I was Sexually Assaulted During Sea Year: Afterwards, My ATR Threatened to “Stick” Me, Never Asked Me Questions, Reported It, or Investigated. Then He Sent Another Cadet to the Same Ship Days Later

*This firsthand account was submitted to MLAA by a graduate of the United States Merchant Marine Academy.

During Sea Year I was sailing as an Engine Cadet aboard a ship operated by Central Gulf Lines.

While I was sailing aboard the vessel, I was sexually assaulted by one of the crew members.  My Academy Training Representative (ATR), who is now the Head of the Department of Shipboard Training.

I immediately contacted my Academy Training Representative via email, told him I had an emergency, had been sexually assaulted, and needed to get off of the ship immediately.  My ATR arranged for me to get off at the next port and I was then flown back to Kings Point.

When I got back to school, My ATR did not ask me any questions about the sexual assault or about what happened.  He also never directed me to report the assault to anyone at Kings Point, and never offered me any kind of support services.

Instead, he threatened to “stick me” (discipline me by giving me restriction and demerits) because I did not return to school with my cadet eval form, which is called the “Ship's Officer Review of Midshipman Performance.”  This is an evaluation form that is supposed to be completed by your supervisor on the ship.

My ATR acted as if it would make sense for me to have an evaluation from a ship where I was sexually assaulted and then suddenly removed from the ship.  It was ridiculous. He turned the situation around on me as if I had done something wrong. I think part of it was that he wanted to make me afraid of being disciplined if I did report what happened to someone else at the school.  

During my time at KP I’ve heard some other bad stories about the way ATRs treat cadets, and I don’t think my experience is in any way unique.

But that’s not even the worst part.  

Soon after I was removed from the ship, I received a text from one of my classmates.  My classmate knew that I had recently sailed on that ship, and this classmate wanted to ask me what the ship was like, because my classmate had just been assigned to the ship by the same ATR and was about to fly out to join the ship.  The classmate was also an Engine Cadet and would be working with the exact same people I was working with, including the person who sexually assaulted me.

This was only days after I was removed from the ship.

I just told my classmate that the ship was “dangerous,” and to be very careful.  But I was afraid to be too explicit about what had happened to me.  

This classmate was the same sex as me, and I don’t know if anything happened to this person aboard the ship or not.  We never spoke about it again.

But I think it is totally ridiculous that Kings Point removed a cadet from a ship because of a serious allegation of sexual assault and then sent another cadet right back into the exact same environment at his earliest opportunity without even doing any kind of investigation, without even asking me any questions about what had happened, without reporting it to anyone, and without warning the other cadet about what had just happened to me.

I think there are serious problems with the way the Sea Year program is run.  The ATRs don’t seem to care about cadets getting sexually harassed or sexually assaulted.  They only seem to care about making sure people are getting their sea days and keeping the shipping companies and the ships’ officers happy.  

Something needs to change.