywhere else. I’m informed. We can’t ever solve this problem fully. My kid should graduate on time with a license and the potential rape of someone else I don’t really know doesn’t matter quite as much. I know better. They don’t exist…
They speak one message: The crowd is more important than the few silent victims so carry on, it’s not that big of a deal or doesn't even exist and fix as we go as is most convenient for the majority. The risk to the few is worth the reward for the many. We've always done things this way. Stuff happens.
I do believe we all are trying to do what’s best for USMMA, but leave yourself open to the possibility that this is a more prevalent and more serious problem than you may know, that people suffer these crimes largely in silence and that your uninformed assertions undermine the deserved justice, safety and dignity of each person who attends Kings Point. I respect your passion and your hard work deeply and I hope sea year is reinstated successfully soon as well. It’s great that so many people care but if we are more outraged about a temporary sea year suspension than we are about hazing, harassment and rape, I'm calling you all out: We are having the wrong conversation.
I’m glad that this didn’t happen during my year but if it could have prevented a single sexual assault I’d be ok with it in the long run. You shouldn’t have to know a survivor to see this problem through his or her eyes, to care and to put his or her needs and the needs of the next prospective victim first. You wouldn't believe some of their stories. They are reading the words you write. Be a true Kings Pointer, have their backs and recognize, acknowledge and respect their incredible bravery in bringing their horror stories and this problem to light. Let's work together on this and keep each other safe out there. Kings Point is our family. Protect your family.
James Patrick O’Connor II
2012 Class President, USMMA
Acta Non Verba
The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Promulgated a New Drug & Alcohol Amnesty Policy For Victims & Witnesses of Sexual Misconduct. Midshipman & Alumni Are Skeptical.
New York, NY
By: MLAA
In the wake of the Midshipman-X scandal, the U.S. Department of Transportation has forced the leadership of the United States Merchant Marine Academy to promulgate a new blanket drug and alcohol amnesty policy for victims and witnesses of sexual misconduct, whether such misconduct occurs on campus, off campus, or at sea.
The new amnesty policy is an important step forward. But according to an informal online poll conducted by MLAA via Instagram Stories, doubts remain among USMMA students and alumni as to whether the Academy will actually promote and enforce the new amnesty policy as written, or if the policy is simply another example of MARAD and Kings Point leadership saying one thing to the public, while saying something completely different to students.
When MLAA asked our Instagram audience if they thought the new Amnesty Policy would actually be enforced as written, approximately 55% of current USMMA students polled said “Yes,” while approximately 45% said “No.” Among USMMA Alumni there was more skepticism, with 2/3 responding that they did not have faith that the Academy leadership would actually implement the policy as written.
The new “Collateral Misconduct (Amnesty)” policy replaces an earlier amnesty policy that we have previously called the “F-you, There Is No Amnesty” Amnesty Policy.
The previous amnesty policy, implemented at the urging of Congress, did not actually guarantee that amnesty would ever be granted, and the policy left the decision of whether or not to grant amnesty completely within the discretion of the USMMA Superintendent or his designee.
The previous policy was so full of exceptions that it was rendered meaningless. For example, the previous amnesty policy also included exceptions for any Honor Offense (which could be anything) as well as “minor disciplinary infractions that place or placed the health or safety of any other person at risk.” We still can’t figure out what that sentence means, or what purpose it served other than to gut the amnesty policy.
The Academy also never informed midshipman of the previous amnesty policy, and the policy was not included in any of the Sea Year training lectures, or the Sea Year guide.
What’s the point of an amnesty policy if the students don’t know about it? The point is that it’s for show.
MLAA does not know if students at the USMMA have actually been told about the new amnesty policy, or what plans MARAD and the USMMA have to spread awareness in the policy and build confidence in it.
Here’s the new policy. Let us know your thoughts in the comments:
1 December 2021
Subject: COLLATERAL MISCONDUCT (AMNESTY)
Paragraph 5(g) of Superintendent Instruction 2018-05, Reporting, Investigating, and Resolving Complaints of Sexual Assault, Sexual or Gender-Based Harassment, Relationship Violence, and Stalking Against Midshipmen, is replaced with the following: Collateral Misconduct (Amnesty):
The health and safety of every midshipman at the Academy is of utmost importance. The Academy recognizes that midshipmen who have been drinking alcohol and/or using drugs (whether such use is voluntary or involuntary) at the time that they are subjected to sexual assault, sexual or gender-based harassment, relationship violence, or stalking (i.e., “wrongdoing” for the purposes of this paragraph) may hesitate to report such wrongdoing due to fear of potential consequences for their own conduct. Bystanders intervening to prevent such wrongdoing, and witnesses to such wrongdoing, may have similar concerns. The Academy is committed to eliminating this barrier to reporting. Therefore, a midshipman reporting wrongdoing against themselves, and witnesses and bystanders, will not be subject to discipline under the Midshipman Regulations for violations of alcohol and/or drug use policies occurring at or near the time of the commission of the sexual assault, sexual or gender-based harassment, relationship violence, or stalking, whether such wrongdoing occurred on campus, at sea, or off campus.
This Notice goes into effect immediately, and remains in effect unless superseded or revoked.
The Glass Ceiling is Intact at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy
* This post was submitted to MLAA through our anonymous contact form. MLAA does not know the author’s identity *
I wish to remain anonymous, so much so that I cannot use my real email. If you want to get to the bottom of the USMMA issues related to women in general, you must examine the treatment of women employed by the Academy.
There are women who made heroic efforts to clean the place up and now they have been cast aside. There are women who stood up to the many forms of mistreatment at the Academy and instead of correcting the wrong behavior, the women were punished.
Women are forced to perform jobs above their pay grade so that unskilled white males (who sit in positions they are unqualified for) take the credit. This is wrong. And this behavior is alive and well today. The glass ceiling is intact with no cracks at the USMMA.
Women who sit at the top ranks have been cast aside and just used as an example of how USMMA "changed its way" with women. It's a lie and the lie has gotten worse over the past 3 years.
The "good ole boy" network is alive and well and even stronger than ever. In order to fix the female cadet problem, the overall culture of how women are treated at the Academy must change.
I write this because I see what is going on and I am a father raising a daughter who I expect to be treated with dignity and respect when she enters the workforce.
NAPA: USMMA Students Facing Discrimination or Harassment from USMMA Employees May File Complaint Directly to U.S. DOT Equal Employment Opportunity Director & Receive Recourse Through EEO System
New York, NY
By: MLAA
The recently released “Comprehensive Assessment of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy,” authored by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), contains a legal conclusion that offers powerful new remedies for Academy midshipmen facing harassment, discrimination, and retaliation from USMMA employees.
NAPA’s important legal conclusion is that “Executive Order 13160,” issued by President Bill Clinton on June 23, 2000, applies to USMMA students. The title of Executive Order 13160 is “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Race, Sex, Color, National Origin, Disability, Religion, Age, Sexual Orientation, and Status as a Parent in Federally Conducted Education and Training Programs.” The title is self-explanatory.
Neither the USMMA, MARAD, or the U.S. DOT have ever recognized their legal duty to comply with Executive Order 13160 with respect to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, but that now seems likely to change. MLAA has closely read Executive Order 13160 and we agree with NAPA that the protections of the executive order extend to USMMA students. There are exemptions within 13160 for members of the armed forces on active duty, service academies that are part of the U.S. Department of Defense, and an exemption for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. But none of the executive order’s military exemptions apply to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy or its students or employees.
Executive Order 13160 states:
“The Federal Government must hold itself to at least the same principles of nondiscrimination in educational opportunities as it applies to the education programs and activities of State and local governments, and to private institutions receiving Federal financial assistance...
“No individual, on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, disability, religion, age, sexual orientation, or status as a parent, shall be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination in, a Federally conducted education or training program or activity...
“Any person who believes himself or herself to be aggrieved by a violation of this order or its implementing regulations, rules, policies, or guidance may, personally or through a representative, file a written complaint with the agency that such person believes is in violation of this order or its implementing regulations, rules, policies, or guidance. Pursuant to procedures to be established by the Attorney General, each executive department or agency shall conduct an investigation of any complaint by one of its employees alleging a violation of this Executive Order.”
USMMA students may now challenge a wide range of discriminatory, retaliatory, or harassing conduct committed by any USMMA employee, including discriminatory or retaliatory disciplinary actions, through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Equal Employment Opportunity system. According to the DOT, in order to initiate a complaint under Executive Order 13160, a USMMA student must first contact the director of the U.S. DOT’s EEO program. The DOT’s EEO complaint procedure can be found on the DOT website.
EEO complaints should be directed to:
Office of the Secretary
Patricia Sterling
DOT Headquarter1200 New Jersey Ave., S.E.
Washington, DC 20590
(202) 366-4754
Under current DOT procedures, the Office of Civil Rights will process the initial complaint in what is known as the “pre-complaint stage.” Next, the aggrieved USMMA student will be directed to meet with an EEO counselor for counseling sessions. At the initial counseling session the EEO counselor will provide information to the aggrieved student concerning how the Federal sector EEO complaint process works, including time frames, and the counselor must advise the student in writing of their rights and responsibilities within the EEO complaint process, including the right to request a hearing before an EEOC Administrative Judge (AJ), or an immediate final decision from the agency following its investigation of the complaint.
The EEO counselors will also explain to the USMMA student how their Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) program works, advise the student of the opportunity to participate in ADR, and advise the USMMA student of their right to file a formal complaint if ADR does not result in a resolution. The complete EEO complaint process can be found on the DOT’s website.
Following the NAPA Report, the DOT and MARAD have significant work ahead of them to implement Executive Order 13160. Section 5 of the executive order discusses agency implementation and requires DOT and MARAD to establish formal procedures to receive and address complaints regarding its Federally conducted education and training programs and activities. This implementation of 13160 should result in posters being prominently placed around the Academy campus and in the Academy barracks alerting USMMA students to their newly discovered legal rights. According to the executive order, each executive department and agency was required to “take all necessary steps to effectuate any subsequent rules, regulations, policies, or guidance issued by the Attorney General within 90 days of issuance.”
The executive order was issued in 2001— about 20 years ago. DOT did not meet the 90 day deadline, but some things are better late than never.
Op-Ed: I Graduated From KP in 1978 and Came Through Cadet Shipping Unscathed. The People Posting Stories to this Site are a Bunch of Cry-Babies and Wimps.
*This Op-Ed was originally submitted to MLAA as a comment to a previous Op-Ed by the author, who claims to be a member of the USMMA Class of 1978. MLAA does not know the author’s identity*
Having read many of the posts to this site all I can say is "Cry me a river"!!! What a bunch of crybabies and wimps!
Apparently USMMA doesn't fulfill all the wishes of these "beautiful dreamers" who envision a world of "gentlemen" seafarers and perpetually smooth seas! Perhaps they should have done more research into the maritime industry prior to entering it.
I thoroughly researched the field before entering it and became well aware of the good and the bad. In high school I read plenty maritime related materials, both factual and some historic novels. I am willing to bet that many of these "posters" never read "Two years before the Mast", "Captains Courageous" the Nordhoff & Hall Trilogy and especially "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London. I was well aware that times have changed since the writing of these books but guess what, the nature of the men drawn to this livelihood has changed very little! Testosterone is indifferent to feminist wishes.
Having obtained this knowledge I realized the seagoing life would be a refining furnace for me and I was confident I would pass through it and come out a stronger, more confident man as a result. I did not expect the environment to change to accommodate my sensibilities. I steeled myself to overcome the drawbacks of the environment but also to enjoy the rewards of a sailing life.
To "expertly" prepare me for this adventure I had the blessing of attending USMMA. Looking back, I appreciate the demands of the paramilitary environment that made me more self-reliant and mature. The academics were spot on as far as developing my skills to become a marine engineer as stated in the Academy mission. Thank God for my sea year experience! My initiation into the "real world" as a 19 year young man with the preparation King's Point gave me was incredible. I was able to handily deal with "the good, the bad and the ugly" in ALL aspects. Thanks to KP, I came through it unscathed and was more than able to accomplish my Sea Project as expected.
The KP experience allowed me to accomplish my Chief Engineer Steam and Motor Any Horsepower license and after 10 years of sailing experience I entered and excelled in the power generation industry becoming the manager of several plants in the then ground breaking field of cogeneration.
Regarding the issue of "sexism" at the Academy, I had the opportunity to see the historic admission of women as I was a member of the class of 1978. I believe in the simple mantra of "God made men to do the things a woman can't do and women to do the things a man can't do". In a nutshell, I saw the bending of requirements and standards (that I thought were inviolable) to accommodate the females.
When I sailed for an oil transport company, I sailed with female KP grads and witnessed their shortcomings firsthand. I was especially perturbed when I was ordered to do the work of the third engineer ( I was the 2nd engineer) because she was physically incapable of accomplishing her tasks. Sorry, but I am not in with the politically correct crowd that is always cheering and crowing over every single accomplishment of a female mariner.
Now they are crying to Big Brother to please remove all threats from their environment. Just what the merchant marine needs: federal police aboard all ships à la flight marshals aboard airplanes. I could go on and on but I have said a lot already.
Lastly I will offer this solution to the shipping companies: to eliminate the sexism issues, why not take a page from US Navy experience and set aside one or more ships crewed with an all female staff from captain down to the wiper.
I would love to see how it turns out!
—KP ’78
Op-Ed: The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy remains a backward-looking institution that struggles to make itself relevant in the twenty-first century.
* This opinion piece was submitted to MLAA by the author, a member of the Kings Point Community *
Last week a letter signed by a number of current USMMA midshipman opposing the current “Sea Year pause” circulated around the Kings Point campus and throughout the maritime industry. In contrast to the opinions of midshipmen at USMMA who wrote and signed that letter, I have to state that the USMMA is a troubled institution that faces many challenges in the twenty-first century.
As someone in a position to know, I can say there is indeed a toxic culture at USMMA. To be sure, it has improved, but one need not work very hard to establish prevalent attitudes of racism, sexism, and homophobia in the student body. Furthermore, unenlightened attitudes regarding equity and inclusion prevail even in the faculty. Midshipman X’s letter of September 27 has established that the Academy has not addressed SASH issues adequately. It is disappointing that midshipmen have subordinated the health and well-being of their peers to their career goals. In this regard, they mirror the troubling trend in the maritime industry and even at the state maritime academies to sweep SASH allegations under the rug.
USMMA remains a backward-looking institution that struggles to make itself relevant in the twenty-first century. Repeated reports have pointed out its shortcomings, including crumbling infrastructure, alarming accreditation reports that point to curricular deficiencies, and a steady flow of IG reports indicating poor management practices. A simple statistic underscores these troubles: In the last twenty years, all five Superintendents have left involuntarily, including Admiral Buono, if I read the Congressional letter of October 29 correctly.
The problem may be in the structure of the institution. Retired military officers or industry leaders simply do not possess the skill sets to administer an institution of higher learning. Admiral Buono wears his uniform well, and he certainly cares for the institution and its midshipmen. However, as Midshipman X revealed, Buono’s values are those of the last millenia.
Buono is not the source of the problems; he is merely a symptom of a greater institutional malaise. Based on conversations with USMMA faculty and staff, there seem to be questions regarding progress in modernizing campus facilities and addressing accreditation concerns. Furthermore, the website gCaptain noted that USMMA received Middle States accreditation in 2017 only after a warning that identified combatting sexual harassment and assault, particularly during Sea Year, as a major concern. This Middle States report can be found here.
In sum, Sea Year and SASH is not the only problem at Kings Point. The institution is crying for reform, which can only come from Congress due to its status as a federal academy. In many ways, USMMA is an admirable institution, and my sincere hope is that Congress can correct its several shortcomings to secure its future in the twenty-first century.
—Call Me “Ishmael”
Senator Gillibrand Crosses Party Lines to Team Up With Senator Wicker to Introduce Half-Baked Bill that will Fail to Solve Merchant Marine Sexual Misconduct Problem
Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) has worked hard to protect USMMA students from sexual harassment and assault at the Academy & at sea, but she’s a politician 1st, & she has unfortunately become part of the problem we are trying to solve—not part of the solution.
She fought hard to enact major provisions of the “Merchant Marine Academy Improvement Act” via the 2018 NDAA, but the legislation was a failure & did nothing to stop the assaults or the harassment. She simply doesn’t understand the problems she has been trying to solve, & she does not understand how deeply corrupt are the people running MARAD, the USMMA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. maritime industry.
Now, while 6 Congressional committees controlled by Democrats are working hard to gain an actual understanding of the assault, harassment, and toxic cultural problems facing the industry & Academy, & as those committees work hard to develop legislation that will create real change, Gillibrand has crossed party lines & teamed up with 2 Republican Senators to release the draft of a half-baked bill that will again not solve the problems.
Why? The reasons must be political. It must deeply embarrassing to Gillibrand to have the Sea Year program shut down again over widespread public outrage over the sexual violence that USMMA cadets & cadets from other maritime academies continue to face while sailing aboard commercial and Military Sealift Command vessels in the U.S. merchant marine. And Gillibrand must be hearing from many of her constituents who are opposed to the Sea Year pause. So she goes & finds another Senator who has been deeply embarrassed by his own oversight failures, & they throw together a bill & issue a press release opposing the Sea Year pause.
That other Senator is Roger Wicker (R-MS). Why is Wicker embarrassed? Because he has been on the USMMA Board of Visitors and has a direct oversight role over the Academy, and yet he has not said one word about the “rape problem” that everyone has known about and talked about for years. Great job!
These are not the people we need to listen to now. They had their chance and they failed.
The good news? The bill they introduced includes language requiring the Coast Guard to take S&R action against the license or credential of any mariner found by a company to have committed sexual harassment or assault within the past 10 years. Progress.
(Click here to read the failed draft legislation)
Here’s the press release:
Wicker, Collins, Gillibrand Introduce Bill to Address Sexual Misconduct in the Merchant Marine
November 5, 2021
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Susan Collins, R-Maine, ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies, and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., today introduced the Improving Protections for Midshipmen Act, which would strengthen Sexual Assault/Sexual Harassment (SASH) prevention, response, investigation, and accountability in the maritime industry and provide additional safeguards for the Midshipmen at the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA). The legislation would result in improved conditions and reduced risk to all mariners, including USMMA Midshipmen.
“The Department of Transportation’s knee-jerk reaction to pause Sea Year is not an effective way to prevent future incidents of abuse and harassment,” said Wicker. “It will have a negative impact on the professional development of current Midshipmen and increase pressure and scrutiny on survivors of assault. This legislation would protect our mariners from sexual misconduct and hold accountable those who commit these abhorrent behaviors. If these prudent measures are adopted quickly, the Sea Year can be resumed by December.”
“In light of the troubling allegations that recently surfaced at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, it is imperative that we do all that we can to protect students who have chosen the path of service and ensure they are able to continue their important work,” said Collins. “This legislation would strengthen sexual violence prevention, response, investigation, and accountability measures to improve cadets’ safety. Congress must remain committed to reducing the instances of sexual assault at our service academies and providing appropriate care for survivors.”
"Sexual harassment, sexual assault and violence continue to plague both the maritime industry and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy,” said Gillibrand. “Congress must act to address this scourge and protect our mariners. The bipartisan Improving Protections for Midshipmen Act would strengthen measures relating to prevention, training, investigation and accountability and would give mariners and midshipmen more confidence in their safety."
The Improving Protections for Midshipmen Act would:
Provide Accountability for SASH Offenders:
Give the Coast Guard authority to suspend or revoke a mariner’s license if the individual is found to have committed sexual harassment or sexual assault;
Include commission of sexual assault as an independent and explicit ground for suspension or revocation, and add sexual harassment as a new form of misconduct on which a license could be lost; and
Require the Maritime Administration and the Coast Guard to assess the applicability of the DoD’s Catch a Serial Offender program to the merchant marine, and, if so, how such a program would be implemented.
Track incidents of SASH and collecting student feedback:
Establish a sexual assault and sexual harassment database at the USMMA to track reports of harassment and assault in a systematic way; and
Require exit interviews from students after Sea Year and include information from these exit interviews into the database.
Provide information, training, and resources to students:
Require the USMMA to create a training program specifically designed for Midshipmen going onboard ships, which would focus on the full continuum of SASH in the at-sea environment, including prevention, identification, reporting, and available support;
Codify the position of Special Victims Counsel at the USMMA; and
Allow the Department of Transportation the authority for direct hire of employees of the SASH office, to prevent unacceptably long gaps in staffing.
Set up a framework to improve the USMMA’s SASH policies and procedures:
Establish a Sexual Assault Advisory Council, with members including USMMA Alumni and SASH experts, to provide feedback to the USMMA for improvements on SASH policy and implementation; and
Require the USMMA to promulgate a student support plan aimed at improving Midshipmen well-being by improving the climate and sharing available mental health resources at the Academy.
Increase the Diversity of the Maritime Academy and Maritime Workforce:
Advance policies to increase diversity in both the USMMA and the maritime workforce; and
Codify the Merchant Marine Diversity and Inclusion Task Force under the Committee on the Marine Transportation System.
Maritime Crusader Senator Maria Cantwell & 5 Powerful Congressmen Call Maritime Industry “Toxic,” Demand Firing of USMMA Leader Jack Buono, & Demand Suspension of Cadet Commercial Shipping
New York, NY
By: MLAA
Two weeks after sending an absolutely blistering letter to Acting and Flailing Maritime Administrator Lucinda Lessley that demanded answers to allegations of rape, rampant unchecked sexual violence, and oversight and policy failures posted on the MLAA website, Senator Maria Cantwell, along with the chairpersons of five powerful Congressional Committees, have sent a second letter to Lessley’s boss—Secretary of the Department of Transportation Pete Buttigieg—demanding action. The second letter was first reported by influential maritime industry publication Gcaptain.
The October 29, 2021 letter comes only 3 days after MARAD was required to reply to Senator Cantwell with answers, including MARAD’s response to allegations posted on the MLAA website, data on sexual assaults reported to the USMMA over the past 10 years, and procedures in place to protect USMMA cadets from being placed aboard ships with known sexual predators.
According to the October 29 letter to Secretary Pete from 6 powerful Congressmen, over the past month “countless other brave individuals...have come forward to share their personal stories during their time at sea.” MLAA referred more than a dozen individuals to Cantwell’s Committee who experienced sexual harassment and sexual assault while serving as cadets aboard U.S.-flag vessels, and the Committee has already heard from many times that number. The evidence that there is a massive sexual harassment and assault problem facing cadets and other mariners in the toxic U.S. maritime industry has been overwhelming, and yet Pete Buttigieg, Lucinda Lessley, and USMMA Superintendent Jack Buono have still refused to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation.
In the October 29, 2021 letter to Secretary Pete, the Congressmen wrote:
“It has come to our attention that DOT is considering sending cadets back to sea on commercial vessels in a matter of weeks with few meaningful changes or safeguards in place. While we understand that improved communication devices would be provided to each student, this course of action on its own falls short and is unacceptable. Since the Department has given no indication that meaningful and necessary steps have been taken to ensure the safety of cadets in the Sea Year program, we believe the USMMA should not proceed with Sea Year this term. Prior to the resumption of Sea Year, we request the USMMA develop a public written action plan that includes detailed steps that will be taken to ensure the safety of cadets at sea. While we understand the importance of a timely graduation for USMMA cadets, the safety of those same cadets should be your top concern. We stand ready to assist the Department in ensuring a complete educational experience and a timely graduation.”
Congress has also called for the firing of USMMA Superintendent Jack Buono, a move MLAA has advocated for more than 2 years. MLAA first began calling for the firing of Jack Buono after uncovering damning evidence that Buono had intentionally sent USMMA cadets to serve aboard ships with known sexual predators, while having actual knowledge that he was sending these young people into harm’s way without any warning to the cadets. MLAA shared information and evidence that Buono callously sent USMMA cadets to serve aboard vessels with known sex predators with the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) in 2020 and 2021. NAPA is currently conducting a Congressionally-mandated study of the USMMA that has been completely consumed by the issue of sexual assault, and the release of NAPA’s report has now been delayed for more than four months.
In their October 29, 2021 Letter, regarding Buono, Congress wrote:
“Furthermore, we believe there needs to be a change in the leadership of the USMMA. Vice Admiral Joachim Buono, USMMA Superintendent, has failed to take seriously the safety of his students and has not demonstrated a commitment to change the toxic culture at the Academy and during Sea Year. Superintendent Buono must be removed from his position.”
MLAA’s applauds this call for Buono’s public firing. Buono has demonstrated himself to be a dangerous leader incapable of taking action on these important safety and cultural issues.
MLAA has not called for an end to the training of cadets aboard commercial vessels or an end to the USMMA Sea Year program, but MLAA believes that radical reforms to the entire regulatory structure of the broader maritime industry are required in order to make the program safe for cadets. The U.S. Department of Transportation alone cannot make the program safe. Safety requires the involvement of the U.S. Coast Guard and Congress and possibly the U.S. Department of Justice.
In their October 29, 2021 Letter, Congress closed with the following:
“We expect the department to adopt robust policy changes before the Sea Year program can resume. The maritime industry and United States Merchant Marine are a vital part of our national security and our nation’s economy. Sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other offenses are intolerable, and the department must take immediate and long-term action to stop these offenses to protect the cadets of the USMMA, both at the Academy and at sea.”
MLAA strongly supports this position.
October 29, 2021, Full Letter. Congress To Secretary Pete: Fire Jack Buono, Shut Down Cadet Commercial Shipping Until It Is Safe.
October 29, 2021
The Honorable Pete Buttigieg Secretary
U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Avenue, S.E. Washington, DC 20590
Dear Mr. Secretary:
We are very concerned with the recent allegations of sexual assault by a female cadet at the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) during her Sea Year experience in 2019. This brave female cadet not only shared her story on the terrible circumstance she endured while at sea, but also detailed alarming statistics regarding the number of other female cadets within her class who have also been harassed and assaulted. In response to the blog post, there have been countless other brave individuals who have come forward to share their personal stories during their time at sea. This incident sheds light on the toxic culture not only at USMMA, but within the maritime industry where cadets and mariners are in danger and have no escape from their perpetrators.
In 2016, the Department of Transportation (department or DOT) stood down the Sea Year program to implement changes to better protect students. But those changes clearly did not work, and we are concerned that the cadets remain in danger.
Despite the recent allegations, it has come to our attention that DOT is considering sending cadets back to sea on commercial vessels in a matter of weeks with few meaningful changes or safeguards in place. While we understand that improved communication devices would be provided to each student, this course of action on its own falls short and is unacceptable. Since the Department has given no indication that meaningful and necessary steps have been taken to ensure the safety of cadets in the Sea Year program, we believe the USMMA should not proceed with Sea Year this term. Prior to the resumption of Sea Year, we request the USMMA develop a public written action plan that includes detailed steps that will be taken to ensure the safety of cadets at sea.
While we understand the importance of a timely graduation for USMMA cadets, the safety of those same cadets should be your top concern. We stand ready to assist the Department in ensuring a complete educational experience and a timely graduation.
Furthermore, we believe there needs to be a change in the leadership of the USMMA. Vice Admiral Joachim Buono, USMMA Superintendent, has failed to take seriously the safety of his students and has not demonstrated a commitment to change the toxic culture at the Academy and during Sea Year. Superintendent Buono must be removed from his position.
We expect the department to adopt robust policy changes before the Sea Year program can resume. The maritime industry and United States Merchant Marine are a vital part of our national security and our nation’s economy. Sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other offenses are
intolerable, and the department must take immediate and long-term action to stop these offenses to protect the cadets of the USMMA, both at the Academy and at sea.
Should you have any questions or require additional information please contact Matt Dwyer at (202) 617-5926 or Nicole Teutschel at (202) 224-4912.
Sincerely,
PETER A. DeFAZIO
MARIA CANTWELL
ADAM SMITH
JACKIE SPEIER
JOE COURTNEY
SALUD CARBAJAL
Senator Maria Cantwell Delivers Blistering Letter to MARAD Demanding Answers to Allegations of Rape, Rampant Unchecked Sexual Violence, and Oversight and Policy Failures Posted on the MLAA Website
New York, NY
By: Ryan Melogy
Finally, oh finally, someone with the power to investigate the cycle of ghastly sexual abuse that runs quietly and like clockwork through the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy’s Sea Year program has begun to ask the right questions and to demand accountability from the USMMA and MARAD. Hallelujah!
Senator Cantwell, our savior, may be the first politician to actually approach an understanding of the Sea Year program’s tragic flaws. The same cannot be said of those politicians with direct oversight responsibility for the Academy, such as Tom Suozzi and Kirsten Gillibrand (although, to be fair, they have been deeply misled by MARAD and the Academy for many years).
On October 12, 2021, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), in her capacity as Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, sent a letter to acting Maritime Administrator Lucinda Lessley requesting a response related to information that has been posted on the MLAA website (www.maritimelegalaid.com).
In her letter to MARAD, Senator Cantwell wrote:
“I write to express my grave concern over the allegations of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment made by midshipmen at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (“USMMA”) and the response by you and others at the Department of Transportation (“DOT”). Through the Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy (“MLAA”), a legal advocacy group formed on behalf of mariners, victims’ stories of shipboard sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape have bravely shared their personal stories in blog posts on the group’s website. You and Deputy Secretary Trottenberg sent an open letter to the King’s Point community and posted it on the USMMA website on Saturday, October 2, 2021 acknowledging these allegations and expressing your unwavering support for the individual who shared her story on September 27. The despicable accounts put forth by brave young women and men just starting promising careers in the maritime industry are frightening and unacceptable. Many of these allegations involve a repeated pattern of crimes and intimidations committed by people in positions of power and responsibility on merchant ships, and include alleged poor oversight or policy failures of USMMA officials and Coast Guard investigators.
In light of the seriousness of these allegations, I ask that you provide the committee with a description of the steps that have been taken by Maritime Administration (“MARAD”), the DOT, and the USMMA to investigate the allegations made on the MLAA’s website, and actions taken in response to findings in those investigations.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Get them! Get them, Senator! Get them and don’t let go!
But there’s even more wonderful news. Senator Cantwell also recognizes the tragic and intentional failure of the U.S. Coast Guard to protect these young mariners, and she carbon copied Karl Schultz, the Commandant of the Coast Guard on her letter. If any doubt remained, it must now be crystal clear to everyone in the Coast Guard leadership that they will no longer be able to hide from this issue and that they will soon be expected to take drastic action to stop the outrageous rapes and sexual abuse taking place aboard American-flag vessels.
In her letter to MARAD, Senator Cantwell also demanded answers to specific questions that are going to blow the lid off of the absolutely sickening way the Sea Year program really operates. The information Senator Cantwell requested includes the following:
How many reports of rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment or related offenses have been reported by or concerning midshipmen of the USMMA in the last 10 years? Please provide a breakdown of these reports that includes whether the incidents occurred on campus, off campus, or at sea during Sea Year, the party that conducted the investigation(s), and the outcome of that investigation.
In the event that a midshipman is removed from a vessel following a sexual assault or harassment report(s), does USMMA remove all midshipmen onboard the vessel for their Sea Year? Please include copies of the USMMA policy, regulation or other guidance on this matter.
If a vessel or its parent company is the subject of a sexual assault or sexual harassment complaint, does the USMMA assign midshipmen to those vessels in the future? Please include copies of the USMMA policy, regulation or other guidance on this matter.
In the event that a midshipman makes an informal or formal complaint of sexual assault, harassment, or discrimination, may they request to be assigned to a different vessel for the duration of their Sea Year? Please include copies of the USMMA policy, regulation or other guidance on this matter.
What actions can be and have been taken by the Coast Guard to withdraw or suspend credentials of mariners with a history of allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Sea Year midshipmen?
There are many more questions that need to be asked. But this is a fantastic start.
Here are a few we have at MLAA:
Do the shipping companies that carry USMMA cadets follow 46 USC 10104, a federal law that requires ALL allegations of shipboard sexual assault to be immediately reported to the U.S. Coast Guard? How does the Academy verify that the shipping companies are strictly following 46 USC 10104, a critical and common-sense reporting law vital to the safety of life at sea.
When USMMA cadets alert their Academy Training Representatives (ATRs) that they have been sexually assaulted and must be removed from a vessel, do the ATRs immediately notify the FBI or the U.S. Coast Guard that a sex crime has been committed as required by law and as required by MARAD policies? Clearly, this information would be an “unrestricted report” under USMMA policies because the ATR knows the name of the victim, the nature of the crime, the ship where the sex crime occurred, and often the name and rank of the perpetrator. Or, in such situations, does the ATR pretend that they did not receive an unrestricted report of a sexual assault, intentionally fail to notify law enforcement, and then push the victim into the USMMA’s SAPR maze where the student ends up filing a “restricted report,” which goes nowhere. Please explain how an “unrestricted report” can be transformed into a “restricted report” by an ATR.
Is there an “alcohol amnesty” policy at the USMMA for students who report sexual assaults that occur during Sea Year? An “alcohol amnesty” policy would be a policy that allows a victim of sexual assault to come forward to report a sex crime without fear that they will be punished under the Academy’s draconian disciplinary system for being under the influence of alcohol during the sexual assault. Please provide copies of any “alcohol amnesty” policy and provide copies of all documents routinely provided to USMMA cadets embarking upon Sea Year that explain the alcohol amnesty policy.
In the last 10 years, have any USMMA students been punished for alcohol offenses after reporting sexual assaults that occurred during Sea Year?
Why would a victim of sexual assault contact their Academy ATR following an assault? Why does it not make more sense for the victim to immediately contact law enforcement, i.e. the U.S. Coast Guard? If a victim chooses to exercise his or her rights as an American citizen and as a Coast Guard credentialed mariner by notifying the Coast Guard of a sexual assault instead of their corrupt, sexual abuse enabling ATR, how would the student accomplish that objective?
Our savior Senator Cantwell is not playing around. She is demanding answers to her questions by October 26, 2021. In her blistering letter, Senator Cantwell closes with the following:
The maritime industry and United States Merchant Marine are a vital part of our national security and our nation’s economy. Sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other offenses are unacceptable, and the USMMA must immediately take action to stop this behavior and protect the men and women of the USMMA both at the Academy, and at sea.
Boom. Hallelujah. Times Up.
9/23/20: Official Request to Howard “Skip” Elliot for DOT Inspector General Investigation into Sexual Abuse Coverups at the United States Merchant Marine Academy
Skip.
*Also submitted via: https://www.oig.dot.gov/hotline
Name: John Ryan Melogy
Company: Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy
Address: www.maritimelegalaid.com
Phone: 469-431-1024
E-Mail: kpmelogy@gmail.com
Economic Stimulus Related: No
Hurricane Sandy Recovery Related: No
Description of the fraud, waste, and/or abuse:
RE: Sexual Abuse Coverups at the United States Merchant Marine Academy
Mr. Howard Elliot,
The Department of Shipboard Training at the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) is in a state of turmoil, and a DOT OIG investigation of the very sad events that have led to this current state of crisis is desperately needed in order to restore confidence in the Academy’s Sea Year program, and to protect USMMA students from the dangers of sexual harassment and sexual assault aboard U.S. flag commerical and military auxillary vessels.
In recent weeks Captain Eugene Albert, the man who had administered the Academy’s “Sea Year” program for 15 years, was forced to resign from his position by Maritime Administrator Mark Buzby over allegations that for a decade and a half he had engaged in the systematic silencing of students who were victims of shipboard sexual harassment and sexual assault.
The allegations put forth against Captain Albert by myself and others include allegations that for many years Captain Albert had engaged in a pattern of “coverups” of instances of violent rapes and other sexual assaults of USMMA students who were assaulted while participating in the USMMA’s Sea Year program. It is my understanding that at least two other men who assisted Captain Albert in these coverups are also in the process of being fired by Mark Buzby.
There is one specific instance of a reported sexual assault that I would like to bring to your attention for investigation, because I think it is very likely that this sexual assault was “covered up” by the USMMA with help from the United States Coast Guard and the shipping company which employed the mariner/assailant:
The sexual assault in question is listed in the following 2017-2018 USMMA SASH Report that was published by your department:
At Table 6, Row 7, one of the reports of sexual assault is listed as follows:
"A midshipman was sexually assaulted by a crew member of a ship during sea year and reported it to the Academy. The report was Unrestricted – occurred at sea; referred to U.S. Coast Guard for investigation."
Based on my knowledge of how the USMMA and USCG have worked together for many years to cover up the sexual assaults of USMMA studentts, this report of sexual assault was likely sent to Captain Jason Neubaeur at the USCG, Chief of the USCG office of Investigations & Analysis.
The 2017-2018 SASH report states that after being referred to the USCG there was "No criminal prosecution" and that the assault, which was almost certainly a felony sex crime, was then "referred to shipping company for administrative handling."
I would like to bring to the attention of your office the fact that “criminal prosecution” is not the only option that the USCG has to punish mariners for rapes and other kinds of sexual misconduct directed at USMMA students during the Sea Year program.
The USCG also has the "Suspension & Revocation" (S&R) process that is used by the USCG hundreds of times every year to punish USCG-credentialed mariners for various kinds of misconduct.
The 2017-2018 SASH report does not mention whether or not the USCG sought to use the S&R process to punish the mariner. Based on disturbing information I have learned about the unwillingness of the USCG to use the S&R process to punish mariners for sex crimes, it is very likely that this sex crime was never actually investigated by the U.S.C.G., and that USMMA officials knew very well that it would never be investigated, and in fact did not want it investigated because they did not want to bring negative publicity upon the Academy or the shipping companies who partner with the Academy to run the Sea Year program.
I understand that this might be a bit difficult to believe, but it is also difficult to believe how the USMMA and the USCG could write in an official SASH report that a criminal, felony sexual assault was referred to the mariner/perpetrator’s commercial shipping company for "Administrative Handling," as if that company itself were responsible for enforcing our nation’s laws against shipboard rape and sexual assault.
This complete absence of even the appearance of an attempt at justice is disheartening, to say the least. And unfortunately it is business as usual at the USMMA Department of Shipboard Training.
I am calling for your office to investigate this specific instance of sexual assault at sea (as well as the broader issues I have raised in this message), and I am asking you to find out if an S&R investigation was initiated at the USCG, and if indeed any investigation was ever initiated at the USCG over this report of sexual assault sent to the USCG by the USMMA.
In recent months I have heard some very disturbing stories from current and former USMMA students about the way that they were silenced by Captain Eugene Albert and others at the USMMA when they attempted to report instances of sexual assault and harassment they had experienced on ships during the Academy’s Sea Year program. These stories and the data that I have uncovered have brought me to the conclusion that the vast, vast majority of sexual assaults that occur during Sea Year never make it onto the official reports released by the Academy.
I have also heard troubling stories about the relationship between Captain Eugene Albert, the man who has been in charge of the Academy's Sea Year program for the past 15 years, and the men in the USCG's "Safety" office where reports of sexual assault are forwarded. These stories paint a picture of two organizations (the USMMA and USCG) working together to make reports of sexual assault of USMMA midshipmen "disappear."
I fear another “disappearance” is exactly what may have happened in this case, and I fear that it has happened many other times.
What is most troubling is that the person who sexualy assaulted this USMMA student almost certainly went completely unpunished, is likely still employed by the same company, is likely still a member of his or her labor union, and it is horrifyingly likely that the USMMA is continuing to send USMMA cadets out to vessels where this man or woman is working, thereby putting these students in danger of future sexual assaults.
I am hereby calling for an investigation into what steps were taken by the USCG, an investigation into the actions taken by the shipping company during its "Administrative Handling" of the allegations, and an investigation into whether or not USMMA cadets are continuing to be sent to work with a sexual predator with a record of sexually assaulting USMMA students aboard his or her vessel and whether or not the USMMA is aware that they are sending cadets directly to known sexual predators.
Learning how this sexual assault was handled by the shipping company is critical to our understanding of whether or not the MARAD policies that resulted from the "Sea Year Standdown" have actually worked, and whether or not the Sea Year program is a program that can be operated safely without new and aggressive involvement of an actual federal law enforcement agency committed to putting rapists in jail.
An investigation of these matters literally has the potential to prevent the future sexual assaults of USMMA students.
Thank you for your consideration of this request for an DOT OIG Investigation.
I am more than happy to answer any questions you have for me.
V/R
J. Ryan Melogy
Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy
Email to Elaine Chao: Call to Investigate Possible Sexual Assault Coverup at USMMA
Secretary Chao,
I am calling on you to launch an investigation into the possible coverup of the sexual assault of a USMMA student during the Academy's Sea Year by a USCG credentialed mariner.
The sexual assault in question is listed in the following 2017-2018 USMMA SASH Report that was published by your department: https://www.usmma.edu/sites/usmma.dot.gov/files/docs/about/communications/10616/preliminary-2017-2018-usmma-sash-report.pdf
At Table 6, Row 7 one of the reports of sexual assault is listed as follows:
"A midshipman was sexually assaulted by a crew member of a ship during sea year and reported it to the Academy. The report was Unrestricted – occurred at sea; referred to U.S. Coast Guard for investigation."
Most likely the report of sexual assault was sent to Captain Jason Neubaeur at the USCG, Chief of the office of Investigations & Analysis.
Your department's 2017-2018 SASH report states that after being referred to the USCG there was "No criminal prosecution" and that the Felony Sex Crime was then "referred to shipping company for administrative handling."
I would like to bring to your attention the fact that Criminal Prosecution is not the only option that the USCG has to punish mariners.
The USCG also has the "Suspension & Revocation" process that is uses hundreds of times every year to punish mariners for misconduct at sea.
Your report does not mention whether or not the USCG sought to use the S&R process to punish the mariner, and I am asking you to find out if an S&R investigation was initiated at the USCG and if indeed any investigation was ever initiated at the USCG over this report of sexual assault sent to the uscg by your department.
Secretary Chao, I have heard some very disturbing stories about the relationship between Captain Eugene Albert, the man who has been in charge of the Academy's Sea Year program for the past 15 years, and the men in the USCG's "Safety" office.
These stories paint a picture of two organizations (the USMMA and USCG) working together to make reports of sexual assault of USMMA midshipmen "disappear."
And I fear that is exactly what may have happened in this case.
Secretary Chao, I am asking you to launch an investigation into this report of sexual assault at sea and into how it was handled by your DOT and by the USCG.
I am also calling for an investigation into the results of the "Administrative Handling" that was done by the shipping company that was stated in the Report.
Learning how this sexual assault was handled by the shipping company is critical to our understanding of whether or not the MARAD policies that resulted from the "Sea Year Standdown" have actually worked.
We also need to learn if the person who sexualy assaulted this USMMA student is still employed by this company, still a member of his or her labor union, and whether or not the USMMA is continuing to send students out to vessels where this man or woman is working, thereby putting these students in danger of future sexual assaults.
Secretary Chao, an investigation of these matters literally has the potential to prevent future sexual assaults.
Thank you for your consideration of this request for an investigation.
V/R
J. Ryan Melogy
Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy