Zero Sexual Assaults Have Been Reported Aboard U.S. Maritime Academy Training Ships in the Past 30 Years, According to Newly Released U.S. Coast Guard Documents

According to documents obtained by Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy via the Freedom of Information Act, within the past 30 years not a single allegation of sexual assault has been reported to the United States Coast Guard by the Master of U.S. maritime academy training vessel as required by 46 USC 10104.

 46 USC 10104  states that “a master or other individual in charge of a documented vessel shall report to the Secretary a complaint of a sexual offense prohibited under chapter 109A of title 18, United States Code.”

The clear reading of this federal shipboard sexual assault allegation reporting statute is that 46 USC 10104 applies to all of the maritime academy training ships, because they are USCG documented and regulated vessels.  These training ships include: 

1. T/V Kings Pointer at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy 

2. USTS General Rudder at The Texas A&M Maritime Academy

3. TS Empire State at the SUNY Maritime Academy

4. TS Kennedy at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy

5. TS State of Maine at Maine Maritime Academy

6. TS Golden Bear at California Maritime Academy

MLAA’s FOIA request to the U.S. Coast Guard regarding this issue was very clear:

Documents and Data Requested:

1) All reports of sexual offenses received by the USCG pursuant to 46 U.S. Code § 10104 since the law was added to the Code of Federal Regulations in 1989, with any personally identifiable information about the victim or the accused omitted from the report, only if required by law. 

In the approximately 1,000 pages of documents turned over to MLAA by the U.S. Coast Guard, which date back more than 30 years, there are ZERO reports of complaints of sexual offenses that have been submitted to the United States Coast Guard by the master of a U.S. maritime academy training ship, or by the master or other person in charge of any vessel owned and operated by a U.S. maritime academy.

Students training aboard U.S. maritime academy training ships are U.S. Coast Guard credentialed mariners operating under the authority of those credentials, and any allegation of a sexual assault of any kind, including an illegal touching, made by one of those students to anyone in a position of authority onboard that vessel is legally required to be logged in the training ship’s official logbook and is required to be reported to the United States Coast Guard by the master of the vessel so that the incident can be investigated by federal law enforcement officers.

As crewmembers aboard a U.S. flag vessel, allegations of sexual assaults that occurred ashore while an individual was assigned to the vessel must also be logged in the ship’s official logbook and reported to the U.S. Coast Guard by the master of the vessel.

46 USC 10104 also applies to smaller training vessels owned and operated by maritime academies if those vessels are USCG documented vessels.  Any allegation of sexual aboard any academy owned vessel, if it is USCG documented, must be reported to the U.S. Coast Guard in accordance with 46 USC 10104.

Based on the documents received from the USCG, there appear to be two possibilities that explain the lack of 10104 reports from the U.S. maritime academies:

1. In the past 30 years, not a single person working or training aboard a USCG documented training vessel owned and operated by a U.S. maritime academy has made an allegation of sexual assault that occurred onboard the vessel or ashore, or

2. U.S. maritime academies and the masters of the martime academy training ships have been willfully violating the federal shipboard sexual assault allegation reporting requirement defined in 46 USC 10104, and they have been covering up sexual assaults and hiding them from law enforcement.