Forbes reports on a Senate hearing that focused on the Coast Guard Academy’s handing of reports of rape, sexual assaults, harassment, and abuse.

On July 13, members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation took turns raging at the Coast Guard’s “heartbreaking, maddening, frustrating and intolerable” record of handling sexual assaults at the Coast Guard Academy. Furious legislators slapped the embattled Service with an Inspector General investigation and demanded greater accountability from a Coast Guard that is struggling to reconcile a demanding, zero-defect culture with an imperfect reality.

But the hearing and the post looked beyond these immediate concerns and talks about Coast Guard “zero defects” culture in general, and OPC procurement in particular.

Some prior posts that may be related:

• “Editor’s Notes: Why the Coast Guard Lags When It Comes to Unmanned Systems” –National Defense, July 2023
• “Message from CGA Superintendent and CG Commandant” –US Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association, June 2023
• “US Coast Guard Ready to Move New Anti-SASH Policy” (SASH=Sexual Assault Sexual Harassment) –Marine Link, June 2023
• “Who Blocked The IMO From Passing New Midshipman X Initiatives?” –Coast Guard is a Prime Suspect, Feb. 2022
• What Frustrates Me? –an Apparent Lack of Transparent Long Term Planning, Dec. 2019
• New Military Law Concerning Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Aug. 2018
• “Military fails to advise sexual assault victims of civilian court option, advocates say”–USA Today, June 2018
• State of the Coast Guard 2018 Address, Mar 2018
• Defense News Interviews the Commandant, March 2015
• A Hard Topic–But Important, Jan. 2011

Obviously not a new problem. Transparency is hard when one oh-shit wipes out seven at-a-boys, but we need to be honest with ourselves and welcome honesty. We also need to treat every felony as what it is, a serious crime.

Thanks to John W. for bringing this to my attention.