Sexual Misconduct

The superintendent of the Naval Academy, Vice Adm. Richard J. Naughton, made a forceful statement yesterday expressing "zero tolerance" for sexual assault at the military college and vowing to promptly investigate all complaints. It was Naughton's first public statement on the issue since the Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs, Colo., came under fire for its mishandling of sexual assault cases. It seemed aimed at assuring the school's oversight panel and the public that the Naval Academy was committed to aggressively pursuing complaints of sexual misconduct.

The superintendent of the Naval Academy, Vice Adm. Richard J. Naughton, made a forceful statement yesterday expressing "zero tolerance" for sexual assault at the military college and vowing to promptly investigate all complaints. It was Naughton's first public statement on the issue since the Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs, Colo., came under fire for its mishandling of sexual assault cases. The statement seemed aimed at assuring the school's oversight panel and the public that the Naval Academy was committed to aggressively pursuing complaints of sexual misconduct.

TEN YEARS ago, Navy Lt. Paula Coughlin did something unprecedented in military history: She aired the U.S. military's dirty linen on national TV, discussing her assault by male colleagues at the now-notorious Tailhook aviators' convention. Lieutenant Coughlin's appearance on ABC News shook the Navy, jump-started a stalled criminal investigation and put a human face on the huge problem of sexual misconduct in the military. It also effectively ended her career. Paula Coughlin was the first in a decade-long line of women in the military and in quasi-military agencies such as the FBI who have risked everything by going public to right wrongs within their ranks.

Conscience is an active virtue. It is an active combining of knowledge of the good with moral courage to do the good. -Thomas Aquinas IN BOOK II of The Republic, Plato has his mentor, Socrates, explore with his students what it means to act in a morally responsible way. In dialogue, Socrates alludes to an ancient Greek tale, "The Ring of Gyges." The wearer of the ring was rendered invisible, though he still could affect the material world as do visible bodies. In Socrates' version, Gyges, a shepherd, possesses the ring and uses it without fear of reprisal.

WHEN DONTEE Stokes was 17, he accused the Rev. Maurice Blackwell, a priest of the Baltimore Catholic Archdiocese, of having molested him. The archdiocese did not find the charge "credible." But it removed Father Blackwell from his parish in 1998 when he admitted to having sex with a boy. On Monday, according to police, Mr. Stokes shot Mr. Blackwell, though not fatally. Of course, there is such a thing as a false accusation of sexual misconduct. But let me say this, as someone merely expressing an opinion without knowing the parties: I believe Dontee Stokes.

A nationally renowned psychiatric hospital that for years has treated clergy accused of sexual misconduct now says it was deceived by the Roman Catholic Church into providing reports that the church used to keep abusive priests in the ministry. The church sometimes concealed information about past complaints against clergy sent for treatment and disregarded warnings that the hospital's evaluations should not determine a priest's fitness for parish work, said doctors at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Conn.

Baltimore police are investigating sexual misconduct allegations that led to the firing of a male teacher at the Institute of Notre Dame this week. A spokesman for the city Police Department said detectives were interviewing school staff and students yesterday to determine whether any charges would be filed against the teacher, who was accused of carrying on a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student. Police said the former teacher, who was not identified, had not yet been questioned.

WASHINGTON - Intensifying a sexual misconduct inquiry that began last spring, the Marine Corps has charged two drill instructors with raping trainees at a base in Missouri, officials say. The rape charges are an outgrowth of misconduct cases brought against seven Marine instructors in a training detachment at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. All were accused in April of a range of charges, including sexual harassment and inappropriate sexual relations with students under their jurisdiction.

TOKYO - The top U.S. military official in Okinawa apologized profusely yesterday for an incident on Monday in which a U.S. Marine allegedly entered a private residence on the southern Japanese island and sexually molested a 14-year-old girl. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Earl B. Hailston visited Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine at the prefecture government's office to make a formal apology, which included a Japanese bow of contrition. The general was accompanied by the U.S. consul-general of Okinawa, Robert Lake.

WASHINGTON -- In November 1996, then-Maj. Gen. Claudia J. Kennedy, the Army's most-high-profile female officer, was called upon for a special assignment. Reeling from widespread reports of sexual misconduct at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, Army leaders had named her to a panel that was investigating whether the Army was facing a service-wide harassment problem. What the Army didn't know was that several weeks earlier, Kennedy had been involved in an incident with a fellow general that she says amounted to sexual misconduct.