NEW YORK – Two decades after integration of the U.S. military, race riots flared on Navy warships in the Vietnam era. Long after servicewomen were officially placed on an equal footing with men, sexual harassment is still pervasive.
Now the military has a new social challenge: Allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the ranks. It is expected that commanders will dutifully implement the policy, and overall it will likely be judged a success, but recent history provides some cautionary lessons.
On one hand, the military has earned a deserved reputation as a meritocracy in which minorities and women can flourish. On the other hand, sexual assault remains a rampant problem, and racism was minimized only after years of friction within the ranks.
Perhaps the impending repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy will unfold more easily, but some female veterans say that will be the case only if commanders are vigilant and aggressive in quashing anti-gay harassment.
“When women come forward to report sexual harassment, that’s when a commander’s courage is tested,” said Anuradha Bhagwati, a former Marine captain who heads the Service Women’s Action Network. “Even though we have fairly decent policies on paper, enforcement of basic harassment policies is very shoddy.”
Bhagwati’s network is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed 13 December seeking access to Pentagon records on the thousands of sexual assault and harassment cases reported in the past decade. In fiscal year 2009 alone, the Defense Department said there were 3,230 reports of sexual assault involving service members.
As with sexual assault, there will soon be explicit regulations on how commanders should deal with anti-gay harassment, but Bhagwati said some officers may shy away from enforcing them so as not to publicize problems within their units.
