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Sexual harassment in US Air Force shows leadership failure

Thursday, 12 February 2015 8:41 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 12 February 2015 11:02 PM ]

Sexual assault against female cadets shows the Air Force can’t do what is necessary, says Dean.

Sexual harassment against US Air Force Academy’s female cadets is indicative of leadership failure in the Air Force, says Jim W. Dean, managing editor and columnist of Veterans Today.

Dean made the comments in an interview with Press TV on Thursday when asked about a Pentagon report showing one in ten female cadets of the academy suffered unwanted sexual harassment during the school year that ended in May.

Among military academies for the academic year, Air Force had the highest number of reported sexual assaults, topping the US Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. and Annapolis, which had 11 and 23 respectively, showed the report which was released Wednesday.

With regard to “West Point, because it is the premier institution and if they are not able to stop this and bring these numbers down considerably at the West Point Academy, it really shows a failure of leadership,” Dean stated.

“It’s really a combination of the failure of the leadership to want to do what needs to be done,” he added.

According to the report, fifty percent of the women at the Air Force school reported sexual harassment.

“A lot of this unfortunately happens in the regular military kind of the sergeant level because that’s the first rank up where private female sergeants have a direct superior that’s over them,” Dean said.

Air Force has embarked on programs to train cadets on preventing sexual assault since a 2003 scandal, when many women said their reports were either mishandled or ignored.

AT/AT

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