Wed. June 30, 2004
Washington, DC -
Four years after the Pentagon issued an Anti-Harassment Action Plan to address anti-gay harassment, and a full year after a Congressional inquiry into the matter, the Department of Defense issued it first formal review of its efforts to curb anti-gay harassment in the armed forces. In a July 24, 2004 letter to Members of Congress, Under Secretary of Defense David Chu said implementation of the policy “varies” by service.
“The Department of Defense’s response is feckless,” said C. Dixon Osburn, Executive Director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN). “In four years, the Pentagon has failed to produce evidence of full compliance with its own Anti-Harassment Action Plan, and it has failed to measure and report the level of anti-gay harassment in the field.”
The Pentagon adopted the Anti-Harassment Action Plan after the July 1999 murder of Private First Class Barry Winchell at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The two soldiers who killed Winchell thought he was gay. Soldiers later testified that Winchell endured daily taunts for four months prior to his murder. The resulting plan calls for annual, rank-appropriate training for all military personnel, a clear definition of harassment, accountability for those engaging in or condoning harassment, and annual reporting on each Service’s implementation of the plan.
In his letter to Congress, Under Secretary Chu states that “measuring the true outcomes of a policy or training is difficult,” despite the DOD Inspector General having done just that in 1999. In December of that year, the Department of Defense Inspector General conducted a survey of 72,000 troops to assess level of anti-gay sentiment in the filed. The Inspector General found that:
• 80% of respondents had heard derogatory, anti-gay remarks during the past year;
• 37% of respondents had witnessed or experienced targeted incidents of anti-gay harassment; and
• 9% of respondents reported witnessing or experiencing anti-gay physical assaults.
Despite such alarming levels of harassment, SLDN reported in its March 2004 Conduct Unbecoming report that “none of the individual services have implemented the training requirements spelled out under the AHAP,” that “no service has properly instructed personnel on how to safely report anti-gay harassment,” and that “The Pentagon has failed to issue a single Department-wide directive on harassment.” And while Chu suggests that the Service Inspector Generals have conducted similar surveys annually, he failed to reveal any data collected from such efforts.
Chu described the existing Service policies and programs as “sufficient to address” harassment and stated that Pentagon leaders concluded “[a] directive is not necessary” despite overwhelming evidence of persistent harassment throughout each branch of the Services.
“We applaud the Pentagon’s commitment to training personnel on harassment, but training must be comprehensive and, above all, must produce results” said Rep. Marty Meehan (D-MA), a member of the House Armed Services Committee. “Despite Undersecretary Chu’s praise for Pentagon policy, the evidence supporting such endorsement is lacking in his report and should be made available. A single death threat is one too many.”
In fact, reports of anti-gay harassment have been continuous and persistent. Specialist Brad Powell reported to SLDN in 2002 that his command encouraged soldiers to visualize “blowing up a gay bar” while throwing grenades and that NCOs told soldiers that “the only thing a good fag needs is a good fag bashing.” Just months ago, another service member reported finding a live grenade taped to his barracks door.
“Such abusive harassment flies in the face of Under Secretary Chu’s claim that the programs already in place are effective or sufficient,” Osburn said. "Our leaders must take harassment seriously at the very top. To do otherwise puts our men and women in uniform at risk."
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