DEOMI News Highlights
DEOMI News Highlights is a weekly compilation of published items and commentary with a focus on equal
opportunity, equal employment opportunity, diversity, culture, and human relations issues. DEOMI News
Highlights is also a management tool intended to serve the informational needs of equity professionals and senior
DOD officials in the continuing assessment of defense policies, programs, and actions. Further reproduction or
redistribution for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions.
Female Marine Joining Infantry Through Process Previously Closed to Women [Carla Babb, Voice of
America, 16 March 2017]
 One woman will make history next week as the first female Marine to join the infantry through the
traditional entry-level training process that was previously unavailable to women, officials tell VOA.
 The Marine is finishing up her training as a mortarwoman and will graduate next week from the U.S.
Marine Corps School of Infantry at Camp Geiger in eastern North Carolina, said Marine Capt. Joshua
Pena, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Training and Education Command.
 The Marines now have a total of four infantrywomen. Three female Marines joined 1st Battalion, 8th
Marine Regiment at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, in January after making a lateral move request to
join the infantry.
Female Marine Joining Infantry Through Process Previously Closed to Women
Marine Corps social media policy: Cyberbullying is illegal [Jeff Schogol, Marine Corps Times, 15
March 2017]
 Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller has made it clear that Marines who engage in cyberbullying and
other predatory behavior online can face criminal charges.
 Posted [Tuesday], ALMAR 008/17 lists the articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that apply to
the types of behavior found on the Marines United Facebook group and other websites.
 The Marine Corps’ updated social media policy makes clear that Marines who threaten, harass, or
discriminate against people online can be charged with failure to obey an order or regulation, the
message to the Corps says.
Marine Corps social media policy: Cyberbullying is illegal
Sex assault reports up at Navy, Army academies [Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press, 15 March
2017]
 Reports of sexual assaults increased at two of the three military academies last year and an anonymous
survey suggests sexual misconduct rose across the board at the schools, The Associated Press has
learned.
 The new data underscore the challenge in stemming bad behavior by young people at the military college
campuses, despite a slew of programs designed to prevent assaults, help victims, and encourage them to
come forward. The difficulties in some ways mirror those the larger military is struggling with amid
revelations about Marines and other service members sharing nude photos on websites.
 Assault reports rose at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the U.S. Military Academy
at West Point, New York, while dropping at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. The Air Force
decline was sharp, going to 32 last year from 49 in 2015, contributing to a decrease in the overall number
of reported assaults at the academies. The total reported cases fell to 86 from 91 in 2015, according to
details obtained by The Associated Press.
Sex assault reports up at Navy, Army academies
17 March 2017
Page 1
DEOMI News Highlights
Culture
At the Museum of Tolerance, Holding a Mirror to Visitors’ Biases
Scars of looting, destruction all that remain at Mosul museum
Discrimination
Federal court: Texas House districts must be redrawn
Hate crimes reported in D.C. are up
Diversity
Celebrating women in the Navy
Female Marine Joining Infantry Through Process Previously Closed to Women
Indian-Americans rise to key roles in Trump’s administration
St. Patrick’s parade organizers will allow gay vets to march
Women’s History Month: Celebrating Accomplished Army Women
Miscellaneous
Afghans Who Worked for U.S. Are Told Not to Apply for Visas, Advocates Say
How Healthy Are You? G.O.P. Bill Would Help Employers Find Out
VA plans to help ‘bad paper’ veterans don’t go far enough [OPINION]
What the Michael Brown video tells us [OPINION]
Misconduct
Defense report reveals details about SEALs unit punished for flying Trump flag in Kentucky
Hearing Set for Drill Instructor Linked to Muslim Recruit’s Suicide
Pension Reforms, Punishments for Porn Watchers Advance
Retired admiral, 8 others charged in latest ‘Fat Leonard’ indictments
Racism
In Georgia, reaction to KKK banner is a sign of the times
People see Black men as larger and stronger than White men—even when they’re not, study says
Religion
Ban on Head Scarves at Work Is Legal, E.U. Court Rules
A man assumed a store’s Indian owners were Muslim. So he tried to burn it down, police say.
Senators want more security funding for Jewish centers
Sexism
Judge who asked woman why she couldn’t keep knees together resigns
Sexual Assault/Harassment
Flight attendants sue, say they’ve been called sows, prostitutes and worse on Facebook
Forced to have sex with 1,000 men, a girl is now suing the motel that she says let it happen
Revenge porn: How to make it stop
Sex assault reports up at Navy, Army academies
***MARINE CORPS NUDE PHOTO SCANDAL***
About 500 Accessed Drive With Nude Photos of Marines: Neller
Harassed Online, She Remains Determined to Enlist in the Marines
How the Marine Corps’ widening nude photo scandal has spread throughout the military
Inside Marines United: Infighting roiled the group that sparked the military’s nude photo scandal
Marine Corps social media policy: Cyberbullying is illegal
Marines eye changes to recruit training amid renewed calls for coed boot camp
NCIS has identified hundreds of Marines who are members of Marines United
Task Force to Investigate Cultural Roots of Alleged USMC Photo Sharing
Top Marine asks women to ‘trust us’ in nude-photo inquiry
Top Marine: Nude photo-sharing scandal shows ‘We’ve got to change’
With Their Leaders at a Loss, Marine Veterans Fight Abusers
17 March 2017
Page 2
Culture
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/arts/at-the-museum-of-tolerance-holding-a-mirror-to-visitorsbiases.html
At the Museum of Tolerance, Holding a Mirror to Visitors’
Biases
By Jarrett Hill
The New York Times, March 11, 2017
The Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles draws on Holocaust
narratives and other accounts of injustice to inspire conversations
about present-day prejudice. (Credit: Benny Chan/Fotoworks)
LOS ANGELES — “The courage and morality of a society is
always on trial, and in crisis it is tested to the limits,” said Liebe
Geft, the director of the Museum of Tolerance.
These words have a particular resonance in today’s political culture, a climate for which the museum has
been “preprogrammed,” Ms. Geft said.
The museum, which is decidedly apolitical and nonpartisan, uses animated walk-through exhibits, questionfocused interactive media and docents trained to lead difficult conversations to bring attention to
oppression and injustice worldwide.
“The entire approach here, in the way we train our guides and docents, in the way we introduce skilled and
professional facilitators to all of our programs, is to be able to have those difficult discussions,” Ms. Geft
said. “To look at those challenges to society, the fears that we have, to acknowledge the struggles — and
they’re always there — they are intensified in this climate.”
The space here is not new, but its message and historical content seem particularly apt — both in the
United States and abroad — with the decline of “political correctness” and an increase in crimes rooted in
racism and xenophobia.
The exhibits integrate Holocaust narratives and other accounts of injustice with present-day stories of
prejudice.
The museum is operated by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a global human rights organization whose
research focuses on the Holocaust and “hate in a historic and contemporary context,” according to its
website.
Part of its mission will involve opening the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem. Since that city already has
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, that location will focus less on the Holocaust
than on the 3,500-year history of the Jewish people, their resilience and their contributions to the world. It
will also include the experiential elements featured in the original center.
While the Los Angeles museum is a popular destination for schoolchildren on field trips, the “Tools for
Tolerance” classes it offers are a major draw for adults.
These professional development courses — attended by groups that include law enforcement personnel,
health care providers, educators and corporate executives — focus on being more inclusive, combating
implicit bias and improving community relations. Demand for the programs is high, and the number of
people who can take them is limited by the amount of funding the center can raise.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/arts/at-the-museum-of-tolerance-holding-a-mirror-to-visitorsbiases.html
An artist’s rendering of the new center of the Museum of Tolerance
that will be built in Jerusalem. (Credit: Simon Wiesenthal Center)
Ms. Geft said the programs are effective because participants meet,
work with and are trained by civil rights champions, Holocaust
survivors and resilient people who have thrived despite
experiencing refugee crises, human rights violations, hate crimes
and more.
Discussion plays a central role in these classes, as it does in the
museum proper. There are frequent film screenings that are less
about seeing a movie than about fostering debate in the question-and-answer sessions. These exchanges can
be filled with vocal disagreement, cheers and boos.
There is also a polling station with a question that changes to reflect the news. Recently, President Trump’s
travel ban was the topic. Ms. Geft said the question drew the strongest response she had ever seen.
“Huge, huge majorities,” she said. “It’s never been less than 84 percent, and sometimes 96 percent, saying,
‘No, we don’t support this.’”
Ms. Geft said the museum “is not a kumbaya place where everything goes and it’s ‘hold hands and be
happy.’”
“This is a place where we confront the really difficult challenges in life and explore the gray areas in the
moral and ethical dimensions of the decisions we have to make,” she said. “Not putting anyone down or
discrediting or disrespecting them — it works both ways — but pointing out the importance of creating an
inclusive society where every person is respected.”
The museum is starting an initiative to connect as many as 10,000 children in the United States with Syrian
children in refugee camps. The program will send thousands of pinwheels to the camps and set up video
calls so the children can talk to one another and develop relationships.
“It’s extremely important that these children in these terrible circumstances know that we care about them,
that there are other people, even far away, that may not know them personally, that care about them and
want to help,” Ms. Geft said.
Exhibits are designed to challenge visitors’ biases by taking them through experiences based on the news,
asking questions about the people involved and highlighting how everyone plays a role in discrimination.
The Holocaust portion of the museum has each visitor follow a different child who lived during the period.
As the visitor moves through the guided experience, he or she sees various horrors of Nazi Germany, and
ultimately learns of the child’s fate.
While most museums encourage visitors to walk around, observe, learn and leave through the gift shop, the
Museum of Tolerance is not a collection of artifacts, great works and retail space. Although it has some of
those things, it is more of a social laboratory. Visitors may learn as much about themselves as they do about
what they see.
Ms. Geft said she asked her son how they could encourage his friends to go to the museum. “He said, ‘In
the time it takes to see a movie, come to the museum and change the way you see the world and your role
in it,’” she said. “And that’s what we’re trying to do here.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-mosul-museum-idUSKBN16I0M2
Scars of looting, destruction all that remain at Mosul
museum
By Kawa Omar
Reuters, March 12, 2017
A destroyed artifact is seen at a museum, where Islamic State
militants filmed themselves destroying priceless statues and
sculptures in 2015, during a battle against the militants in Mosul,
Iraq, March 11, 2017. (REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani)
After two and a half years under Islamic State control, all that is left
in Mosul's museum are the traces of looting and destruction.
Inside the rubble-strewn building, where militants filmed
themselves destroying ancient artifacts, the large stone wing of a statue of lamassu -- an Assyrian winged
bull deity -- lies on the dusty floor among other broken remnants of the past.
A block engraved with Arabic Islamic calligraphy lies close by, and some Islamic manuscripts have been
left undamaged. But almost everything else has gone.
"What they didn't loot they destroyed," said Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammedawi, of Iraq's
elite Rapid Response units, who captured the museum building from Islamic State just days ago.
The battle against the militants still raged nearby on Saturday, however, as a Reuters cameraman visited the
site with Iraqi troops.
Dozens of Assyrian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Persian and Roman artifacts that the ransacked museum held
have all been stolen or damaged.
"Some were smuggled out of Iraq," Mohammedawi said.
Islamic State militants filmed themselves smashing some of the building's contents including priceless
statues with sledgehammers in 2015, as part of their highly publicized campaign to erase any cultural
history that contravenes their extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam.
But they have also used the antiquities as a source of income. Excavations under an ancient mosque
elsewhere in Mosul, recently discovered after the militants retreated, showed that they took care of artifacts
for loot.
The efforts to avoid damaging some antiquities contrast with the destruction of ancient sites across Islamic
State's self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq, from the desert city of Palmyra to the Assyrian capital of
Nimrud, south of Mosul.
The United States has said the looting and smuggling of artifacts has been a significant source of income
for the militants. In July 2015, U.S. authorities handed Iraq a hoard of antiquities it said it had seized from
Islamic State in Syria.
A U.S.-backed Iraqi campaign dislodged Islamic State from most Iraqi cities captured in 2014 and 2015.
The militant group is now fighting in its last major urban stronghold, in the western part of Mosul, where
the museum is located.
The outside of the building, which features Roman-style columns, is blackened from shell or rocket blasts
and peppered with bullet holes.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-mosul-museum-idUSKBN16I0M2
A Chaldean Catholic church next to it has also been mostly gutted, its altar cracked down the middle.
The body of an Islamic State fighter lay just outside the church on Saturday, days after the fighting had
moved further forward.
Iraqi troops dusted off some of the historical stone slabs lying on the floor in the museum, which lies just
outside Mosul's old city -- one of the final Islamic State strongholds in Mosul.
(Writing by John Davison; Editing by Helen Popper)
SEE ALSO:
Inside Mosul museum destroyed by Islamic State [Reuters, 2017-03-13] [Photo gallery]
ISIS devastated Mosul Museum, or did it? [CNN, 2017-03-13]
Discrimination
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/323522-federal-court-texas-house-districts-must-be-redrawn
Federal court: Texas House districts must be redrawn
By Reid Wilson
The Hill, March 11, 2017
Texas state flag (Getty Images)
A panel of federal judges in San Antonio ruled late Friday that the
Texas state legislature must redraw congressional maps in three
districts it said unconstitutionally discriminates against Hispanic
voters.
In a 2-1 ruling, district court judges found the Texas legislature
violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. They ordered the legislature to redraw lines defining districts
held by Texas Reps. Will Hurd (R), Blake Farenthold(R) and Lloyd Doggett (D).
The two judges who ruled for the plaintiffs found Republicans repeatedly tried to dilute the political power
of Latino voters — either packing them into one specific district, or dividing communities between separate
districts, a process called "cracking."
"The Court finds that this evidence persuasively demonstrates that map drawers intentionally packed and
cracked on the basis of race ... with the intent to dilute minority voting strength," Judges Xavier Rodriguez
and Orlando Garcia wrote.
Texas Democrats called the ruling a victory for voting rights.
"The San Antonio Federal District Court ruled that Texas Republicans intentionally discriminated against
Texas’ diverse new majority," said Gilberto Hinojosa, the state Democratic Party chairman. "Republicans
have ensured that the dark days of discrimination in Texas continue to loom, but the sun will soon shine. In
time, justice prevails."
Texas Republicans did not immediately react to the ruling.
The decision is the latest step in a years-long legal battle over the Texas legislature's efforts to give
Republicans a leg up in congressional races in Texas — a fight that began even before district lines were
finalized after the 2010 Census.
Disputes over district lines in the Dallas-Fort Worth area after the Census awarded Texas several new
House seats delayed enactment of new maps prior to the 2012 elections, and delayed that year's primary —
giving a little-known Senate candidate named Ted Cruz an extra few weeks to campaign for a seat he
ultimately won.
Later, the legal fight shifted to the Austin area, where Doggett's seat is based; to Farenthold's district, along
the Gulf Coast; and to the border with Mexico, where Hurd's district lies.
The San Antonio-based district court ruled in 2013 that the legislature violated a different provision of the
Voting Rights Act that would require Texas to seek federal approval before making dramatic changes to
election procedures. But the U.S. Supreme Court later struck down that provision, forcing plaintiffs to bring
suit under Section 2.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/hate-crimes-reported-in-dc-areup/2017/03/10/bdd93bc6-05af-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html
Hate crimes reported in D.C. are up
By Peter Hermann
The Washington Post, March 10, 2017
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and acting police chief Peter
Newsham address the rise in hate crimes in the District during a
news conference March 10, 2017, at the Sixth and I synagogue.
(Peter Hermann/The Washington Post)
The number of hate-related crimes reported in the District rose last
year from 2015, with an increase in incidents targeting religion,
ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, D.C. police and
the mayor’s office said Friday.
Authorities noted in particular that crimes motivated by religious bias, such as threats and assaults, jumped
from five in 2015 to 18 last year. Acting police chief Peter Newsham, who is awaiting confirmation by the
D.C. Council, said 12 of the 18 incidents targeted people of the Jewish faith.
There were 107 hate crimes reported in the District in 2016, up from 66 the previous year, which was the
lowest number in five years. “Certainly, the level of anxiety among Washingtonians has increased,” said
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D).
The numbers were made public at a news conference at the Sixth and I synagogue, attended by Bowser and
Newsham, who were flanked by members of the District’s diverse faith community.
Although D.C. leaders attributed the increase in part to residents feeling more comfortable and confident in
reporting crime to police — “I believe we have a city that is less tolerant of this type of behavior,” the
mayor said — they also noted the contentious presidential election and divisive rhetoric embedded in the
nation’s discourse.
Telephone threats to Jewish community centers and other institutions have increased across the country this
year, with several occurring in suburban Washington. The FBI reported a 6 percent rise in hate crimes
across the nation in 2015, the latest available statistics.
In the District in August, anti-Semitic graffiti was found near Gallery Place — the word “Jew” written in a
drawing of a Chinese zodiac rat decorating a sidewalk, and swastikas drawn on windows and tables of a
Starbucks. A 60-year-old man was arrested.
Rabbi Batya Steinlauf, director of communal affairs for the Jewish Community Relations Council of
Greater Washington, said she is not surprised by the increase in hate crimes in general and those directed at
Jews.
“The Jewish community has been well aware of the undercurrent of anti-Semitism,” Steinlauf said. She
added, “Any attack on any faith community, any ethnic community, any vulnerable group, affects the entire
culture, and how everyone feels in society. . . . I feel grateful that we in D.C. have relationships so that we
can stand together to make it clear that this is not what our society is about.”
Other increases in hate crimes in 2016 included those targeting people based on ethnicity and national
origin, up from three to 12; sexual orientation, up from 27 to 40; and gender identity, up from 10 to 19.
Hate crimes based on race went down from 19 in 2015 to 14 reported last year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/hate-crimes-reported-in-dc-areup/2017/03/10/bdd93bc6-05af-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html
Bowser said she is redoubling efforts to reach out to the District’s transgender community. This week,
prosecutors secured hate-crime indictments against three men charged with killing a 22-year-old
transgender woman and for targeting two other transgender women in robberies. Authorities said the crimes
were motivated by prejudice because of the gender identity of the victims.
And earlier this year, Newsham took direct oversight of a police office that helps transgender, gay and
lesbian and other residents in groups that often experience discrimination, signaling those efforts are being
given top-level priority.
Bowser said she wants to send a message that “everyone feels welcome and is welcome in our city.” She
added, “We are a place of tolerance and respect, a place where every resident has a pathway to opportunity.
We are a Washington that values respect, inclusivity and diversity.”
Newsham noted that 107 crimes is a small fraction of the more than 35,000 crimes reported in the District
in 2016. But he said “it is important that everybody knows” about the increase in hate crimes. “We will not
accept this as the new norm.”
Diversity
http://wavy.com/2017/03/15/celebrating-women-in-the-navy/
Celebrating women in the Navy
By Marielena Balouris
WAVY.com, March 15, 2017
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – It was a celebration of women Wednesday at Naval Station Norfolk as part of
the Navy base’s centennial and Women’s History Month.
A number of women spoke at the event. Some were the first to serve on ships, and others challenged the
Navy and helped make it what it is today.
“We really didn’t know what our rules, except we found out as we tried to do different things,” said
Charlotte Crist, a retired senior chief. “You were supposed to be feminine first, and now you come in the
Navy and you’ve got to be a sailor.”
Crist joined the Navy in 1964 as a recruit at Naval Station Norfolk. She was a WAVE — Women Accepted
for Volunteer Emergency Service.
“I’ve heard people say that women had to break the glass ceiling,” Crist said. “When I came in the Navy in
’64, I felt like it wasn’t a ceiling, it was a bubble they put us in.”
Crist was joined by other female pioneers, like Yona Owens, who sued the Navy in 1976.
Owens said, “You just didn’t run into women who… ‘What do you do?’ ‘Oh I’m in the military.’ Nope.”
She, and a group of enlisted women and officers, challenged the law that barred women from sea duty. In
1978, the court ruled in her favor and Navy women were able to serve on all non-combatant ships.
“Davey Jones’ locker was supposed to explode if this happened,” said Owens.
In 1994, it changed again. Women began serving on combatant ships, opening doors that remain that way
to this day.
“I think that they were very brave and courageous. I don’t think I would’ve had the courage to stand up and
want to fight for us,” said Tatyana Marshall who is an active duty seaman.
There was also a panel that featured active-duty service women. The Hampton Roads Naval Museum
helped coordinate the event.
http://www.voanews.com/a/female-marines-infantry-process-once-closed-women/3769248.html
Female Marine Joining Infantry Through Process
Previously Closed to Women
By Carla Babb
Voice of America, March 16, 2017
U.S. Marines take a break during an obstacle course exercise
wearing protective chemical, biological gear at Camp Geiger,
North Carolina, Nov. 1, 2001. (File photo)
PENTAGON—One woman will make history next week as the first
female Marine to join the infantry through the traditional entrylevel training process that was previously unavailable to women,
officials tell VOA.
The Marine is finishing up her training as a mortarwoman and will graduate next week from the U.S.
Marine Corps School of Infantry at Camp Geiger in eastern North Carolina, said Marine Capt. Joshua Pena,
a spokesman for the Marine Corps Training and Education Command.
"More women will follow her from this moment forward," added U.S. Marine Corps Communication Capt.
Philip Kulczewski.
Officials say the newest infantrywoman will go to 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment in Camp Pendleton,
near San Diego, California.
The Marines now have a total of four infantrywomen. Three female Marines joined 1st Battalion, 8th
Marine Regiment at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, in January after making a lateral move request to join
the infantry.
Those three were among 144 female Marines who graduated from the Marine Corps' School of Infantry in
2013-2014, when it was temporarily opened up to women in order to study how gender integration would
affect combat readiness. Each of the three women has entered the infantry under the specialty she
successfully trained for while attending the school.
The results of the Marine Corps' gender integration study showed that male-only Marine units were faster
and more lethal. When it came to critical thinking, however, the joint male-female units outperformed the
male-only groups.
Female Marines were given the opportunity to join an infantry unit after former Secretary of Defense Ash
Carter ordered that all military positions, including all combat positions, be opened to women beginning in
2016.
The Marine Corps had requested an exemption for infantry and armor positions, but Carter overruled the
request, saying the military should operate under a common set of standards.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article137803748.html
Indian-Americans rise to key roles in Trump’s
administration
By Curtis Tate
McClatchy Washington Bureau, March 13, 2017
Framed by a tapestry reproduction of Pablo Picasso's “Guernica”
and member state flags, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Nikki Haley speaks to reporters after a Security Council meeting on
the Middle East, Feb. 16, 2017, at U.N. headquarters. (Mary
Altaffer AP)
WASHINGTON—Indian-Americans are the most prominent ethnic
minority in President Donald Trump’s largely white, male
administration.
With Nikki Haley as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Ajit Pai as chairman of the Federal
Communications Commission and Seema Verma nominated to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, Indian-Americans have key roles in shaping administration policy, from international relations to
internet access to health care.
Another Indian-American, Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco trial lawyer who’s a member of the
Republican National Committee, is a top candidate to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
The Trump appointments coincide with a surge in the election of Indian-Americans to Congress, though all
are Democrats. Washington state’s Pramila Jayapal last year became the first Indian-American woman
elected to the House of Representatives, and California Sen. Kamala Harris became the first woman of
Indian descent elected to the Senate.
California voters sent Sacramento’s Rep. Ami Bera back for another term and elected Rep. Ro Khanna in
the San Francisco Bay Area. Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi was elected to represent Chicago’s western
suburbs.
Indian-Americans voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Hillary Clinton last November, but their high levels
of English proficiency and business acumen make them attractive to conservatives, said Karthick
Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy and political science at the University of California, Riverside,
who studies Asian-American political trends.
Haley was twice elected South Carolina’s Republican governor. Pai, a Kansas native, served as Verizon’s
general counsel. Verma was a hospital executive in Indianapolis.
“Indian-Americans have done well in the Republican Party and conservative circles,” Ramakrishnan said.
Indian-Americans voted 87 percent for Clinton and 9 percent for Trump, with the remaining voters
choosing other candidates. In 2012, the first year Asian-American Decisions polled Indian-Americans, 83
percent voted for President Barack Obama, while 10 percent voted for Republican Mitt Romney.
EunSook Lee, director of the Asian American Pacific Islander Engagement Fund, a nonprofit organization
that promotes the participation of Asian-Americans in the public sphere, attributed Trump’s low numbers to
his campaign rhetoric on immigration.
“I think it certainly has to do with the type of messages and proposals that candidate Trump proposed, from
the Muslim ban to the (Mexican border) wall,” she said. “Even if Indian-Americans are not necessarily
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article137803748.html
Muslims or undocumented, they are aware of the implications of his rhetoric and posturing on their own
population.”
Trump’s immigration policies include a temporary ban on refugees from several Muslim-majority countries
and increased deportations of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.
Recent bias-motivated attacks, including the shooting death of Garmin employee Srinivas Kuchibhotla at a
Kansas tavern, may leave Indian-Americans wondering what Trump will do to protect minority
communities from violence.
At least so far, though, Indian-Americans are the diversity of Trump’s administration.
With the exception of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is Chinese-American, and Housing and
Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who’s African-American, Trump’s Cabinet picks have all been
white men. Labor Secretary nominee Alexander Acosta, if confirmed, would be the first Latino member of
Trump’s Cabinet.
“What does racial diversity in the Trump administration look like?” Ramakrishnan said. “It’s Indian faces.”
Haley, Verma and Pai have shared parts of their personal and family stories as the children of Indian
immigrants.
In her Senate confirmation hearing in January, Haley called her upbringing “an American story.”
“Growing up in a small rural community in the South, our family was different,” she told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. “We were not white enough to be white. We were not black enough to be
black. My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari. Our new neighbors didn’t quite know what to make
of us, so we did face challenges, but those challenges paled next to the abundance of opportunities in front
of us.”
The Senate confirmed her by 96-4.
Verma, who designed Indiana’s Medicaid program when Vice President Mike Pence was governor, will get
her Senate confirmation vote Monday. She also helped Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin craft
changes to the state’s Medicaid program, which was expanded under the Affordable Care Act.
At her Senate confirmation hearing in February, Verma introduced her parents, husband and children.
“My father left his entire family to immigrate to the United States during the 1960s to pursue four degrees
while he worked to earn money to pay for school, as well as to provide for his family,” she told the Senate
Finance Committee.
Pai, who grew up in Parsons, Kansas, was elevated to chairman of the FCC by Trump in January. He’ll
need to be reconfirmed by the Senate later this year.
Upon his promotion to chairman, Pai paid tribute to his parents, who came to the U.S. from India 45 years
ago, “with literally no assets other than $10, a transistor radio and a desire to achieve the American dream.”
“I hope my tenure as chairman will show me to be worthy of the sacrifices they’ve made for me and the
lessons they’ve taught me,” Pai said. “And I’m ever grateful that this wonderful country has given me and
my family the opportunity to dream big.”
Curtis Tate: [email protected], @tatecurtis
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d19d60eb62f148edbc940fb130a5a410/st-patricks-parade-organizers-revisitgay-veterans-ban
St. Patrick's parade organizers will allow gay vets to march
By Mark Pratt
The Associated Press, March 11, 2017
OutVets founder Bryan Bishop wears the logo of his group while
speaking with a reporter at his house in Boston, Friday, March 10,
2017. The organizers of Boston's embattled St. Patrick's Day
parade have scheduled an emergency meeting to reconsider their
vote to shut out the gay veterans group. This week's decision to bar
OutVets from marching drew immediate condemnation from highprofile politicians and stirred up a furor on social media. (AP
Photo/Michael Dwyer)
BOSTON (AP) — Organizers of the city's St. Patrick's Day parade reversed course on Friday and said they
would allow a group of gay veterans to march in this year's parade.
The South Boston Allied War Veterans Council announced on the parade's Twitter account that it had
signed an "acceptance letter" that would clear the way for OutVets to participate.
A lawyer for OutVets said late Friday that the group looked forward to "marching proudly" and
representing LGBTQ veterans.
"We are honored and humbled by all the outpouring of support that has been displayed for our LGBTQ
veterans - who are one of the most unrepresented demographics in our veterans community," said lawyer
said Dee Dee Edmondson.
An earlier vote by the council to bar OutVets from marching drew immediate condemnation from highprofile politicians, some of whom said they would not march if the gay veterans were excluded. It caused
some sponsors to back out and stirred up a furor on social media.
South Boston Allied War Veterans Council member Edward Flynn said Friday night he was proud the
group invited OutVets to be part of the parade. "South Boston is an inclusive community, and with this
development, we are one step closer to a parade that reflects that spirit," he said.
It was unclear if the reversal of the decision was a result of a second vote by the council.
"I decided this is a wrong that has to be corrected," the parade's lead organizer, Tim Duross, told WHDHTV.
Earlier Friday, OutVets executive director Bryan Bishop said the vets had been told the original decision to
bar them was because of their rainbow symbols.
Bishop said the council offered to allow the group to march if its members did not display the rainbow flag,
a symbol of gay pride, which is on their banner and their jackets.
The group said no.
"I almost fell out of the chair at that point, said, 'You gotta be kidding me,'" Bishop said.
He said OutVets has displayed the rainbow at the parade the last two years.
"It infuriates me to look at the veterans that I know, gay and straight, who have served this country with
valor and honor and distinction, and just because you're a veteran who happens to be gay your service is
somehow less than someone who is not of the LGBT community or someone who's not gay," he said.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d19d60eb62f148edbc940fb130a5a410/st-patricks-parade-organizers-revisitgay-veterans-ban
Edmondson, the OutVets lawyer, earlier Friday described the acceptance letter as "generic" and said it did
not make fully clear whether the gay group would be allowed to display its banner.
Another veterans group, Veterans for Peace, said it also had been denied permission to participate. That
group has been trying unsuccessfully for several years to march.
OutVets was first allowed to participate in the parade in 2015, in what was seen as a groundbreaking
decision after parade organizers had, for decades, resisted the inclusion of gay groups. The case went to the
U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1995 upheld the council's right to bar gay groups on free speech grounds.
The council said in a statement Thursday its decision had been misinterpreted.
"The council is accepting of all people and organizations, but it will not permit messages that conflict with
the overall theme of the parade," the statement said.
That decision resulted in backlash from other veterans' organizations.
The council is made up of representatives from several South Boston American Legion and Veterans of
Foreign Wars posts.
The Michael J. Perkins American Legion Post said it had withdrawn from the council.
The Perkins post in a statement on its Facebook page didn't mention the OutVets decision but said it
decided to withdraw because "recent efforts by several non-veteran parade volunteers to guide decision
making has resulted in the subversion of the council as an organization being led by veterans."
Another former member of the council, the Thomas J. Fitzgerald VFW Post, assailed the council's decision
to bar OutVets.
The Fitzgerald post withdrew from the council last year over the decision to bar Veterans for Peace.
Associated Press writers Rodrique Ngowi and Bob Salsberg contributed to this report.
SEE ALSO:
In Reversal, Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade Welcomes Gay Veterans Group [The New York Times, 201703-11]
Boston St. Patrick's parade to allow gay veterans to return [Reuters, 2017-03-10]
https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1120586/womens-history-month-celebrating-accomplishedarmy-women
Women's History Month: Celebrating Accomplished Army
Women
By Donald Wagner, Army News Service
Defense.gov, March 16, 2017
WASHINGTON—Women have played a vital role in the U.S. Army since 1775, from Molly Pitcher to
those now serving. Their accomplishments have shaped not just the Army, but the country.
Recent strides toward full integration include the first women graduating from Ranger School, the first
women reporting for infantry and armor training, and the opening of all military occupational specialties to
women.
"Women have served in the defense of this land for years before our United States was born," said retired
Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, who served as Army chief of staff from 1991 to 1995. "They have contributed
their talents, skills and courage to this endeavor for more than two centuries with an astounding record of
achievement that stretches from Lexington and Concord to the Persian Gulf and beyond."
The following 14 pioneers in female integration are just a sampling of the many women who have
contributed to shaping the U.S. Army.
Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783)
Mary Ludwig McCauley gained the nickname of "Molly Pitcher" in 1778 by carrying water to the men on
the Revolutionary War battlefield in Monmouth, New Jersey. She replaced her husband, Capt. John Hays,
when he collapsed at his cannon. Since then, many women who carried water to men on the battlefield
were called "Molly Pitchers."
Clara Barton, Civil War Nurse (1861 - 1865)
Clara Barton witnessed immense suffering on the Civil War’s battlefields and did much to alleviate it. She
was on the scene ministering to those most in need, taking care of the wounded, dead, and dying.
Barton became a "professional angel" after the war. She lectured and worked on humanitarian causes
relentlessly and went on to become the first president of the American Association of the Red Cross. At the
age of 77, she was still in the field taking care of soldiers in military hospitals in Cuba during the SpanishAmerican War.
Susie King Taylor, Civil War (1861-1865)
Susie King Taylor was appointed laundress of the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops during the
Civil War and due to her nursing skills and her ability to read and write, her
responsibilities with the regiment grew tremendously. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Center for
Military History)
Born a slave in Georgia in 1848, Susie Baker, who later became known as Susie
King Taylor, gained her freedom in April 1862. Baker was initially appointed
laundress of the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, reorganized from the 1st South
Carolina Volunteers.
Due to her nursing skills and her ability to read and write, her responsibilities with
the regiment began to multiply. More than a few African-American women may
have provided service as the Union Army began forming regiments of all black
men. After the war, Taylor helped to organize a branch of the Women's Relief Corps.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1120586/womens-history-month-celebrating-accomplishedarmy-women
Dr. Mary Walker, Union Army Contract Surgeon (1861-1865)
Dr. Mary Walker served as a surgeon on the Civil War battlefields of Manassas and
Fredericksburg, Virginia. She is the only woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor.
(Photo courtesy of U.S. Center for Military History)
Dr. Mary Walker graduated from Syracuse Medical College in 1855 and later
earned a second degree in 1862 from Hygeia Therapeutic College in New York.
During the Civil War, she worked at first as a volunteer in Manassas and
Fredericksburg, Virginia. Later she worked as a contract physician for the 52nd
Ohio Infantry Regiment. Walker is the only woman ever awarded the Medal of
Honor.
Mary Catherine O'Rourke, Telephone Operator, Interpreter (1917-1918)
Mary Catherine O'Rourke was one of 450 "Hello Girls" who served in the Signal Corps Female Telephone
Operators Unit during World War I. They were bilingual female switchboard operators recruited by Gen.
John J. Pershing to improve communications on the western front.
The Signal Corps women were given the same status as nurses, and had 10 extra regulations placed on
them to preserve their "status as women." They had the rank of lieutenant, but had to buy their own
uniforms.
Mary Catherine O'Rourke was in the fourth group of these women who shipped off to France during World
War I. She studied French with instructors from the University of Grenoble. She was assigned to Paris and
served as interpreter for Pershing during months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference, which
resulted in the Treaty of Versailles.
Col. Oveta Culp Hobby, First WAC Director (1942-1945)
Col. Oveta Culp Hobby was called upon to serve as the chief, Women's Interest Section, Bureau of Public
Affairs, for the War Department. She served in this position for a year before becoming the first woman
sworn into the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, or WAAC, in 1942, and she was appointed as its director.
The WAAC was converted to the Women's Army Corps in July 1943, and Hobby was appointed to the rank
of colonel as she continued to serve as director of the WAC.
After setting the stage for the creation of the WAC, Hobby built the corps to the strength of more than
100,000 by April 1944. She established procedures and policies for recruitment, training, administration,
discipline, assignment, and discharge for the WAC. She surmounted difficulties in arranging for the
training, clothing, assignments, recognition and acceptance of women in the Army. Hobby made it possible
for women to serve in more than 400 noncombat military jobs at posts throughout the United States and in
every overseas theater.
Hobby was later called upon by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to serve as the first secretary of the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare from 1953 to 1955.
Col. Bettie J. Morden, WAC Deputy Director, 1971
Bettie J. Morden had a long, distinguished career in the Army that took many turns. She enlisted in the
WAAC on Oct. 14, 1942. She received basic and administrative training at the 1st WAAC Training Center,
Fort Des Moines, Iowa. She served throughout World War II at the 3rd WAAC Training Center, Fort
Oglethorpe, Georgia, as an administrative noncommissioned officer of the publications office. Morden later
https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1120586/womens-history-month-celebrating-accomplishedarmy-women
served as a first sergeant with Headquarters Company on the South Post. After the war ended, Morden was
discharged in November 1945.
In September 1949, she entered the WAC, U.S. Army Reserve, and was commissioned a second lieutenant
in February 1950. In November 1966, she was assigned as executive officer, Office of the Director, WAC,
at the Pentagon and was promoted to colonel June 9, 1970. She assumed the position of acting deputy
director, WAC, on Feb 1, 1971. She retired Dec. 31, 1972, and was awarded the Distinguished Service
Medal.
In July 1973, Morden was elected president of the WAC Foundation, now the U.S. Army Women's
Museum Foundation, a private organization formed initially in 1969 to support the museum. Morden
resigned from the presidency in June 2001.
Jacqueline Cochran, Pioneer Female Aviator (Pre-World War II to 1970)
After developing a successful line of cosmetics, Jacqueline Cochran took flying lessons in the 1930s so she
could use her travel and sales time more efficiently. She eventually became a test pilot. She helped to
design the first oxygen mask and became the first person to fly above 20,000 feet wearing one. She set
three speed records and a world altitude record of 33,000 feet -- all before 1940.
She was the first woman to fly a heavy bomber over the Atlantic. She volunteered for duty as a combat
pilot in the European Theater during World War II, but her offer was rejected. She trained American
women as transport pilots in England for the Air Transport Auxiliary of the Royal Air Force.
Upon return to the United States, she oversaw flight training for women and the merging of the Women's
Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron into the Women's Airforce Service Pilots in July 1943. She was awarded the
Distinguished Service Medal in 1945 for her service in World War II.
After the war, she was commissioned in 1948. She became the first woman to break the sound barrier in an
F-86 Sabre jet aircraft in 1953, and went on to set a world speed record of 1,429 mph in 1964. She retired
from the Air Force Reserve as a colonel in 1970.
Brig. Gen. Clara L. Adams-Ender, Army Nurse Corps (1961-1993)
In 1967, Brig. Gen. Adams-Ender became the first Army woman to qualify for and be awarded the Expert
Field Medical Badge. She also was the first woman to earn a Master of Military Arts and Science degree at
the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
On Sept. 1, 1987, she was promoted to brigadier general and appointed as chief of the Army Nurse Corps.
In 1991, she was selected to be commanding general of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and served in this capacity
as well as that of deputy commanding general of the U.S. Military District of Washington until her
retirement in 1993.
Command Sgt. Maj. Yzetta L. Nelson, First Woman Command Sergeant Major (1944-1970)
Yzetta L. Nelson joined the Women's Army Corps in 1944. In 1966, she was promoted to sergeant major,
and on March 30, 1968, she became the first WAC promoted to the new rank of command sergeant major.
She continued to serve in the WAC until her retirement in 1970.
Brig. Gen. Sherian G. Cadoria, First African-American Female General (1961-1990)
Promoted to brigadier general in 1985, Sherian G. Cadoria was the highest-ranking black woman in the
Army until she retired in 1990.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1120586/womens-history-month-celebrating-accomplishedarmy-women
She entered the Army in 1961, with a direct commission as a first lieutenant in the Women's Army Corps.
In the 1970s, she transferred to the Military Police Corps.
Sgt. Danyell E. Wilson, First African-American Female Sentinel at Tomb of the Unknowns
Sgt. Danyell E. Wilson became the first African-American woman to earn the prestigious Tomb Guard
Badge and become a sentinel at the Tomb of the Unknowns, Jan. 22, 1997.
Born in 1974 in Montgomery, Alabama, Wilson joined the Army in February 1993. She was a military
police officer assigned to the MP Company, 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard). She completed
testing and a rigorous eight-month trial period and became part of the Honor Guard Company of The Old
Guard.
Sgt. Maj. Michele S. Jones, First Woman Command Sergeant Major of Army Reserve
Sgt. Maj. Michele S. Jones was appointed command sergeant major of the Army Reserve
in September 2003. She was the first woman to serve as the senior NCO in any of the
Army's components. (Courtesy photo)
In September 2003, Sgt. Maj. Michele S. Jones was selected by Lt. Gen. James R.
Helmly, Army Reserve chief, to become the ninth command sergeant major of the
Army Reserve. She was the first woman to serve in that position and the first to be
chosen as the senior NCO in any of the Army's components. For some time, she
was also the highest-ranking enlisted African-American in any of the military
services.
Jones entered the Army in 1982. She attended basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and advanced
individual training at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. She was the first woman to serve as class president
at the United States Sergeants Major Academy.
Lt. Gen. (Dr.) Nadja West, Surgeon General of the U.S. Army
Lt. Gen. (Dr.) Nadja Y. West is the 44th surgeon general of the United States Army and commanding
general, U.S. Army Medical Command.
West is a graduate of the United States Military Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in
engineering. She earned a doctorate of medicine from George Washington University School of Medicine
in the District of Columbia.
Her last assignment was as the Joint Staff surgeon at the Pentagon. In that capacity, she served as the chief
medical advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and coordinated all health services issues,
including operational medicine, force health protection and readiness.
Miscellaneous
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/asia/afghanistan-visa-program-united-states.html
Afghans Who Worked for U.S. Are Told Not to Apply for
Visas, Advocates Say
By Fahim Abed and Rod Nordland
The New York Times, March 10, 2017
Mohammad Nasim Hashimyar, an interpreter, at his home in Kabul
in 2016. He worked for American Special Forces and later for the
American Embassy. He now lives in hiding. (Credit: Andrew Quilty
for The New York Times)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghans who worked for the American
military and government are being told that they cannot apply for
special visas to the United States, even though Afghanistan is not
among the countries listed in President Trump’s new travel ban,
according to advocates for Afghan refugees.
As of Thursday, Afghans seeking to apply for what are known as Special Immigrant Visas were being told
by the American Embassy in Kabul, the capital, that applications would no longer be accepted, according to
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire.
Officials at the embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It was unclear if the visa
suspension was related to the president’s new ban, which, in addition to denying visas to citizens of six
predominantly Muslim countries, also orders that the number of refugees allowed into America be cut by
more than half, to 50,000 this year, from 110,000 in 2016.
Ms. Shaheen, along with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, has been a strong advocate of the
Special Immigrant Visa program, meant for Afghans who face the threat of reprisal for their work with
Americans. Its apparent suspension could affect as many as 10,000 applicants. “Allowing this program to
lapse sends the message to our allies in Afghanistan that the United States has abandoned them,” Ms.
Shaheen said in a statement.
Officials at the International Refugee Assistance Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York said they
had learned that as of Thursday, Afghans were being told that applications were no longer being accepted,
though the suspension had taken place on March 1. “Our worst fears are proving true,” said Betsy Fisher,
the group’s policy director.
Mac McEachin, another official at the organization, said the decision could affect the 2,500 soldiers of the
Army’s 82nd Airborne Division who might be deployed to Syria. “Now that the world has seen how we
turn our backs on our Afghan allies, there is almost no chance that local allies in Syria will be inclined to
work with us,” he said.
American military officials are also requesting an increase in troops deployed to Afghanistan.
One of those affected by the shut-off of special visas is Mohammad Nasim Hashimyar, who worked for
three years as an interpreter for American Special Forces in Oruzgan Province, and later for the American
Embassy. He lives in hiding in Kabul as he waits for his visa interview, which now appears unlikely to
happen.
“It will force me to go through an illegal way to Europe because my life is in danger in Kabul,” he said. “I
always have a gun with me even though I don’t have a license for it.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/asia/afghanistan-visa-program-united-states.html
Ms. Shaheen said she would press Congress to renew the visa program and provide more places for Afghan
applicants.
Congress recently reauthorized the Special Immigrant Visa program for four more years but allocated only
1,500 additional visas. Advocates estimate that up to 10,000 are needed. Mr. McCain and Ms. Shaheen
tried unsuccessfully to get Congress to authorize 4,000 more such visas.
It is unclear whether the reported suspension of new applications was related to the number of available
visas or to the president’s order reducing refugee intake generally, or to a combination of the two factors.
The president’s new travel ban, issued Monday, ordered a 90-day suspension of visas to citizens of six
largely Muslim countries: Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Yemen and Libya. Unlike his earlier order, which
was blocked by the courts, it did not include Iraq; there had been complaints that doing so would leave
Iraqis who supported American forces vulnerable to reprisals. It also removed an exemption for religious
minorities in the affected countries, a provision that had been widely seen as discriminating against
Muslims.
Afghanistan was not included in either of the president’s travel bans, but his decision to reduce the overall
number of refugees accepted by the United States would affect Afghans as well. Afghans are the secondlargest group of refugees worldwide, after Syrians.
Fahim Abed reported from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Rod Nordland from Linz, Austria.
SEE ALSO:
Visa interviews halted for Afghans who helped US troops [The Hill, 2017-03-10]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/health/workplace-wellness-programs-health-genetic-data.html
How Healthy Are You? G.O.P. Bill Would Help Employers
Find Out
By Reed Abelson
The New York Times, March 10, 2017
A blood pressure test. House Republicans are proposing legislation
aimed at making it easier for companies to gather health and
genetic data from workers and their families, including information
such as weight, blood pressure and cancer risk. (Credit: Joshua
Bright for The New York Times)
A bill in Congress could make it harder for workers to keep
employers from getting access to their personal medical and genetic
information and raise the financial penalties for those who opt out
of workplace wellness programs.
House Republicans are proposing legislation aimed at making it easier for companies to gather genetic data
from workers and their families, including their children, when they collect it as part of a voluntary
wellness program.
The bill, the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act, introduced by Representative Virginia Foxx, a
Republican from North Carolina and the chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the
Workforce, would also significantly increase the financial costs faced by someone who does not join a
company wellness program.
The bill, which is under review by other House committees and has yet to be considered by the Senate, has
already provoked fierce opposition from a wide range of consumer, health and privacy advocacy groups, as
well as by House Democrats. Critics claim it undermines existing laws aimed at protecting an individual’s
personal medical information from use by employer and others.
“We strongly oppose any legislation that would allow employers to inquire about employees’ private
genetic information or medical information unrelated to their ability to do their jobs, and to impose
draconian penalties on employees who choose to keep that information private,” a group of advocates,
including AARP, the American Diabetes Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Epilepsy
Foundation, the March of Dimes and others wrote in a letter this week to Ms. Foxx.
As wellness programs proliferate across the corporate landscape, workers are increasingly being asked by
their companies to undergo health screenings and medical assessments. Employees can opt out of these
programs, and personal information specific to a worker is not supposed to be shared directly with the
company. The prohibition is aimed at preventing someone from being fired or otherwise discriminated
against because of a serious medical condition.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has vigorously pursued legal action against some
employers it claimed went too far and used these programs inappropriately, but the courts have largely been
sympathetic to the employers’ arguments. Companies also complained that the regulations were confusing,
and the commission issued final rules in May aimed at addressing some of their concerns.
Companies defend the wellness programs, saying they keep workers healthier and help reduce insurance
costs. But some studies have questioned the effectiveness of these initiatives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/health/workplace-wellness-programs-health-genetic-data.html
Critics argue that workers are essentially being coerced into giving up private medical information, such as
their weight, their blood pressure and whether they are at particular risk for cancer. Under the Affordable
Care Act, employers can entice a worker by offering as much as a 30 percent reduction in insurance
payments. Although the financial incentives offered have typically been lower, an employee who refused to
participate could lose as much as thousands of dollars in savings.
The bill would also weaken the role of the E.E.O.C. in overseeing wellness programs and its ability to
prevent violations of antidiscrimination laws established under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination
Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. Employers would be generally governed by rules established
by different agencies. The bill “is trying to streamline the regulatory scheme,” said Kathryn Wilber, a
senior official at the American Benefits Council, which represents employers’ interests.
She said that companies remain committed to protecting the privacy of this information and that employers
take this responsibility “very, very seriously.”
Bethany Aronhalt, a spokeswoman for the House committee, said the goal was to address employers’
concerns rather than to drastically change the laws protecting workers. “We want to ensure working
families can continue to benefit from these voluntary programs, and so did the Obama administration,” Ms.
Aronhalt said. “This legislation will reaffirm existing law and provide regulatory clarity so that employers
can have the certainty they need to help lower health care costs for their employees.”
Opponents contend that the bill would leave workers much more vulnerable because the rules under the
antidiscrimination laws would not apply if someone volunteered personal health information under a
wellness program. “It just takes away the workplace protection,” said Jennifer Mathis, the director of policy
and legal advocacy of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
The E.E.O.C. does not comment on pending legislation, a spokeswoman said.
The bill would significantly increase the amount of money at stake by allowing an employer to offer higher
incentives, up to 30 percent of the cost to cover the whole family, as opposed to 30 percent of an
individual’s coverage cost.
SEE ALSO:
Congress may pass a bill that would let employers force you to take a genetic test — or pay [McClatchy
Washington Bureau, 2017-03-10]
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/commentary-va-plans-to-help-bad-paper-veterans-dont-go-farenough
VA plans to help ‘bad paper’ veterans don’t go far enough
[OPINION]
By Bradford Adams
Military Times, March 15, 2017
Editor's note: The following is an opinion piece. The writer is not employed by Military Times. The views
expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent those of Military Times or its editorial staff.
A Capitol Hill conference room erupted in cheers March 7 when Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin
announced that he would start providing mental health services to “bad paper” veterans – men and women
who, typically for minor disciplinary problems and often as a result of mental health issues that started in
service, have been denied access to most VA care.
This exclusion is happening to post-9/11 vets at a higher rate than for any prior generation. There has been
a growing awareness in Congress, among veterans organizations and within the public that this isn’t right.
It was a big relief to hear the VA’s new leader say that he got it, too.
Then the details came out. In a news release explaining the announcement, VA said it would be providing
three services to bad paper veterans – all things the VA is already doing.
First, the VA’s news release offers its Vet Centers, counseling locations for combat veterans and survivors
of military rape, to bad paper veterans seeking treatment. These locations have been available to bad paper
vets since the 1970s, and as helpful as they are, they don’t provide psychiatric care, acute care or
neurological care.
Second, the VA says bad paper vets will be able to “seek treatment at a VA emergency department” for
health care concerns. If that means emergency room access, the VA already provides it to everyone,
including nonveterans, as “humanitarian care.”
Finally, the VA says it will offer its Veterans Crisis Line, the toll-free suicide hotline. Fortunately, it is not
now VA policy for Crisis Line counselors to hang up on bad paper veterans calling for help.
Perhaps the VA has more in the works, but if this is the full extent of its new solution to veteran suicide,
then it’s nothing new at all. That would be a shame, because this is a problem crying out for bold action.
Bad paper veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide, in part because combat veterans diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress disorder are 11 times more likely to get a bad paper discharge, according to a study of
Marines deployed from 2001 to 2007.
After a generation of official silence on this issue, it was heartening to hear the VA acknowledge that this
crisis demands a serious response. That is a bold step. But these veterans need services, not lip service.
The VA must do more. We know that VA health care works: The suicide rate for veterans enrolled in VA
healthcare is decreasing, while the suicide rate for those outside VA care is increasing. We know that many
veterans don’t ask for help early on, when crisis can be avoided, so primary health care providers are
essential for proper mental health treatment. We know that thousands of bad paper veterans could be
eligible for VA care and services if the VA promptly and properly handled their requests and applications.
And the VA can do more. Much more. It can provide health care, including primary care, on at least a
temporary basis while making its eligibility decision. It can contract with community providers so that Vet
Center patients can access psychiatric and neurobehavioral care. It can proactively make eligibility
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/commentary-va-plans-to-help-bad-paper-veterans-dont-go-farenough
decisions so that veterans know whether they’ll be able to access services, instead forcing them to wait
until a crisis arrives and then filling out an application at an ER.
All this can be done now, under the VA’s existing legal authority. Swords to Plowshares, with the National
Veterans Legal Services Program, the Harvard Law School Veterans Legal Clinic, and Latham & Watkins
LLP, provided the VA with a Petition for Rulemaking that maps out its legal authorities and describes
solutions available under current law. We need to make sure that the VA creates a comprehensive response,
using everything in its arsenal. It isn’t doing that yet.
There may be some people, including some veterans, who still think that these veterans don’t deserve care
when in crisis, don’t deserve shelter when homeless, don’t deserve support when they’ve been wounded in
war. I’m not one of those. I remember that every one of these veterans signed up for service at a time when
most people in our country do not. I remember these veterans for their best day: the day when they
mustered the commitment, grit, and personal responsibility to give selflessly. I honor that commitment by
not letting it be overshadowed by their worst day.
My own service is cheapened when I see others’ service so easily forgotten. I am not honored to know that
other veterans are left to wrestle their demons alone.
The VA needs to take real action on behalf of these veterans. I applaud the secretary for committing to do
so. I hope that his announcement was just the start.
Bradford Adams is a policy advocate and supervising staff attorney at Swords to Plowshares and has coauthored a report on bad paper discharges. He served in the Army and in Afghanistan as a civil affairs
officer from 2002 to 2003.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/13/opinions/michael-brown-sxsw-video-jackson-opinion/index.html
What the Michael Brown video tells us [OPINION]
By Joey Jackson
CNN, March 13, 2017
Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN. The views expressed in
this commentary are solely those of the author.
We learned this past weekend about the existence of a surveillance video in the Michael Brown case that
was previously undisclosed to the public. It was revealed at the debut of Jason Pollock's film "Stranger
Fruit" at the SXSW festival.
Michael Brown died on the afternoon of August 9, 2014 after being shot multiple times by Ferguson,
Missouri, Police Officer Darren Wilson. It was a highly controversial case which sparked civil unrest
across the country. Outraged members of the Ferguson community marched with purpose, as did a
contingent of concerned citizens in cities throughout the country. They did so to protest the seemingly
endless string of black men shot dead by the police.
And now we have this latest development. In this video, Michael Brown looks to be in the same
convenience store that he would later be accused of robbing some ten hours later -- seemingly engaged in a
transaction with store personnel. Pollock asserts that the footage establishes that Brown was trading
marijuana for a bag of cigars -- which Brown apparently left in the store, intending to pick up later. If
Pollock's theory is correct, Brown would not have been robbing the store later that day, which was the
police's explanation. Instead, he would have simply been claiming cigarillos that were already his.
Focusing only on whether or not Pollock's interpretation is right misses the point. The larger issue is why a
filmmaker would be the one introducing this video to the public two and a half years later. Shouldn't that
have been the job of the local authorities who committed to a fair, thorough, and complete investigation
aimed at respecting the public's right to be kept fully informed?
At the time of the incident, local authorities promised a transparent investigation to determine whether the
shooting was justified. The federal government undertook a parallel investigation shortly thereafter to
determine whether, independent of any potential state charges, there was evidence of a violation of Brown's
civil rights at the hands of Officer Wilson.
The evidence subsequently revealed that Officer Wilson fired a barrage of bullets at Brown after an
altercation that began at Wilson's squad car and ended on the street. Three separate autopsies were
performed -- one by the County, one by the Federal Government, and another one which was independently
commissioned by the Brown family. All revealed that Brown was shot six times -- once in the right eye,
once on the top of the head, with the remaining four bullets hitting his right arm. There were no shots to the
back, and indications that he had his hands up appeared to be false. Instead, the evidence revealed that he
was facing Wilson, and even appeared to be approaching him. Accordingly, no state charges were filed.
Similarly, Officer Wilson was also cleared by the US Department of Justice.
So after all this investigating, why are we finding out new information from a filmmaker?
St. Louis County Police told CNN that the video's authenticity cannot be confirmed at this time, but "if it
did occur, the incident is still irrelevant to our investigation."
Really? One can only imagine what, if anything else, the public was not made aware of based upon its
purported irrelevance. If investigators were quick to reveal that Brown was engaged in criminal behavior at
the store, and that he had marijuana in his system, wouldn't it also be important know whether the store was
engaged in any criminality of its own, or whether the cigarillos he walked out with were rightfully his?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/13/opinions/michael-brown-sxsw-video-jackson-opinion/index.html
As an attorney, I consider that information pretty relevant. But the central issue here is the crisis of
confidence between law enforcement and the community, and the level of mistrust potentially generated by
intentionally concealing information -- any information -- from public view.
After how hard multiple parties fought to get it, transparency in this case is important, no matter what.
There were cries at the outset for the local district attorney, Robert P. McCulloch, to step aside and allow a
special prosecutor to handle the case. Ignoring those concerns, he promised he could be fair and empaneled
a grand jury to evaluate the facts of the case and to determine whether Officer Wilson caused the death of
Brown through conduct that was either intentional, negligent, or reckless. In the end, the grand jury cleared
Wilson.
And upon announcing that they did so, we learned that McCulloch provided grand jurors with an
overwhelming amount of conflicting and contradictory evidence. While there is some precedent for such a
presentation involving police suspects, most cases are not presented in this way.
McCulloch's actions were also called into question at the time because when Officer Wilson testified before
that grand jury, McCulloch's staff questioned him with a light and deferential touch -- also a deviation from
the norm for a prosecutor.
The community also raised doubts about McCulloch's objectivity when it was revealed that his father, a
police officer, died at the hands of an African-American man when McColloch was only twelve years old.
Nonetheless he went forward, giving the indication that he would be fair.
Reasonable legal minds can differ on these issues but still make full transparency about all aspects of the
case critical.
Ultimately, the revelation of this surveillance tape does not change anything legally. Its release will not be
enough for Missouri Governor Eric Greitens to appoint a special prosecutor to present the case to a new
grand jury. Nor will it shift the findings of the federal investigation, which concluded there was no civil
rights violation.
But what it does is fuel concerns about the transparency of police investigations. Is the public being
presented with the full scope of information, or just the information that authorities unilaterally believe we
should know? Worse, is the information being presented in such a way as to shape public opinion? And if
that's the case, what does it say about the agenda of a local prosecutor handling the case?
In the final analysis, the footage will continue to be a reminder of the need for a better approach. An
approach that does not have local prosecutors, who work with the police and rely upon the police, put in a
position of prosecuting the very same officers. It's just bad form. If conclusions are going to be trusted and
relied upon, there needs to be a system where the public will have faith in the process and can accept its
conclusions.
As long as the complete picture of what happens is coming from filmmakers, and not investigators or
prosecutors, the public will remain skeptical, the crisis of confidence will continue, and the great divide
will become ever greater.
SEE ALSO:
Prosecutor dismisses new Ferguson video [BBC, 2017-03-14]
Video poses new questions about 2014 Ferguson police shooting [Reuters, 2017-03-13]
Misconduct
http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article137512583.html
Defense report reveals details about SEALs unit punished
for flying Trump flag in Kentucky
By Fernando Alfonso III
Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, March 9, 2017
An apparent military vehicle traveling on I-65 near Louisville
carried a Trump flag near the front of its convoy. (Steve Thompson)
New details have emerged about why a Navy SEALS
convoy flew a campaign flag for President Donald Trump on a
Kentucky highway in late January, according to documents
obtained by the Herald-Leader.
The blue Trump flag, affixed “to a rear (Humvee) antenna with zip
ties,” was flown on a convoy of 11 vehicles containing 12 Navy
personnel, said the Department of the Navy inquiry obtained using
the Freedom of Information Act. The names of the personnel were redacted in the report because disclosure
would endanger the safety of personnel, the Navy said.
The flag was attached by a Navy SEAL who, according to an interview by the Department of the Navy
conducted with him on Feb. 3, “made the decision to place the flag on the Humvee without discussing it
with anyone in the convoy.”
“He placed it on the Humvee on Friday before departing,” the documents stated. “He did not know who
owned the flag because he has bought many campaign flags for the members of his troop. He was unaware
of any regulations that flying the campaign flag would have violated. (The man who attached the flag)
drove home for the weekend and was not with the convoy while it transited.”
The Navy SEALS group was traveling from Fort Knox to Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in
Butlerville, Ind., roughly 110 miles away, the documents stated. The convoy commander, unnamed in the
report, traveled with the convoy on Jan. 29 at 11 a.m. This commander was responsible for inspecting all
the vehicles prior to departure and was aware the flag was on the vehicle.
“(The convoy commander) was also aware of the rules precluding Department of Defense endorsement of
political candidates during an election,” the documents stated. “However, he believed that flying the flag
was not inappropriate since the election was over and since the candidate was now the commander in chief
of the armed forces.”
This thinking violated a longstanding Defense Department policy to avoid any activity that might
imply endorsement of a political campaign, the documents stated.
About 30 minutes into the drive on I-65, the convoy commander noticed that the flag was getting a good
deal of attention from civilian drivers, “some of which was negative attention.”
“At this point, he felt like the correct course of action would have been to take the flag down,” the
documents stated. “However, he was concerned that it would be unsafe for the convoy and its members to
pull over while on the highway.”
The preliminary inquiry officer disputed the convoy’s safety concerns, adding that “there would have been
multiple opportunities to safely exit I-65 to a rest stop or gas station and remove the flag.”
The convoy decided to wait until they reached their destination before taking down the flag.
http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article137512583.html
“This episode served to cast a bright and unwanted spotlight on our actions and location,” the preliminary
inquiry officer said.
The convoy was also chastised for using zip ties to attach the flag because it was “unsafe and could have
potentially caused an accident or collision with trailing cars had the flag become dislodged,” the report
stated.
At least two videos of the flag garnered significant local and national attention, particularly
from ABC, CBS and Fox News. The Department of Defense initially told the Herald-Leader that the
vehicles didn’t belong to an active military unit.
Lt. Jacqui Maxwell of the Naval Special Warfare Group 2 in Virginia Beach, Va., disclosed last month that
the Navy SEALS unit was punished. But details weren’t released.
According to the newly released documents, the SEALS commanding officer directed a teamwide remedial
training on safe convoy operations and partisan political activity. That remedial training was completed by
Feb. 9.
“It is my hope that this incident will serve as a reminder about how seemingly minor errors in judgment can
have far-reaching second- and third-order effects,” the commanding officer wrote in one of the documents,
“which can in turn have major implications for our command, Naval Special Warfare, and ultimately our
reputation in the eyes of the country which we are sworn to protect.”
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/03/10/hearing-set-drill-instructor-linked-muslim-recruitssuicide.html
Hearing Set for Drill Instructor Linked to Muslim Recruit's
Suicide
By Hope Hodge Seck
Military.com, March 10, 2017
In this Thursday, April 28, 2016 photo, graduating Marines run
past family members on family day at the Marine Corps Recruit
Depot in Parris Island, S.C. (Doug Strickland/Chattanooga Times
Free Press via AP)
A commanding general has introduced charges for two Marine drill
instructors accused of hazing recruits at Parris Island, including a
senior enlisted member who allegedly threw a Muslim recruit in a
dryer and turned it on and who later was alleged to have likely
provided the impetus for another Muslim recruit's suicide.
The senior drill instructor, Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix, will face an Article 32 investigative hearing March
16 on charges of failure to obey a lawful general order, cruelty and maltreatment, false official statement,
drunk and disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice, officials said.
Officials with Marine Corps Training and Education Command announced the charges on Friday, but didn't
release the name of the accused because the legal actions haven't yet been finalized. Even so, multiple
sources confirmed his identity to Military.com.
Felix is the former senior drill instructor alleged to have hazed two Muslim recruits in separate incidents,
one of which occurred moments before the suicide death of 20-year-old Pakistani-American recruit Raheel
Siddiqui last March at the South Carolina base, sources said.
While investigations substantiated that Felix as the drill instructor was involved in both incidents, it's
unclear which events are detailed in his charges.
Attempts to reach his military attorney, Capt. Richard Korges, were unsuccessful.
Another drill instructor, a sergeant, will have an Article 32 hearing March 17 on charges of failure to obey
a lawful general order, cruelty and maltreatment, false official statement, and drunk and disorderly conduct.
An attorney for the sergeant, who has not been identified, spoke to his successful career on the drill field in
a statement provided to Military.com.
"My client completed a successful tour on the drill field during which he trained hundreds of recruits," said
Brian Magee, a defense attorney with Military Justice Attorneys in South Carolina. "He has endured well
over a year of investigations that reveal nothing except baseless allegations by a few individuals with
questionable and selfish motives. We look forward to our first opportunity to confront them under oath."
Both hearings are set to take place at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, officials with the command said. In
the military justice system, service members are not formally charged and trial dates set until after the
Article 32 process.
The alleged hazing was uncovered in a wide-ranging trio of investigations launched after the death of
Siddiqui.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/03/10/hearing-set-drill-instructor-linked-muslim-recruitssuicide.html
Siddiqui took his own life by jumping from the third story of a barracks building, moments after being
slapped and berated by the senior drill instructor identified by sources as Felix. Felix was also the purported
primary instigator in a 2015 incident in which a Muslim recruit was allegedly hazed in the middle of the
night using an industrial clothes dryer, causing burns to his neck and shoulders, and forced to shout "Allah
Akbar" loud enough to wake the other recruits.
Investigators stopped short of substantiating that drill instructors found culpable in the investigations were
motivated by specific racial bias or Islamophobia. They pointed out that recruits of all races were routinely
singled out by drill instructors within the scope of the investigations on account of their backgrounds and
ethnicity, citing one incident in which a Russian recruit was allegedly asked if he was a communist spy.
Also Friday, command officials detailed charges or trial dates for four other Marine drill instructors who
have previously faced investigative hearings in other incidents of alleged hazing at Parris Island.
Staff Sgt. Antonio B. Burke, has been charged with disobeying a noncommissioned officer, failure to obey
a lawful order, cruelty and maltreatment, false official statement, wrongful appropriation, and general
misconduct, and is pending date and time for arraignment, officials said.
Staff Sgt. Matthew Bacchus, charged with failure to obey a lawful general order, cruelty and maltreatment,
and false official statement, will face trial April 10-14 at Quantico, officials said.
Staff Sgt. Jose Lucena-Martinez, charged with failure to obey a lawful general order and cruelty and
maltreatment, will face trial May 15-19 at Quantico.
Sgt. Riley Gress, charged with failure to obey a lawful general order, cruelty and maltreatment, and false
official statement, will begin his trial May 22 at Quantico.
Bacchus, Lucena-Martinez and Gress have had dates set for special court-martial proceedings. Special
courts-martial, an intermediate-level military trial, are reserved for troops facing no more than 12 months'
confinement.
"Referral and preferral of charges are accusations," a command spokesman, Capt. Joshua Pena, said in a
release. "All Marines are presumed innocent until proven guilty."
The Marines' top officer said when the hazing allegations were made public last year that all the alleged
incidents, which took place within Parris Island's 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, were not indicative of the
larger culture within Marine Corps boot camp or the Corps in general.
"When America's men and women commit to becoming Marines, we make a promise to them. We pledge
to train them with firmness, fairness, dignity and compassion," Gen. Robert Neller said in a statement
released in September.
He added, "Simply stated, the manner in which we make Marines is as important as the finished product.
Recruit training is, and will remain, physically and mentally challenging so that we can produce
disciplined, ethical, basically trained Marines."
Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
SEE ALSO:
Drill instructor connected to multiple allegations of abusing Muslim recruits [Marine Corps Times, 201703-11]
http://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2017/03/committee-approved-bills-would-make-pension-reformspunish-porn-watchers/136010/
Pension Reforms, Punishments for Porn Watchers Advance
By Eric Katz
Government Executive, March 10, 2017
Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., is the author of the pension
reforms. (Andrew Harnik/AP file photo)
A House committee approved several bills aimed at reforming the
federal workforce, including a pension reform for union officials
who receive government paychecks.
Two of the measures would bring changes to the practice of official
time, with one earning fierce opposition from Democrats on the
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The more controversial Official Time Reform Act
would prevent employees from counting days worked at least 80 percent on union representational duties
toward their retirement pensions. It would also prevent employees from engaging in lobbying while on
official time.
The second measure, demanding the Office of Personnel Management issue more regular reports on official
time usage, received less pushback.
The pension reform amounted to an attack on official time in general, Democrats on the committee said,
which they called essential to dispute resolution and whistleblower protection. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., who
authored the bill, said the measure would not take away anyone’s right to work on official time.
“It will allow anyone working on official time to do so as much as they want to,” Hice said. “It just takes
away the financial incentive.”
The American Federation of Government Employees called the bill “union busting” that would “silence the
voice of workers.”
“Federal managers and their employees are fully competent to negotiate the terms of official time, when it
is needed, how much is needed, and where it should be used to address unique agency and workplace
issues,” AFGE wrote in a letter to the oversight committee.
In a similar letter, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers said it was more
efficient for one employee to work 100 percent on official time than for two to split their time between
union and official agency business.
“For civil servants to be able to do their jobs effectively and to report wrongdoing without fear of reprisal,”
IFPTE wrote, “they must have credible and effective representation, independent of management, that can
interact at all levels of government to provide decision-makers with a more balanced and complete picture
to allow for better and more informed overall governance.”
Also in the markup, the committee approved the Eliminating Pornography From Agencies Act. The panel
also signed off on the bill from Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., in the last Congress, though it never received
a vote on the House floor. The bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to issue
governmentwide guidance prohibiting access to pornographic websites on federal computers. Currently,
Meadows said, agencies maintain a patchwork of disparate rules on the subject.
http://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2017/03/committee-approved-bills-would-make-pension-reformspunish-porn-watchers/136010/
The issue came to the forefront in 2014, when an Environmental Protection Agency inspector general
report found an employee spent between two and six hours per day viewing pornography while at work.
The employee had downloaded and viewed more than 7,000 pornographic files during duty hours.
Meadows cautioned he was not trying to paint with a broad brush, saying the bill would “raise up the level
of the federal workforce.”
“This in no way is meant to disparage the federal workforce,” he said.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, called federal porn watchers the “seediest of the bad apples” who “need
serious help.”
The committee also approved the Federal Intern Protection Act to provide interns all the discrimination
protections afforded to regular federal employees. The panel had passed the measure in the previous
Congress. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who introduced the bill, said federal interns “sacrifice
tremendously,” and it was unfair the federal workers who mentor them are protected while the interns
themselves are not.
Another source of significant debate and contention stemmed from a non-binding resolution from Chaffetz,
the committee chairman, to move federal offices out of the Washington, D.C., area. The measure would
encourage agencies to distribute throughout the country “the economic and employment benefits
associated” with federal jobs “when possible and expedient.” The panel approved the resolution over
significant pushback from Democrats, especially those representing the capital region.
http://www.defensenews.com/articles/retired-admiral-8-others-charged-in-latest-fat-leonard-indictments
Retired admiral, 8 others charged in latest 'Fat Leonard'
indictments
25 individuals now charged or guilty in GDMA scandal
By Christopher P. Cavas
Defense News, March 14, 2017
WASHINGTON — Retired US Navy Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, four retired Navy captains, a Marine
colonel and three other individuals were arrested and charged Tuesday in the latest indictments related to
the Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA) bribery scandal. The investigation is also known as the "Fat
Leonard" case, after a nickname for GDMA’s former chief executive officer, Leonard Francis.
The latest federal indictment charges the individuals with accepting luxury travel, elaborate dinners and the
services of prostitutes from Singapore-based GDMA, according to the US Department of Justice, all in
exchange for classified and internal US Navy information.
Glenn Defense Marine Asia was one of the biggest husbanding firms in the western Pacific, handling a
large variety of services for ships visiting ports throughout the region.
With Tuesday’s arrests, a total of 25 individuals have been charged in connection with the corruption and
fraud investigation into GDMA, the Justice Department said in a press release. Of those charged, Justice
said, 20 are current or former U.S. Navy officials and five are GDMA executives. Thirteen of those charged
already have pleaded guilty.
The defendants were arrested early Tuesday morning in California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado
and Virginia, Justice said in the press release, adding that federal officials will seek to move all defendants
to San Diego, where the GDMA case is being tried in federal court.
According to the press release, the nine defendants were arrested on various charges including bribery,
conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services fraud, obstruction of justice and making false statements to
federal investigators when confronted about their actions.
Loveless, 48, of San Diego, was arrested at his home in Colorado.
Four of the defendants, Justice said, are retired captains: David Newland, 60, of San Antonio, Texas; James
Dolan, 58, of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; David Lausman, 62, of The Villages, Florida; and Donald
Hornbeck, 56, a resident of the United Kingdom. The other defendants arrested Tuesday included Marine
Col. Enrico Deguzman, 48, of Honolulu, Hawaii; retired Chief Warrant Officer Robert Gorsuch, 48, of
Virginia Beach, Virginia; active-duty Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Shedd, 48, of Colorado Springs, Colorado; and
active-duty Commander Mario Herrera, 48, of Helotes, Texas.
According to the indictment, Justice said in the press release, the Navy officers allegedly participated in a
bribery scheme with Leonard Francis, in which the officers accepted travel and entertainment expenses, the
services of prostitutes and lavish gifts in exchange for helping to steep lucrative contracts to Francis and
GDMA and to sabotage competing defense contractors. The defendants allegedly violated many of their
sworn official naval duties, including duties related to the handling of classified information and duties
related to the identification and reporting of foreign intelligence threats.
According to the indictment, the defendants allegedly worked in concert to recruit new members for the
conspiracy, and to keep the conspiracy secret by using fake names and foreign email service providers.
According to the indictment, the Justice press release said, the bribery scheme allegedly cost the Navy
“tens of millions of dollars.”
http://www.defensenews.com/articles/retired-admiral-8-others-charged-in-latest-fat-leonard-indictments
Acting U.S. Attorney Alana Robinson of the Southern District of California, quoted in the press release,
declared the scandal represented “a fleecing and betrayal of the United States Navy in epic proportions, and
it was allegedly carried out by the Navy’s highest-ranking officers. The alleged conduct amounts to a
staggering degree of corruption by the most prominent leaders of the Seventh Fleet -- the largest fleet in the
U.S. Navy -- actively worked together as a team to trade secrets for sex, serving the interests of a greedy
foreign defense contractor, and not those of their own country.”
Dermot O’Reilly, director of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), said in the press release
that, “the allegations contained in today’s indictment expose flagrant corruption among several senior
officers previously assigned to the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet. The charges and subsequent arrests are yet
another unfortunate example of those who place their own greed above their responsibility to serve this
nation with honor. This investigation should serve as a warning sign to those who attempt to compromise
the integrity of the Department of Defense that DCIS and our law enforcement partners will continue to
pursue these matters relentlessly.”
Asked for comment, a spokesman at the Navy’s office of the chief of information deferred to the
Department of Justice.
Loveless becomes the second flag officer charged in the GDMA scandal. Rear Adm. Robert Gilbeau, a
supply officer, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
According to the federal indictment, Loveless was charged for actions when, as a captain in 2007 and 2008,
he was serving as assistant chief of staff for intelligence for the Seventh Fleet. Before that, starting in 2005
he served as an intelligence officer aboard the Japan-based carrier Kitty Hawk.
In the federal grand jury indictment, Loveless accepted bribes, expensive hotel rooms, and the services of
prostitutes, mostly from 2006 to 2008. He is charged with making false statements to investigators and
obstructing justice in November 2013.
Loveless underwent a publicly embarrassing, nearly 900-day period serving first as the Navy’s director of
intelligence operations – but with his security clearance revoked pending the results of the Justice
investigation. He, along with his boss, director of intelligence Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch, were not
allowed to attend classified briefings or even enter their officers, which were considered classified areas.
To date, Branch has not been publicly charged in the investigation.
Loveless was transferred in late 2014 to become the Navy’s corporate director for information dominance,
dealing mostly with non-classified issues. He retired in October 2016.
The federal investigation continues under a partnership of three primary agencies, the Defense Criminal
Investigative Service (DCIS), the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and the Defense Contract
Audit Agency. In San Diego, Assistant Chief Brian Young of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark Pletcher and Patrick Hovakimian of the Southern District of California are
prosecuting the case.
The Navy is conducting its own investigations of individuals cleared of criminal wrongdoing, and a number
of active duty officers remain under investigation.
SEE ALSO:
Timeline: The ‘Fat Leonard’ Case [USNI News, 2017-03-16]
Racism
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-northern-georgia-a-kkk-banner-seemed-to-some-a-sign-ofthe-times/2017/03/12/de5a3518-05bd-11e7-b9fa-ed727b644a0b_story.html
In Georgia, reaction to KKK banner is a sign of the times
By Stephanie McCrummen
The Washington Post, March 12, 2017
City officials take down a KKK sign from a vacant building
downtown in Dahlonega, Ga., on Feb. 16. Residents said
the banner left them both surprised and scared. (Matt
Aiken/The Dahlonega Nugget)
DAHLONEGA, Ga. — The mayor was still home when his
phone started ringing. The reverend was still down with the
flu when he began getting one message after another.
Valerie Fambrough had just dropped off her daughters at
day care when she heard.
“Have you seen the sign in the square?” a parent asked her
on a cold morning three weeks ago. “There’s a Ku Klux Klan sign in the town square.”
And, in fact, there was. Just past the old brick courthouse and across the street from candy stores and
antique shops, a large rectangular banner was screwed tight into the cracked wood siding of a long-vacant
building on East Main Street. “Historic Ku Klux Klan Meeting Hall,” it said.
It had a cartoonish drawing of a white-sheeted person raising a hand. In addition, there was a Confederate
battle flag at one corner of the building and a red flag with a white cross and the letters KKK at the other.
They were fluttering in the wind blowing across Dahlonega, and what happened next would become one
more pocket of America dealing with a disturbing incident at a time when hate crimes have been on the rise
and new brands of white nationalism have been making a comeback across the country.
In Upstate New York, the home of a Jewish man was spray-painted with swastikas. In Virginia, fliers were
distributed in several neighborhoods with the words, “Make America WHITE again-and greatness will
follow.” In Colorado, two typewritten notes that read “WERE GONNA BLOW UP ALL OF YOU
REFUGEES,” were left at a community center serving mainly Muslim immigrants. Now whatever was
happening in other parts of the country seemed to have arrived in Dahlonega.
The mayor got dressed and headed for the square. The reverend called the sheriff. Fambrough recalled how
she hurried over to see for herself, saying “No, no, not here,” the whole way, and “Hell, no,” until she was
there, alone, staring at the banner.
She was a white 37-year-old mother of two, a program specialist in the biology department at the
University of North Georgia who called Dahlonega a “sweet, loving town” and had never protested
anything in her life. Now she felt her anger rising. She remembered the flip-chart paper in her trunk left
over from a presentation a month before and made two signs — “Not in my town,” she wrote, and “Love
Lives Here” — then got out and stood in her sandals holding them.
She was freezing. The square was still quiet, with all the shops closed. She scanned the windows across the
street to see if someone was watching. She planned which way she would run if something happened. Cars
passed, and she scrutinized each face.
A woman shook her head and kept going.
A man gave her a thumbs-up.
A woman called out of her window, “Did you put that sign up?” and Fambrough said “No, no!” and then
Bridget Kahn parked, got out, and now there were the two of them.
A woman in a red minivan stopped and yelled “Y’all are angry! You’re angry, angry people!” and drove
off.
A black pickup truck parked across the street, and a muscular man got out, and a reporter from the local
paper who’d just arrived told the women it was Chester Doles, a former leader in the Klan and a white-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-northern-georgia-a-kkk-banner-seemed-to-some-a-sign-ofthe-times/2017/03/12/de5a3518-05bd-11e7-b9fa-ed727b644a0b_story.html
separatist group called the National Alliance who had gone to prison on federal weapons charges. He lived
just outside town and was currently a personal trainer who also worked promoting “hate rock” concerts
around the country. He pulled out a cellphone and began taking photographs. He said something to the
women, but they couldn’t hear.
“What’s that, sir?” Kahn called out, and the women heard him say something about how “glorious” it was
to see such a sign in the light of day, and then he drove off, even as more people were arriving — whitehaired locals, college students and others who said they were appalled; a Native American man who
brought a ladder and tried to rip the banner down; a white man who argued the KKK banner and flag
should come down but not the Confederate battle flag; a young black man who stood there crying.
Here came the mayor and the sheriff trying to figure out what was going on.
Here came two pickup trucks circling the square, revving their engines. The woman in the red minivan
returned, honking her horn and seeming to veer too close to the protesters.
A school bus passed, and now Fambrough was crying as the town dispatched a cherry picker to the scene,
and workers began ratcheting out the first of 21 screws holding the banner in place.
Another truck arrived, this one belonging to a local roofing company and plastered with Confederate logos,
and several workers climbed on the roof and began removing the flags.
And that was how the banner came down, and the flags came down, and all the rest began.
***
All over town that first day, people kept saying this was not the Dahlonega they knew.
“Our little pocket of loveliness” is how one resident described the former gold mining town an hour north
of Atlanta, known for its redbrick square lined with antique shops and wine tasting rooms. It was the seat of
Lumpkin County, which did not have the reputation for racial violence that many other north Georgia
counties did, though no one disputed that there were probably Klan members scattered around. It was
overwhelmingly white and Republican, though Dahlonega itself was home to a small, deeply rooted, black
population, and had in recent years attracted a more liberal crowd who considered themselves part of the
progressive South.
Now, though, all anyone could talk about was what happened in the town square.
Even before the last screw came out of the banner, photos of it were appearing all over social media with
captions like “WTF, Dahlonega?” and people began speculating about who did it.
Maybe it was a college prank. Maybe it was an outsider. Maybe it really was the Klan, a relic coming back
to life. In an area that voted heavily for Donald Trump, speculation began that the whole thing was the
work of anti-Trump activists, and when she got home, Fambrough went online and saw that people were
accusing her of putting up the banner, saying she was part of the “alt-left.”
By evening, though, people had found out who was really responsible: It was one of their own, an 84-yearold white woman named Roberta Green-Garrett, the owner of the building in question who lives in a brick
mansion with four white columns on a hill overlooking the town.
Offering no explanation and declining to speak with reporters, she had told town officials that she had
allowed the banner to go up and might try to put it up again. She had been seeking permission to build a
hotel on the square, and people speculated that it was all an audacious ploy to embarrass the town into
approving her plans.
“An isolated case of Mrs. Green,” is how the mayor, Gary McCullough, described it, saying that there was
no evidence the building was ever used by the Klan and that he hoped people would move on.
For many people, though, it was too late for that. The point wasn’t who did it. The point was that it had
happened, and whatever it had unleashed was taking on a life of its own.
As day two began, a local Unitarian church was organizing a “unity march” for later that afternoon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-northern-georgia-a-kkk-banner-seemed-to-some-a-sign-ofthe-times/2017/03/12/de5a3518-05bd-11e7-b9fa-ed727b644a0b_story.html
Fambrough heard and began calling her friends. “It’s about showing people that they have nothing to be
afraid of in our town!” she told them.
More calls were made, including one to the minister, John Webb, a former town council member who is
black, who had heard by then who had done it, which didn’t make it less worrying to him. He said he had
noticed more pickup trucks roaring around during the presidential campaign, Confederate battle flags flying
— “Guys I know,” he said, “saying ‘the South will rise again’ and all that stuff” — and that regardless of
why the banner went up, “It’s very possible it could boomerang into something bigger than it is.”
He was 72, a veteran of the civil rights struggle still sick from the flu, but he was going, and he called
others to go, too, and as word spread about the coming demonstration, so did a parallel set of rumors.
The KKK was coming. The neo-Nazis were coming. Black Lives Matter was coming. Fambrough heard
that a so-called antifascist group from Atlanta was coming and began feeling sick imagining windows
being smashed and businesses being torched. The sheriff called for backup and readied a plan in case a riot
or something worse was about to happen in Dahlonega.
In the late afternoon, people began rallying around the square, waving signs.
“Not OKKK America,” one said. “Dahlonega Loves Y’all,” read another, and “Really, Roberta?”
Protesters rally Feb. 17 in Dahlonega, Ga., after a KKK sign was
displayed on a vacant building downtown. (Matt Aiken/The
Dahlonega Nugget)
People honked horns in support. A local fiddler came. A member of
the folk-rock duo Indigo Girls came and everybody sang “This
Land Is Your Land.”
Soon, several pickup trucks arrived, revving their engines and
circling the square, with Confederate battle flags and Make
America Great Again flags flying. When a protester started yelling at one of them, Fambrough yelled at the
protester, “Don’t make assumptions!”
By the third day, events began taking another turn.
“More s--- stirrers!” someone posted online about the protesters. “You all are the ones that are going to ruin
that town and jobs will be lost!!! Good job, morons!!”
“All crybabies jump on board!” wrote someone else.
“Let it go,” a woman posted.
But people were not letting it go.
“It’s like a certain political climate has opened up,” said Paul Dunlap, a professor at the university, sitting
at the end of the fifth day around a fire with friends at Shenanigans pub on the square. An openly gay man,
he said he had never experienced any kind of bigotry in his two decades in Dahlonega.
“I think it’s a good idea not to be naive,” said Deb Rowe, the pub’s owner, and now they started talking
about Chester Doles, who sometimes came in for a beer at the bar. Someone had noticed that on the
building where the banner had been, inside a locked glass case near the door, there was a flier for Doles’s
personal training services, showing him oiled up and smiling in full bodybuilder pose.
“Is this indicative of something bigger?” said Dunlap. “Like, do they think they have a voice?”
“I think Roberta’s using the national polarization against us all,” said Jeremy Sharp, a white student at the
university who was organizing a boycott of her businesses, which included two buildings she rented out to
antique dealers, several hundred units of student housing, and a Holiday Inn Express.
“A peaceable revolution,” Sharp said at a news conference on the sixth day as residents crowded into a
small room at the university to hear.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-northern-georgia-a-kkk-banner-seemed-to-some-a-sign-ofthe-times/2017/03/12/de5a3518-05bd-11e7-b9fa-ed727b644a0b_story.html
“A few days ago, we had an obtuse sign put up,” he began. “When I walked out and saw that, it scared me.
It scared me as a Catholic. It scared me as a person who has friends who look different than me. We are
here because we are afraid.”
People clapped and cheered as Sharp began explaining a plan to withhold rent from Green-Garrett and
barrage Holiday Inn’s corporate offices with phone calls, which would lead the hotel chain’s parent
company, IHG, to issue a statement saying that they had “expressed our concerns” to Green-Garrett and
that “This is not the type of activity that we want any of our brands associated with.” As Sharp kept talking,
two Dahlonega council members arrived, explaining that they were only there to get “the public sentiment.”
“So, no comment?” a young woman yelled at them.
“The only comment I’ll make is that the KKK does not represent the values of this town,” one of the men
said.
“Then why’d you vote for it? Why’d you vote for it?” the woman yelled, getting more upset, and even
though there was never such a vote, some people began cheering her on.
“Let’s keep this civil! They did not vote for that sign!” said another young woman trying to quiet the room,
but emotions were high.
A man said that the KKK had recently applied unsuccessfully to take part in the Adopt-A-Highway
program in a neighboring county. A woman said she was worried about “all the undertones of hate being
brought out of the woodwork.”
“I’m very concerned,” said Daniel Blackman, a former state Senate candidate who was the first black
person ever to run for office from nearby Forsyth County, which has a long history of violence against
blacks and was until the late 1980s known as a “whites only” county. “Whether it’s a stunt or whether Ms.
Garrett really feels that way, the fact is there are children here that might be threatened or afraid and we’ve
got to get ahead of it. The last thing you want to see is someone crazy enough to do something stupid.”
Soon, the meeting ended, and as everyone was heading out into the cold Dahlonega night, an older white
man, trying to be sensitive, said to Blackman, “Be careful.”
The next morning, all of this was the topic of North Georgia talk radio, and the host was taking callers. A
woman named Sharon was on the line.
“It’s not just fake news, it’s a fake agenda,” she began, and explained that the banner might have been part
of an elaborate plot not only to create chaos in Dahlonega, but also to undermine the presidency of Donald
Trump and ultimately, the nation.
She knew all of this, she said, because she had gone online and discovered a website for a group with
locations across the country — including in Dahlonega — that was made up of “former congressional
staffers working for the previous administration. They are supporting the impeachment. They support open
borders. They are supporting Obamacare. They are promoting disruption at town halls — I call it bullying
— and they have a potential for violence.
“I hope everyone is aware that this type of activity — I call it subversion, with a fake narrative — is taking
root in the area,” she continued, and meanwhile, in Dahlonega, another new development was unfolding.
Over at town hall, an assistant to Green-Garrett was filing paperwork for a new sign permit.
“Size of sign: 4x6.”
“Material of sign: wood (painted).”
“Color of sign: Gold with Black Lettering.”
“How sign will be attached to wall: Screwed.”
It was an application to make the sign permanent. It would say, “Historic Ku Klux Klan Meeting Hall,” and
that was how the seventh day ended.
***
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-northern-georgia-a-kkk-banner-seemed-to-some-a-sign-ofthe-times/2017/03/12/de5a3518-05bd-11e7-b9fa-ed727b644a0b_story.html
And then, two days after that, the application was withdrawn.
Green-Garrett issued her first statement since unleashing all of this eight days before, saying that she had
been trying to get a hotel built only to “meet opposition at every turn.” “I have no other motivation other
than to bring businesses and tax revenue to the city,” her statement said. “I want to move forward and do
something positive for the city of Dahlonega.”
She said nothing about the KKK banner, and when she was reached by phone at her winter home in
Florida, she said “no comment” and hung up.
At her real estate office in a worn-out strip mall on the edge of town, her assistant, Barbara Bridges, said
the banner was there, rolled up and stored in a closet.
The town issued an official statement saying that “Dahlonega is a welcoming community for people of
diverse backgrounds” and that “recent episodes are not indicative of a change in our character or
philosophy.”
The students called off the boycott and declared victory.
And now it was a sunny afternoon on the town square.
People were stopping by the candy shop, or wandering down the aisles of antique shops where Kenny G
was playing through the speakers, or eating a sandwich across from the building where a KKK banner had
been.
“Yeah, it’s the site of one of the last major gold rushes,” a man standing on the square said to a woman,
explaining what he knew about Dahlonega.
“Do you have this in a large?” a woman asked at a T-shirt shop.
Reverend Webb, home this afternoon, said he was heartened to see how so many people had taken a stand.
“Dahlonega is a sacred place for everybody,” he said.
At the same time, he said, the episode was not simply about the banner. To him, it was about a banner that
had appeared after an election in which the new president had said certain things that had appealed to white
nationalists and other hatemongers, whether he intended to or not, opening the door to events that could
spiral out of control.
“The atmosphere he’s created in America today has caused people to think they have some kind of power
again,” he said. “I thought that before, and I still do.”
Doles, who was out driving in his truck, said he agreed with this assessment. He had been on the way home
from the gym when he first saw the banner and the flags, he said, and thought to himself, “It’s been a long
time coming.” He said he had recently raised his own flag for the first time in years — the American one,
because he finally feels pleased with the direction of the country.
“In the last 50 years, I didn’t think we had the votes to elect a governor, much less a president,” Doles said.
“And yet here we are today.”
All of this was what worried Valerie Fambrough, sitting outside at a coffee shop on the pleasant afternoon.
She felt good about all the people, including Trump supporters, who had come out to “proclaim a message
of love.” She felt unsettled that some people thought she was part of an alt-left agenda. It all felt like the
beginning of something, not the end.
“I’m just scared these days,” she said, even though the banner was no longer anywhere in sight.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/14/psychologists-we-see-black-men-aslarger-and-stronger-than-white-men-even-when-theyre-not/
People see black men as larger and stronger than white
men—even when they’re not, study says
By Ben Guarino
The Washington Post, March 14, 2017
Even if white and black men are the same heights and weights, people tend to perceive black men as taller,
more muscular and heavier. So said a psychological survey, published Monday in the American
Psychological Association’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, exploring stereotypes about
perceptions of male bodies.
What’s more, the study found, nonblack participants believed black men to be more capable of physical
harm than white men of the same size. The results also indicated that nonblack observers believed that
police would be more justified to use force on these black men, even if they were unarmed, than white male
counterparts.
“Unarmed black men are disproportionately more likely to be shot and killed by police, and often these
killings are accompanied by explanations that cite the physical size of the person shot,” John Paul Wilson,
an author of the study and a psychologist at New Jersey’s Montclair State University, said in a statement
Monday.
The psychologists noted that, in the wake of police shootings, the physical size of those killed frequently
becomes a focal point. Tamir Rice, who was shot and killed on a Cleveland playground in 2014 while
holding a replica gun, was described as “menacing” after his death.
“He’s 5-feet-7, 191 pounds. He wasn’t that little kid you’re seeing in pictures. He’s a 12-year-old in an
adult body,” Steve Loomis, president of Cleveland’s Police Patrolman’s Association, told Politico
magazine in 2015. “Tamir Rice is in the wrong.”
And in 2012, after George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, “images circulated depicting Martin as older
and larger than he was,” the authors of the new study wrote. “In one notorious example, people widely
shared a photograph of a man with facial tattoos in what was purported to be an up-to-date representation
of Martin. In fact, it was a rap musician known as the Game who was in his 30s in the photograph.”
Wilson and his colleagues at the Miami University of Ohio and the University of Toronto conducted seven
experiments, asking 950 online participants to gauge the physical and threatening characteristics of men,
based on male faces and bodies.
In one of the studies, for instance, survey participants gauged men’s height and weights given only
photographs of male faces. Of the 90 male faces, half of the men were black and the other half were white.
The researchers used images of high school football quarterbacks being recruited to play college ball
(therefore their height and weight data were publicly available to the scientists).
Those surveyed rated black men to be consistently larger — even though that was not, in reality, the case.
Based on just the faces, they estimated that the black men were slightly taller (an average of 72 inches vs.
71 inches tall) and a bit heavier, at an average of 181 pounds for black men but 177 pounds for white men.
Another study asked participants to match the athlete’s faces to a series of illustrated bodies. These
illustrations ranged from the depiction of a slender male body to a shredded physique, not unlike that of
former NFL player, actor and deodorant pitchman Terry Crews. As in the cases of height and weight,
participants rated black men as more muscular.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/14/psychologists-we-see-black-men-aslarger-and-stronger-than-white-men-even-when-theyre-not/
To gauge people’s perceptions of strength, the study authors created a pool of athlete profile photos from a
group of black and white men who could bench-press the same weights, on average. Participants judged the
black men (from “Not at all strong” to “Very strong”) as stronger.
“We found that these estimates were consistently biased,” Wilson said. “Participants judged the black men
to be larger, stronger and more muscular than the white men, even though they were actually the same
size.”
The psychologists asked participants to gauge the men’s capability of causing physical harm. The
researchers also wanted to know, if the men in the photos were acting aggressively, whether participants
thought police would be justified in using force while making an arrest. Black observers did not rate black
men as more likely to cause harm.
But nonblack participants did. These participants also indicated that, if police were to use force to subdue
the men, it was more likely to be justified in the cases where the men were black. That is, although black
and white participants equally overestimated the strength of black men, only nonblack observers considered
the black men to be more dangerous.
“Participants also believed that the black men were more capable of causing harm in a hypothetical
altercation and, troublingly, that police would be more justified in using force to subdue them, even if the
men were unarmed,” Wilson said. “Our research suggests that these descriptions may reflect stereotypes of
black males that do not seem to comport with reality.”
The psychologists pointed out that limiting the photos to faces of football players — a sport that puts a
premium on strong, large bodies — could skew the results, but they said they would expect similar trends
in a broader sample pool of black and white faces.
The study authors also noted that these hypothetical scenarios and results do not necessarily translate into
the real world.
“It would be valuable for future research to investigate whether the biases that we have observed here
manifest in face-to-face interactions outside of the laboratory,” they wrote in the study. “Despite this
limitation, we believe that the consistency of the effects that we have observed from multiple sets of face
and body photographs is quite striking on its own.”
Across the United States, the average black man and the average white man are roughly the same height
and weight. According to what data are available, such as information taken from Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention surveys, the average white man older than 20 weighs 199 pounds. So does the
average black man. Height averages for black and white men are within a centimeter of each other, with the
average white man being slightly taller at 5-foot-10.
Religion
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/world/europe/headscarves-ban-european-court.html
Ban on Head Scarves at Work Is Legal, E.U. Court Rules
By Dan Bilefsky
The New York Times, March 14, 2017
An Amsterdam shop selling Islamic dresses and head scarves. A
European ruling on head scarves could have far-reaching
consequences for the balance between freedom of religion and the
rights of companies to implement policies requiring religious
neutrality. (Credit: Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press)
LONDON — The European Union’s highest court waded into the
politically explosive issue of public expressions of Muslim identity
on Tuesday, finding that private employers can ban female workers
from wearing head scarves on the job.
The ruling comes as Europe is beginning a critical election season, with races in the
Netherlands, France and Germany, and with anti-immigrant, anti-Islam populism rising in many countries.
Dutch voters go to the polls on Wednesday, and the far-right party of the anti-Islam politician Geert
Wilders is expected to fare well.
In its ruling, the European Court of Justice found that company regulations banning “the visible wearing of
any political, philosophical or religious sign” did not constitute direct discrimination — so long as such
prohibitions applied to religious garb from all faiths, a requirement that legal experts say could also
encompass a Sikh turban and a Jewish skullcap, among other religious symbols.
“It is a very bold step,” said Camino Mortera-Martinez, a research fellow at the Center for European
Reform in Brussels, describing the ruling as a landmark decision, if also a political and pragmatic one.
“Recently we have seen the court being much more attentive to the political winds rather than being so
legalistic, because of the recognition that the E.U. is at risk of collapse.”
She characterized the ruling as further evidence that the European court has been pivoting after years of
rulings that favored the rights of minorities. This month, the court ruled that European Union member
states were not obliged to issue visas to people who planned to seek asylum in their countries, even if they
were vulnerable to inhuman treatment or were threatened with torture.
Far-right leaders surely would have pounced had the court ruled differently. Along with Mr. Wilders, the
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has stirred up anti-Islam anger by accusing Muslims of failing to
integrate. Europe has been struggling to accommodate huge numbers of migrants, many from
predominantly Muslim countries.
Few issues are more politically fraught in Europe than the issue of the rights of observant Muslim women
to cover their faces and bodies. Last summer, for instance, a few French municipalities generated global
headlines — and outrage — when Muslim women were prohibited from swimming in the sea while
wearing a body covering known as the burkini.
Several countries — including France, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands — have either passed laws
that led to bans on full face-covering veils in public, or are considering legislation that would do so. Those
laws, however, apply to public and government spaces.
The ruling on Tuesday, which experts said was the first time the court had issued a ruling on women
wearing head scarves while on the job, applies only to the workplace and provides a minimum legal
standard that member states must meet.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/world/europe/headscarves-ban-european-court.html
The European Court of Justice, based in Luxembourg, interprets the law for the 28-nation European Union,
and its decisions are binding for member states. Its ruling on Tuesday followed advisory opinions in two
distinct cases before the court.
In a case in May, Juliane Kokott, an advocate general with the court, issued an opinion saying that a
company could prohibit a Muslim employee from wearing a head scarf, provided that the policy applied to
attire for all religions and did not single out Islam.
That opinion came after a complaint by Samira Achbita, a Muslim woman in Belgium, who was fired as a
receptionist for the international security services company G4S after she insisted that she be allowed to
wear a head scarf at work.
Ms. Achbita sued the company, and the Belgian Court of Cassation asked the European Court of Justice for
clarification about what European law required.
The Court of Justice concurred on Tuesday with the advisory ruling, saying that Ms. Achbita had not been
subject to discrimination because the internal directive was broadly written and did not single out Islam.
The court said it was up to the Belgian Court of Cassation to determine whether an employer had
committed “indirect discrimination” if any directive ultimately affected “persons adhering to a particular
religion or belief.”
In a separate case, from July, Eleanor Sharpston, another advocate general for the court, said that
Micropole, an information technology consultancy, had engaged in unlawful discrimination when it fired a
Muslim woman, Asma Bougnaoui, in 2009 for refusing to remove her head scarf when dealing with clients.
Ms. Bougnaoui took her case to a French court, which referred it to the European Court of Justice. In her
advisory opinion, Ms. Sharpston said the company’s decision to dismiss Ms. Bougnaoui had constituted
“direct discrimination” based on religion or belief.
Ms. Sharpston said there was no evidence to suggest that Ms. Bougnaoui’s scarf interfered with her ability
to perform her job as a design engineer. If she had covered her face completely, the opinion found, the
situation would have been different, because eye-to-eye contact was important in Western business
interactions.
But the court on Tuesday found that, in the absence of an internal company policy, it was not enough for an
employer to simply justify a dismissal by pointing to a customer’s desire not to interact with someone
wearing a head scarf.
Legal experts said the court’s ruling could give greater leeway to employers across Europe to regulate
religious attire in the workplace, as long as they did so with neutral policies that did not target Muslims.
Simon Cox, a senior legal officer specializing in anti-discrimination issues with the Open Society
Foundations, said the ruling “will force employers to choose which side they are on and open the door to a
greater willingness not to employ women in head scarves.”
Maryam H’madoun, a policy adviser who is also with the Open Society Foundations, expressed concern
that the ruling could potentially help exclude many Muslim women from the work force. “This
disappointing ruling weakens the guarantee of equality that is at the heart of the E.U.’s anti-discrimination
directive,” she said.
Colm O’Cinneide, a professor of human rights and constitutional law at University College London, said
the ruling could lead to more bans on religious attire in workplaces.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/world/europe/headscarves-ban-european-court.html
He also noted that the ruling required that any ban on religious attire be “objectively justified” and that
imposing a ban could be difficult when employees were not the public face of the company or interacting
with customers directly.
“Depending on a country and its internal debates, companies that want to have a head scarf ban will feel
more comfortable doing so, and this ruling gives them some legal cover,” Mr. O’Cinneide said.
Follow Dan Bilefsky on Twitter @DanBilefsky.
SEE ALSO:
E.U. court says employers can ban Muslim headscarf in workplace [The Washington Post, 2017-03-14]
Employers in EU can ban visible religious symbols like Islamic headscarves [USA TODAY, 2017-03-14]
Employers can ban headscarves, Europe's top court rules [CNN, 2017-03-14]
Top EU court to give first ruling on Islamic headscarf bans [Reuters, 2017-03-13]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/12/police-man-started-dumpster-fire-torun-the-arabs-out-of-our-country-the-victims-were-indian/
A man assumed a store’s Indian owners were Muslim. So he
tried to burn it down, police say.
By Amy B Wang
The Washington Post, March 12, 2017
A Florida man who attempted to set fire to a convenience store told deputies that he assumed the owner
was Muslim and that he wanted to “run the Arabs out of our country,” according to the St. Lucie County
Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff later said the store owners are actually Indian, appearing to make this the latest
in a string of incidents targeting South Asians mistaken for people of Arab descent.
Around 7:40 a.m. Friday, police received calls that a white male was acting suspiciously in front of the Met
Mart convenience store in Port St. Lucie, officials said. Deputies arrived to find the store closed, with its
security shutters intact — as well as a 64-year-old man named Richard Leslie Lloyd near a flaming
dumpster.
“When the deputies arrived, they noticed the dumpster had been rolled in front of the doors and the
contents were lit on fire,” St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara said in a statement posted on Facebook.
“Upon seeing our deputies, the man put his hands behind his back and said ‘take me away.’ ”
Lloyd “told deputies that he pushed the dumpster to the front of the building, tore down signs posted to the
outside of the store and lit the contents of the dumpster on fire to ‘run the Arabs out of our country,’ ”
Mascara said. An arrest report said Lloyd had been in the store a few days ago but got upset when it didn’t
carry his favorite orange juice, according to WPTV News.
Lloyd also stated that he assumed the Met Mart owner was Muslim and that it angered him “due to what
they are doing in the Middle East,” the sheriff said.
Firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze, authorities said. Lloyd was arrested Friday and booked into
the St. Lucie County Jail in lieu of a $30,000 bond. His mental health will be evaluated, and the state
attorney’s office will decide whether the incident was a hate crime, according to the sheriff.
“It’s unfortunate that Mr. Lloyd made the assumption that the store owners were Arabic when, in fact, they
are of Indian descent,” Mascara said. “Regardless, we will not tolerate violence based on age, race, color,
ancestry, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, homeless status, mental or physical
disability.” The sheriff also thanked those who called 911 when they noticed Lloyd in front of the store.
A message left with Met Mart on Sunday morning did not receive a response.
The incident appears to be the latest crime targeting people of South Asian descent. In its most recent
report, the nonprofit group South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) noted there were 207
documented “incidents of hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric aimed at South Asian, Muslim,
Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab communities” from late December 2015 through Nov. 15, 2016,
one week after the presidential election. That represented a 34 percent increase in incidents in less than a
third of the period covered in SAALT’s 2014 report.
An “astounding” 95 percent of incidents were motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment, according to the group.
“Notably President Trump was responsible for 21% of the xenophobic political rhetoric we tracked,” it
said. The group held a vigil on the steps of Congress on Friday.
“At a time when South Asian, Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, and Arab community members are facing hate
violence and harassment on nearly a daily basis, we need real leadership from Washington to stem the tide
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/12/police-man-started-dumpster-fire-torun-the-arabs-out-of-our-country-the-victims-were-indian/
of injustice,” Suman Raghunathan, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “Waiting nearly a
week before commenting on a deadly shooting in Kansas won’t do it. Issuing a second toxic Muslim Ban
won’t do it. We need direct action from this administration to forge inclusion, justice, and hope in this
quintessential nation of immigrants.”
Last week, a 39-year-old Sikh man was shot while working on his car in his driveway in Washington state.
The gunman reportedly told him to “Go back to your own country” before pulling the trigger, according to
the Seattle Times.
Last month, a man reportedly yelled at two Indian men to “get out of my country” before opening fire at a
bar in Kansas. One of those men, 32-year-old Srinivas Kuchibhotla, was killed, while another, 32-year-old
Alok Madasani, was injured. A man who tried to intervene, 24-year-old Ian Grillot, was injured. Adam W.
Purinton, 51, a Navy veteran, was later arrested at a bar in Missouri, where he reportedly bragged about
killing two Middle Eastern men, according to the Kansas City Star. Purinton has since been charged with
first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder. The FBI has said it is investigating the shooting as a
hate crime.
Kuchibhotla and Madasani were from India but living in the United States and working as engineers
for Garmin, the technology company. After the shooting, their relatives said they worried that the United
States was no longer safe for Indians, citing what they called an increasingly xenophobic atmosphere.
“There is a kind of hysteria spreading that is not good because so many of our beloved children live there,”
Venu Madhav, a relative of Kuchibhotla, told The Washington Post then. “Such hatred is not good for
people.” Kuchibhotla’s widow told reporters two days after her husband’s death that she had told him many
times that they should go back to India but that Kuchibhotla was not afraid of staying.
“He always assured me good things will happen to good people,” Sunayana Dumala said then.
Madasani’s father told the Hindustan Times that there was an increasingly hate-filled atmosphere in the
United States and that it was linked to the election. “The situation seems to be pretty bad after Trump took
over as the U.S. president,” the father said, according to the newspaper. “I appeal to all the parents in India
not to send their children to the United States in the present circumstances.”
The White House said linking the crimes to Trump’s rhetoric was absurd, according to Reuters. After being
roundly criticized for not speaking out forcefully about the issue, Trump addressed the Kansas shooting in
his speech to Congress a week later.
As Sangay K. Mishra, author of “Desis Divided: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans,” wrote for
The Post last week, the South Asian community has suffered from “security racializing” since the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks, in which all immigrants from across a broad region are treated as potential terrorists. “The
people I spoke with came from different religions, nationalities and cultures — but found themselves
treated as similarly foreign and dangerous,” Mishra wrote. “In public spaces like bars and airports,
strangers and law enforcement officials were suspicious of their brown bodies. A number of young South
Asians in Los Angeles and New York told me that in the months and years after 9/11, they were
uncomfortable going to a bar alone. They feared being yelled at, called racial slurs or even physically
attacked — which, in some cases, had indeed happened.”
SEE ALSO:
Arson suspect wanted to 'run the Arabs out of our country,' sheriff says [CNN, 2017-03-11]
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/323397-senators-want-more-security-funding-for-jewishcenters
Senators want more security funding for Jewish centers
By Jordain Carney
The Hill, March 10, 2017
Senators are pushing the Department of Homeland Security to commit to more security funding for
nonprofits after the recent spate of threats at Jewish Community Centers.
Eighteen Democrats and GOP Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.) — a member leadership — on Friday sent a letter to
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly asking to fund the nonprofit security grant program at $50
million to help "meet these increased threats."
"It is unacceptable that in a country founded on principles of religious freedom that these heinous acts are
occurring," they wrote in the letter, which was spearheaded by Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.).
"It is simply unacceptable to not act."
The senators add that Kelly should back fully funding the grant program as part of President Trump's
upcoming budget "in order to show solidarity and to help protect those affected by these egregious threats
and attacks."
The senators list 11 recent threats or attacks in their letter, including one in Blunt's home state, but there
have been nearly 150 threats against Jewish institutions so far this year, according to the Anti-Defamation
League.
"The recent increase in religiously motivated threats and attacks have shown the importance of providing
institutions with the tools to meet these threats," the senators added.
Friday's letter comes after all 100 senators signed a letter this week demanding action in response to the
wave of anti-Semitic bomb threats.
The Trump administration is expected to release its budget on Thursday.
In addition to Blunt and Gillibrand, Democratic Sens. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Bob Casey Jr. (Pa.),
Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Ed Markey (Mass.), Al
Franken (Minn.), Ben Cardin(Md.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Ron Wyden (Ore.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Gary
Peters (Mich.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Bob Menendez(N.J.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.)
and Dick Durbin (Ill.) signed the letter.
SEE ALSO:
Senators to DHS: Fund Efforts to Protect Jewish Centers [U.S. News & World Report, 2017-03-10]
Sexism
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/world/robin-camp-rape-comments-judge-resigns-trnd/index.html
Judge who asked woman why she couldn't keep knees
together resigns
By Emanuella Grinberg
CNN, Fri March 10, 2017
A Canadian federal judge who asked a woman in a rape trial why she couldn't keep her knees together
resigned Thursday after a disciplinary council recommended he be removed from the bench.
Judge Robin Camp stepped down before Canada's Parliament could act on the recommendation.
Camp argued that "unconscious bias" was to blame for the offending comments. In addition to asking the
19-year-old why she didn't keep her knees together to fend off her alleged attacker, he also asked her why
she didn't "skew her pelvis" to avoid penetration.
Camp apologized and said he was remorseful, claiming it showed he was amenable to rehabilitation.
But the Canadian Judicial Council was not convinced.
"We find that the judge's conduct, viewed in its totality and in light of all of its consequences, was so
manifestly and profoundly destructive of the concept of impartiality, integrity and independence of the
judicial role that public confidence is sufficiently undermined to render the judge incapable of executing
the judicial office," the council said in its report.
The trial in question
Camp made the comments as a provincial court judge in a 2014 trial. He became a federal judge in 2015.
He also remarked that, "Some sex and pain sometimes go together ... that's not necessarily a bad thing."
Camp acquitted the accused man and offered him some advice:
"I want you to tell your friends, your male friends, that they have to be far more gentle with women. They
have to be far more patient. And they have to be very careful. To protect themselves, they have to be very
careful."
The comments came to light after the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned the acquittal. The man was found
not guilty a second time, which Camp said contributed to his claim that he deserved a second chance.
Judge apologizes, again
Four of the 23 judges on the Canadian Judicial Council voted against the motion to remove Camp. They
agreed his behavior rose to misconduct but said a sanction short of removal was appropriate, based on his
remorse and efforts to seek rehabilitation.
The council adopted findings from another inquiry that also recommended dismissal. The Inquiry
Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council said the judge "relied on discredited myths and stereotypes
about women and victim-blaming" and said the comments showed "antipathy" toward laws meant to
protect vulnerable witnesses.
The South African-born judge testified in the December hearing that he had "a nonexistent" knowledge of
Canadian criminal law and had not received training on sex assault cases. In his legal career, he focused
mostly on contract and bankruptcy cases, he said.
In a statement announcing his resignation, Camp apologized "to everyone who was hurt by my comments"
during the trial. "I thank everyone who was generous and kind to me and my family in the last 15 months,
particularly my legal team. I will not be answering media inquiries today," he said.
Sexual Assault /
Harassment
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/mcclatchys-america/article138194523.html
Flight attendants sue, say they’ve been called sows,
prostitutes and worse on Facebook
By Mark Price and Ely Portillo, The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer
McClatchy Washington Bureau, March 13, 2017
Two flight attendants, one of them based in Charlotte, have filed federal lawsuits against American Airlines
over alleged sexual and gender harassment on Facebook and other social media.
They claim that American Airlines failed to enforce its policies governing social media use by employees,
which forbids behavior such as using slurs and other online insults, including on the employees’ own
accounts. The alleged harassment stems from online forums and Facebook groups where thousands of
airline employees interact.
One of the flight attendants, Laura Medlin, is based at Charlotte, American Airlines’ second-busiest hub
and a major employee base. More than 2,600 American flight attendants work from Charlotte.
The pair of lawsuits was filed in November, in federal court in Pennsylvania. The lawsuits are pending,
with the plaintiffs seeking unspecified monetary damages.
American Airlines has denied the allegations and plans to defend itself, according to court filings. A
spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for more information.
Faye Riva Cohen of Philadelphia is the attorney representing Medlin. She said the issue comes down to
whether American Airlines will enforce its social media policy.
“Some of the flight attendants, the females, are feeling that they (American Airlines) are not monitoring
what it is taking place on social media, which is resulting in abusive-type bullying,” said Cohen.
In the lawsuit, Medlin, a flight attendant since 2000, said the online harassment started after she resigned
from a union position. A group of male flight attendants based in Philadelphia started harassing her on
social media, including Facebook, with insulting names such as “sow,” she maintains in the suit.
The other plaintiff, a Pennsylvania-based flight attendant named Melissa Chinery, said she became the
target of harassment in 2014, when she announced that she was running for a union position. Like Medlin,
Chinery said she was subjected to a harassment campaign by male flight attendants, including names such
as “flipper,” a synomym for prostitute, as well as “c***,” according to the lawsuit. The suit also claims
some of her confidential information was posted publicly.
Both women said they reported the harassment to American Airlines’ human resources department, which
they said didn’t take appropriate steps to defend them or stop the abuse. Chinery said she was labeled a
“snitch” and subject to retaliation from her coworkers, including unsubstantiated complaints against her.
She eventually relocated to a crew base in another city.
“The legal system has not caught up with what is happening on social media, as far as what people can say
and can’t say, what is appropriate,” said Cohen. “Our allegation is, if you have a social media policy, such
as American ...why are they not enforcing some of the things that their policy prohibits?”
Said Cohen: “When you have thousands of employees interacting on social media, without any controls
being exercised by their employer, that can lead to issues and problems.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/14/forced-to-have-sex-with-1000-men-agirl-is-now-suing-the-motel-that-she-says-let-it-happen/
Forced to have sex with 1,000 men, a girl is now suing the
motel that she says let it happen
By Samantha Schmidt
The Washington Post, March 14, 2017
(Google)
The sex-trade is often pretty easy to spot. A teenage girl
accompanies an older man at a motel front desk as he pays for a
room in cash. Men come and go from the room for 30 minutes at a
time. A scantily dressed girl wanders the hallways in the middle of
the night.
Motels and hotels across the country are facilitating sex trafficking,
often cloaking the traffickers in anonymity and profiting from their
business. The pimps and prostitutes are occasionally nabbed and criminally prosecuted. But rarely does
anything happen to the hotel owners and staff that turn a blind eye.
Now a lawsuit brought by a 14-year-old girl in Philadelphia and her lawyer aims to change that. She is
suing a motel widely known as the “local epicenter of human trafficking” for knowingly renting rooms to
men who forced teenage girls to have sex. The target is the Roosevelt Inn, a roadside motel in northeast
Philadelphia notorious for drug deals and violent crime as well as prostitution.
In this budget hotel, a lawsuit alleges, the girl was held for weeks and months at a time, barred from
leaving, and was forced to have sex with as many as 1,000 men over the course of two years, Nadeem
Bezar, a lawyer at the Kline & Specter law firm told The Washington Post.
All the while, the hotel’s owners and staff continued to lease rooms to her traffickers, profiting off their
abuse and doing nothing to stop it, the suit claims.
The allegations were laid out Friday in a suit filed in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court against the
hotel, its manager, and its parent company, UFVS Management Company, of Purchase, N.Y. It was filed
by Kline & Specter on behalf of the girl, who is now 17 and was only identified in the suit as “M.B.”
It is the first known civil suit brought under the Pennsylvania Human Trafficking Law of 2014, which
allows for compensation for victims from those who profit directly or indirectly from human trafficking,
Bezar said.
According to research by the Villanova Law School’s Institute to Address Commercial Sexual
Exploitation, it does not appear that a hotel has been held liable for an employee’s participation in or
facilitation of a human trafficking offense in part, perhaps, because victims of trafficking may not “self
identify” as victims due to the trauma of their experience and even if they do, they may be unaware that
they have any opportunity for redress.
The Philadelphia lawsuit seeks more than $50,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.
“People are policing the hallways, men and other johns are coming in and out of the hotel, and young girls
walking up and down the hallways are scantily dressed,” said Bezar. “It’s open and obvious, it’s about as
obvious as it gets.”
The way the girl got roped into trafficking is a familiar story. After a falling out with her parents, she left
home and moved from place to place. Desperate to avoid homelessness, she began spending time with the
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/14/forced-to-have-sex-with-1000-men-agirl-is-now-suing-the-motel-that-she-says-let-it-happen/
“wrong group of people,” Bezar said. She was sold into sex slavery and forced to perform sexual acts on
men more than twice or three times her age, the lawsuit alleges.
Though the girl’s abusers have already been convicted and sent to prison, her family and lawyers now hope
to hold the motel owner responsible for “allowing this to happen,” Bezar said. The girl’s lawyers declined
to identify her abusers, saying they feared exposing her to retaliation.
The staff at the motel — which prosecutors have called the “local epicenter of human trafficking” — knew
or had “constructive knowledge” that the girl was being sexually exploited, according to the lawsuit, the
Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Her traffickers lured customers to the motel through Internet
advertisements, had men call a number to negotiate a price for sex, then had the men go to the motel’s front
desk.
An employee would then direct them to the room where the girl was forced to work as a prostitute.
Condoms and condom wrappers were strewn about, and the room often smelled like marijuana, according
to the suit.
A hotel clerk named “Abdul” was made fully aware that the girl “and other underage children were
compelled to perform sex for money,” the suit says. The girl was dressed in sexually explicit clothing and
“visibly treated in an aggressive manner” by traffickers, according to the lawsuit.
“If she tried to leave there was someone at the bottom of the staircase that prevented her from doing so,”
Bezar said.
The teenage girl has since reconnected with her family, and is now receiving therapy and additional
services from city and private agencies, Bezar said.
Since the lawsuit was filed, several other victims have come forward to the lawyers to tell them about their
own experiences with sex trafficking, Bezar said. Some were young women, but all were involved with sex
trafficking at the same hotel under separate circumstances, he said.
The hotel’s manager, Yagna Patel, 72, told the Philadelphia Inquirer on Friday he had not seen the lawsuit
and was not aware of any minors allegedly being victimized in the motel. “We just rent the room and that’s
all we can do,” he said.
Patel, who said he has managed the inn for 30 years, said he has a close relationship with the police and
that if there was any inappropriate behavior in a room, the motel guests would be told to leave.
“It’s hard to control anybody,” Patel said. “If we think a lot of people are having a party in the room, we
kick them out.”
“The motel has a history of illicit activities, from drugs to several incidents surrounding trafficking and
prostitution,” Bezar said. Several people have been convicted over the last few years on charges of using
the motel for prostitution, Assistant District Attorney Erin O’Brien told the Inquirer.
“Almost every trafficking investigation we have, we see the victim is at Roosevelt Inn,” O’Brien said. “I
know our vice officers are out there on a regular basis.”
Reviews on Yelp and Trip Advisor call the 107-room, two-story motel a “drug infested, crime ridden,
prostitution laced” place where the check-in desk contained bulletproof glass “an inch thick.”
“One thing which made us very uncomfortable was that a lot of “girls” were coming in and out all the
time,” one guest wrote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/14/forced-to-have-sex-with-1000-men-agirl-is-now-suing-the-motel-that-she-says-let-it-happen/
Another reviewer said: “No security at all, these girls are letting their jons in through side doors that are
UN-LOCKED. The smell of marijuana through out the place is disgusting,” and added that the “working
girls” and their pimps “run a muck half naked through the hallways.”
A different guest said: “Do not bring your kids here please.”
In March 2014, security footage from the Roosevelt Inn circulated on YouTube showing a dramatic
gunfight in the motel. The men ran through the hallways, down a stairwell and into the lobby as they fired
shots at each other.
According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, 1,424 cases of human trafficking in hotels and
motels were reported between 2007 and 2015, involving 1,867 victims. In 2016 alone, 7,572 human
trafficking cases were reported nationwide, including 151 in Pennsylvania.
Bezar said he hopes this lawsuit sends a message to the hotel and motel industry as a whole: “You better
pay attention to what’s going on in your hallways.”
If the lawyers can get “some compliance” with the hotel and motel industry, Bezar said, “perhaps we can
start to stamp out what’s happening here.”
“If you’re going to run a business, you better be aware of what’s going on,” Bezar said. “You just can’t
continue to exploit children.”
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/opinions/revenge-porn-legal-action-needed-cevallos/index.html
Revenge porn: How to make it stop
By Danny Cevallos, CNN Legal Analyst
CNN, March 9, 2017
When it comes to sex, the law has a lot to say. For something that is supposed to happen in the privacy of
one's home, we're keenly interested in regulating what happens there.
Sometimes, in those private, consensual encounters, things go wrong. People can be victimized, and the
effects can extend far beyond the room. They can even go viral.
With the proliferation of smartphones, there has been a significant increase in the number of images and
videos created and distributed in the world. In fact, the relationship between law and emerging consumer
tech follows a well-established formula:
First, a new gadget hits the scene. Shortly thereafter, people (usually male) adapt it for sexual purposes.
Then some individuals figure out how to abuse the technology and ruin it for others. Finally, legislators
scramble to come up with laws to fix the problem. Since our legislatures are filled with septuagenarians and
Luddites, they are often not the ideal demographic to assess the problem.
Revenge porn, or the nonconsensual posting of nude images of an individual online, usually by a now-exboyfriend, is one of those newest categories of crimes that didn't really exist until technology made every
image available worldwide in an instant.
Those among us who lived in the pre-digital-photo era knew that having consensual, explicit photos
developed at the Fotomat was fraught with risk. That pretty much left the Polaroid, and those were
prohibitively expensive.
The challenge today is criminalizing this kind of conduct. And it's more challenging than other kinds of
criminal law in this area.
With most crimes, a victim has consented to no part of the conduct at any point. The challenge with
revenge porn is often that the victim consented to some of the conduct, but not all of it.
For example, existing laws have always prohibited the peeping Tom who sets up a secret camera and
captures images of nonconsenting, unknowing adults in their home or bathroom.
The law also prohibits hacking a computer and stealing images stored there.
But the situation where one adult female consents to an explicit photograph taken by another adult male,
knowing he will keep the photograph? That's a trickier one to legislate. Usually the female's consent to the
photograph is contingent upon the male's agreement to not reveal it to anyone else. Morally it makes plenty
of sense, but it might be harder to support legally as a "contract."
First of all, these contracts are not written -- can you imagine taking one to a notary? Second, there are
potential free speech issues -- though protecting these defendants stretches the spirit of the First
Amendment. Third, and most importantly, contract remedies really don't matter, because once a photo is
posted, the harm is irreparable.
Still, criminal law has come a long way in developing penalties for these defendants. Prior to 2013, just
three states prohibited the unauthorized disclosure of sexually explicit images of adults.
Now, well over 30 states and the District of Columbia outlaw it. Federal law is probably on the way too.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/opinions/revenge-porn-legal-action-needed-cevallos/index.html
It's easy to draw a line where the victims' consent ends in these cases. They may have consented to the
creation of the image. They may have consented to the continued possession and control of the image by
another. If the victim sent it herself, she consented to "dissemination"—to one person.
The victim, however, did not consent to the dissemination of the photograph to everyone else in the
universe. There is ultimately no consent to the invasion of privacy created by the distribution of the photos.
And, as internet dissemination speeds increase exponentially, the often-analog legislatures have to try to
keep pace.
Danny Cevallos (@CevallosLaw) is a CNN legal analyst and a personal injury and criminal
defense attorney practicing in Pennsylvania and the US Virgin Islands. The opinions expressed in this
commentary are his.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b1cc781c1d4f48c69815077e3b194247/apnewsbreak-sex-assault-reports-navyarmy-academies
Sex assault reports up at Navy, Army academies
By Lolita C. Baldor
The Associated Press, March 15, 2017
This May 10, 2007 file photo shows the U.S. Naval Academy in
Annapolis, Md. Reports of sexual assaults increased at two of the
three military academies last year and an anonymous survey
suggests sexual misconduct rose across the board at the schools,
The Associated Press has learned. Assault reports rose at the U.S.
Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point, New York, while dropping at the U.S. Air
Force Academy in Colorado. (AP Photo/Kathleen Lange)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Reports of sexual assaults increased at two of the three military academies last
year and an anonymous survey suggests sexual misconduct rose across the board at the schools, The
Associated Press has learned.
The new data underscore the challenge in stemming bad behavior by young people at the military college
campuses, despite a slew of programs designed to prevent assaults, help victims and encourage them to
come forward. The difficulties in some ways mirror those the larger military is struggling with amid
revelations about Marines and other service members sharing nude photos on websites.
Assault reports rose at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the U.S. Military Academy at
West Point, New York, while dropping at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. The Air Force decline
was sharp, going to 32 last year from 49 in 2015, contributing to an overall decrease in the overall number
of reported assaults at the academies. The total reported cases fell to 86 from 91 in 2015, according to
details obtained by The Associated Press.
Pentagon and military officials believe more people are reporting sexual assaults, which they see as a
positive trend because it suggests students have more confidence in the system and greater willingness to
seek help.
But the anonymous survey results suggest more assaults and crime occurring. They showed more than 12
percent of women and nearly 2 percent of men saying they experienced unwanted sexual contact.
In that survey, the largest increases in sexual misconduct were also at the Navy and Army academies. A
vast majority of students said they didn't file a report on the assault because they didn't consider it serious
enough. Many women said they took steps to avoid the perpetrator, while more than a third of the men said
they confronted the person.
Senior defense officials expressed disappointment. They were particularly concerned that more men and
women said they experienced unwanted sexual contact. The rate two years ago was about 8 percent of
women and 1 percent of men.
"This is almost a new population of folks every four years and that makes it a little bit more difficult for the
messages to build up and gather momentum," said Nate Galbreath, deputy director of the Pentagon's sexual
assault prevention office.
Officials struggled to identify a reason. They said some blame may fall on student leaders and how much
they are willing to emphasize and enforce sexual assault prevention programs among peers.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b1cc781c1d4f48c69815077e3b194247/apnewsbreak-sex-assault-reports-navyarmy-academies
"Unless the students have a bit of accountability on their own, unless they take the charge themselves,
(senior) leadership can really only take them so far," said Elizabeth Van Winkle, who is currently the
assistant defense secretary for readiness. "If the students aren't taking the charge themselves, you won't
make as much headway in this population."
Galbreath said sexual assault prevention instruction may be getting lost amid the many messages about
social behavior, including not drinking and driving, or texting and driving.
The Pentagon, he said, is encouraging the academies to increase the amount of time they spend talking
about how future leaders must foster a climate of dignity and respect. He said students should know that
enforcing good conduct is something they will need to do as officers when they graduate and lead troops in
combat.
In recent months, military leaders have met to try and find what Galbreath called the "holy grail of
prevention."
One example, he said, would involving taking more to the students about when and how to intervene when
they see a bad situation developing. Such scenarios include when they are in a bar drinking or in a
workplace in which a boss is the problem.
"What we want those folks to do at the academies is to find those things that seem to really be hallmark
situations and help people be better scouts and identify those precursors earlier and also give them a wider
range of things that they might be able to do to intervene," Galbreath said.
Galbreath and Van Winkle said drinking remains a major concern, factoring in about 60 percent of
incidents women cite and nearly half of those men cite. They said the academies have been putting alcohol
programs in place, including some that require students to take a class before turning 21.
Sexual harassment reports filed by students dropped at all three academies.
The overall total fell to 10 last year from 28 in 2015. The anonymous survey showed roughly half of the
women and slightly more than 10 percent of men saying they were sexually harassed, near the same level
as the previous survey. The surveys are conducted every two years.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/03/14/about-500-accessed-drive-nude-photos-marinesneller.html
About 500 Accessed Drive With Nude Photos of Marines:
Neller
By Hope Hodge Seck
Military.com, March 14, 2017
U.S. Marines assigned to the Female Engagement Team (FET),
22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct a breach training
exercise at Fort Pickett, Va., Feb. 21, 2016. (U.S. Marine
Corps/Lance Cpl. Koby I. Saunders)
Officials with Naval Criminal Investigative Service have
determined that about 500 members of the Marines United
Facebook group followed a link to a drive containing nude and
compromising photos of female Marines and other women, the
commandant of the Marine Corps said Tuesday.
Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee in a hearing that was partially closed to receive
classified testimony, Gen. Robert Neller said that while the number of individuals apparently involved in
this illicit photo-sharing is a subset of the 30,000-member group, the actions stem from a troubling mindset
of some in the Corps.
"This issue of denigration of women, objectification of women, misogyny, just bad behavior is tied to the
way some group of male Marines look at women in the Marine Corps," Neller said. "And I think we can fix
that by holding those accountable."
The hearing, scheduled after news broke last week about photo-sharing, harassment of women and, in one
case, the stalking of a female Marine by members of Marines United, was at times angry and emotional as
lawmakers expressed their outrage. Several brought up similar reports from 2013 of Facebook pages
populated with active-duty Marines and veterans who would harass and target female service members, and
post their photos so others could make sexual comments.
"When you say to us, it's got to be different, that rings hollow," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat
from New York. "Have you actually investigated and found anybody guilty? If we can't crack Facebook,
how are we supposed to be able to confront Russian aggression? It is a serious problem when we have
members of our military denigrating female Marines who will give their life for this country."
Despite then-commandant Gen. Jim Amos' receipt of a 2013 letter from Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat
from California, complaining about the Facebook pages, Neller said he believed commanders then were
ignorant of what was taking place online.
"Part of this is, I think victims were afraid to come forward, because if they came forward, they were going
to be attacked tenfold on social media again," he said. "I think for those, that don't participate in this
domain, I think we were ignorant. I'm trainable, and I accept responsibility for that."
Officials are still trying to determine how many women were victimized by the Marines United page and
others like it. Acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley told the committee that a dedicated tipline set up by
NCIS had to date received 53 calls, from self-identified victims as well as those offering information to
locate the pages and prosecute offenders.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/03/14/about-500-accessed-drive-nude-photos-marinesneller.html
The Marine Corps is now working with hosts such as Facebook and Google to shut down the pages in
question and take damaging material offline, Neller said. How to prosecute offenders, both active-duty
troops and veterans, may be a knottier problem.
Marine Corps officials have said active-duty perpetrators may be subject to Uniform Code of Military
Justice articles 92, disobedience of an order, article 120c, broadcast or dissemination of photographs
without consent, and 134, general violation. Under these orders, troops may be subject to non-judicial
punishment or court-martial for Facebook activities. But it's possible these articles may not be enough,
officials suggested.
Asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, if he wanted a new law on the books
governing cyber-bullying, Neller said a Marine task force assembled this month would consider that.
"That's something we're going to get into with this task force, if there are provisions within UCMJ that may
need to be more specific about this particular type of potential offense," he said.
For veterans, Neller and Stackley said, prosecution gets even more challenging, as laws governing online
harassment and "revenge porn" vary from state to state.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, suggested creating a policy that could take away the
benefits of veterans found to have engaged in internet harassment, nude photo-sharing and other activities.
"I want to look at other things we need to do to make this a very painful exercise for somebody found
guilty of doing this as a member of the veterans community," he said.
As NCIS investigates and the task force determines a way forward, Neller said he is planning to focus on
communicating with Marines that treating women in the service as unequal was unacceptable. He will
travel to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Wednesday to meet with Marines and learn more about the
mindset behind Marines United, he said.
"I think we addressed the action of individuals which is sexual assault or bullying," he said. "But I think the
bigger issue within the culture is we haven't addressed the fact that all Marines are Marines."
Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/us/harassed-online-she-remains-determined-to-enlist-in-themarines.html
Harassed Online, She Remains Determined to Enlist in the
Marines
By Dave Philipps
The New York Times, March 14, 2017
Savannah Cunningham, who begins basic training in the Marine
Corps in April, was targeted after a nude video of her began to
circulate on social media. (Credit: Caitlin O'Hara for The New
York Times)
The trouble started months ago for Savannah Cunningham, who
had long dreamed of becoming a Marine, when she was deluged
with lewd messages online from men and learned that an all-male
group of Marines was circulating a nude video of her on Facebook.
New waves of requests and obscene comments about her appearance arrived every time the video, initially
obtained from a former boyfriend, and other photos taken from her Instagram account were reposted along
with her identity. “It was horrible,” Ms. Cunningham, 19, said from her home in Phoenix.
“It was such a creepy invasion of privacy,” she added. “They were actively seeking nude images of me,
anything they could get their hands on.”
Given such a raw view of the worst of Marine culture, many women might have been turned off by the
military. But Ms. Cunningham was determined to enlist. She ships off to basic training the first week of
April.
“Someone needs to stand up and say this does not represent the values of the Marine Corps,” she said. “If
not me, then who? Yes, for a long time it was a boys’ club, but there needs to be progress.”
News of the invitation-only Facebook group behind the harassment, a 30,000-member collection of activeduty Marines and veterans called Marines United, has turned up the heat on the long-simmering problem of
how women are treated in the Marine Corps.
The Marine Corps faced blistering questioning on Tuesday from the Senate Armed Services Committee,
with members accusing the leadership of failing to take action on an issue they said the corps has known
about for years.
“There is no mystery — this has been going on a very long time, it is right in front of you,” Senator Kirsten
Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, told Marine Corps commanders, citing a 2013 hearing on
the cyberbullying of women in the corps. “When you say to us, ‘It’s got to be different,’ that rings hollow.”
In contrite and at times introspective testimony, the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. Robert B. Neller, said
the online harassment was a symptom of a broader cultural problem that threatens to undermine the
foundation of the fighting force. He vowed to punish all who participated, and to work to make the force of
184,000 a more welcoming place for its 15,000 women.
“You’ve heard it before, but we are going to have to change how we see ourselves and how we treat each
other,” he told Ms. Gillibrand. “That’s a lame answer, but that’s all I have right now. And that’s on me.”
Commanders said of the 30,000 members of Marines United, only about 500 appeared to have gone into
folders of nude photos. Investigators were working to build cases on active duty troops it could identify.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/us/harassed-online-she-remains-determined-to-enlist-in-themarines.html
But the group’s actions in recent days show that it may not be easy to deter. When the original group page
was shut down after the news site Reveal uncovered its actions last week, a core group of photo sharers
moved to another secret group called MU 2.0. Then, when that was shut down, they moved to one called
MU 3.0.
And even as the top enlisted Marine, Sgt. Maj. Ronald L. Green, condemned the group in testimony before
Congress last week, members were taunting him online, according to a veteran, James LaPorta, who has
been tracking the group’s activities.
“There seems to be no regret,” Mr. LaPorta said. “They were using racial slurs and talking about getting
pictures of his wife.”
The group continues to post on anonymous pornography sites. A recent review of images from these sites
shows dozens of identifiable women, naked or partly undressed, along with photos of them in uniform.
From left, Gen. Robert B. Neller, the Marine Corps commandant,
Sean J. Stackley, Acting Secretary of the Navy, and Sgt. Maj.
Ronald L. Green, the top enlisted Marine, testified during a Senate
Armed Services hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. (Credit:
Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times)
Thomas Brennan, a Marine veteran and journalist who first reported
on the group, said that he had given the names of 55 Marines
involved in the photo sharing — including officers ranked as high
as major — to investigators six weeks ago, but that there was no sign that any of them had been removed
from duty.
A Marine spokesman said he could not comment on the continuing investigation.
The scandal has now spread to the Army and Navy, which are investigating similar photo sharing groups.
But for the tens of thousands of women serving in the military, even successful prosecutions may have little
effect on the minefield of bias they say they confront.
More than any other branch of the military, the Marine Corps has resisted integrating women. It still trains
recruits separately and fails to give women properly fitting body armor, which the Army has provided for
years.
“Almost every woman I know in the Marines has faced this kind of harassment, and you try to show you
are tough enough to ignore it,” said Justine Elena, a former Marine captain who served in Afghanistan and
now works for “The Daily Show.” “But at some point, by ignoring it, you just condone it.”
She recalled an instance when fellow Marines took photos of women in the bathrooms on a ship a friend
was serving on.
“We need to stand up and say that is not what the Marines is about,” she said.
Last week, after hearing of the widespread photo sharing, Ms. Elena set up a fund-raiser called Female
Marines United, in which people could show their opposition to Marines United by donating money to
support mental health care for Marine veterans.
Ms. Cunningham, who is just a few weeks away from placing her feet on the painted yellow footprints at
basic training that are the symbolic first step in becoming a Marine, said that while she had often been torn
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/us/harassed-online-she-remains-determined-to-enlist-in-themarines.html
about how to respond to the online harassment, she had decided that the best response would be to become
the best Marine possible.
Always athletic growing up, she made up her mind in high school to join the military, and chose the
Marines, she said, because it was the most selective and demanding. She plans to work on a crew loading
missiles on Cobra helicopters.
Two years ago, she began working out intensely to prepare — hitting the gym until her arms, which could
not do a single pull-up at first, could knock out 14 in a row.
“I wanted to make sure I could do anything male Marines could,” she said. “I didn’t want anyone to hold
me to a lower standard.”
Later, she was dating a Marine, and when he was stationed outside of Arizona, she sent him a short strip
tease video.
“I don’t typically do that stuff,” she said. “But for the person you love, you do things to keep a relationship
alive.”
The video was soon added to the cache of hundreds of photos and videos of active-duty Marines and
veterans — filed with the subject’s name, rank and place of duty — that is being circulated by Marines
United and other groups. Ms. Cunningham was notified by male Marines she knew who were members of
the group, and she was eventually given access to view the whole collection.
She pored through the files, searching for women she knew so she could alert them, knowing that their
colleagues and commanders could see them.
But while she was horrified by the actions of the group, she said she never equated it with the Marine
Corps. She now dates a Marine sergeant and said that most of the male Marines she knew were just as
disgusted by the photo sharing as she was. That was what made her stick with her plan to enlist.
“We have to be positive examples of the change we want to see,” she said. “Courage, integrity, honor: I
want to live those values.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/03/10/how-the-marine-corps-widening-nudephoto-scandal-has-spread-throughout-the-military
How the Marine Corps’ widening nude photo scandal has
spread throughout the military
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff
The Washington Post, March 10, 2017
On Saturday, the military news website the War Horse reported on the existence of a shared
drive containing hundreds of naked photos of female service members that had been posted to a closed
Facebook group with about 30,000 members, many of them active-duty Marines.
The article, written by a former Marine and Purple Heart recipient, rapidly gained national attention,
prompting condemnation from Marine officials and public outcry. Members of the Facebook group at the
center of the scandal, called Marines United, sent death threats to the report’s author. In the days since the
article was published, the scandal has grown to encompass other branches, while the original group of
Marines United members have continued to make splinter groups in an effort keep its community intact.
The Marines’ highest-ranking officer, Gen. Robert B. Neller, told reporters Friday that fewer than 10
women had come forward to report that they had been harassed. He added that the Marine Corps was also
forming a task force that would address broader cultural issues that probably contributed to the scandal.
“I need their help,” Neller said. “I’m going to ask them to trust us. I understand why that might be a bit of a
reach for them right now. But I can’t fix this. … The only way there is going to be accountability in this is
[if] somebody comes forward and tells us what happened to them.”
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis also said in a statement Friday that the “purported actions” on social media
“represent egregious violations of the fundamental values we uphold at the Department of Defense.”
“The chain of command is taking all appropriate action to investigate potential misconduct and to maintain
good order and discipline throughout our armed forces,” Mattis said.
Below, a timeline of events related to the scandal from the past six days:
Sunday, March 5:
The Naval Criminal Investigation Service, or NCIS, said it was launching an investigation into the drive,
while Marine officials said the drive had been taken offline. Additionally, Neller issued a statement calling
the incident “distasteful” but did not address the investigation directly. The top enlisted Marine in the
service, Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Ronald Green added that “there is no place for this type of demeaning or
degrading behavior in our Corps, this includes our actions online.”
Monday, March 6:
The Marine Corps Times reported that NCIS was considering leveling felony charges at some of the
Marines involved in sharing the naked photos on the group Marines United. NCIS spokesman Ed Buice has
repeatedly declined to say how many Marines or service members might be involved.
Tuesday, March 7:
Female Marines subjected to online harassment on Marines United and other pages began to come forward,
detailing that the problem was larger than any one group.
“It’s Marine Corps wide,” Marine Pvt. Kally Wayne, 22, told The Washington Post. Wayne joined in 2013
and was removed from the service three years later for disciplinary problems.
Erika Butner, a Marine who left the service recently, told American Military News that “this scandal has
never been a new incident within the military, but I am glad it is finally getting the recognition it deserves.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/03/10/how-the-marine-corps-widening-nudephoto-scandal-has-spread-throughout-the-military
“As a rape survivor, I can tell you that this exact behavior of sexualizing and objectifying women is why so
much sexual harassment runs unchecked in the Corps. It’s become so normalized in the military that
women just have to deal with it alone,” she added.
Wednesday, March 8:
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat of the House Armed Services subcommittee on
military personnel, said on the House floor that “heads should roll,” and called on Secretary of Defense Jim
Mattis to remove the Marines who participated in the incident. Speier had issued a similar
statement Saturday. After another incident in 2013 involving unofficial Marine Corps Facebook pages,
Speier called for greater oversight.
Neller also issued a video message Wednesday to the Marine Corps, saying that the incident is
“embarrassing to our Corps, to our families and to our nation.” Neller mentioned the guiding ethos of the
Marine Corps and that “unfortunately, it appears that some Marines may have forgotten these fundamental
truths, and instead have acted selfishly and unprofessionally through their actions on social media.”
Thursday, March 9
James LaPorta, a journalist and former Marine, shared with CNN that the Marines United Group had
splintered and formed another group, called Marines United 2. LaPorta also said that the original cache of
photos that Marine officials said were taken down had actually migrated to a new Dropbox folder and was
still being shared. The military site Task and Purpose also reported Thursday that service members and
veterans from the Marines United page had begun uploading images and videos to pornography websites
following the War Horse’s initial report Saturday.
The webpage Just the Tip, of the Spear, an unofficial Marine Facebook page that has long been seen as the
trailblazer for this type of harassment, addressed the scandal Thursday by reading a prepared statement on
its radio show. Just the Tip, of the Spear was subject of multiple news stories in 2013 and 2014 by
the Marine Corps Times and Task and Purpose. At the time, the Marine Corps did little to curb the behavior
promoted on the site. “On the female side of the apparent issue women post risque pictures of themselves
or send nudes to other people, they then complain about being harassed. On the male side of the apparent
issue, men are collective and sharing nudes and risque pictures like they’re baseball cards and are stupid
enough to leave comments in public view promoting stupidity and harassment,” the statement said. “Both
sides are equally guilty but in different ways. Guys stop thinking with your d— and girls stop
metaphorically burning down cities for attention.”
On Thursday night, Business Insider reported that other branches of the military were involved in nude
photo sharing and were primarily using an anonymous message board to post, share and solicit images of
female service members and female cadets at service academies. The message boards popularity has grown
in recent days after the Marines United page was taken down, the report said. It is unclear if the message
board has been taken down or what legal action the Pentagon is taking to address the issue.
“This alleged behavior is inconsistent with our values,” Lt. Col. Myles Caggins, a Pentagon spokesman told
Business Insider.
SEE ALSO:
The Army is looking into allegations that soldiers were involved in nude photo sharing [Army Times, 2017-03-10]
Marines nude photo scandal involves all branches of military: Reports [USA TODAY, 2017-03-10]
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/marines-nude-photo-scandal-reddit
Inside Marines United: Infighting roiled the group that
sparked the military's nude photo scandal
By Andrew deGrandpre
Marine Corps Times, March 13, 2017
(Photo Credit: Marine Corps)
WASHINGTON — Months before the U.S. military's nude photo
scandal was unveiled, an intense internal feud had erupted inside one
of the main groups known for sharing explicit imagery of their female
co-workers.
Some members of the secretive, all-male Marines United social media
network worried openly about the consequences of participating in
potentially illegal activity, and some outright denounced the practice and sought to sabotage it.
One member, appalled by content celebrating “revenge porn” and “talk about rape,” claimed credit for
getting the group removed from Facebook where its following reportedly included some 30,000 active-duty
Marines, military veterans and others. At the same time, however, there is evidence the group's
administrators not only ignored internal warnings before restarting it, they took steps to reassure
participants that photo swapping and disparaging commentary would not be censored.
Now criminal investigators have launched a wide-ranging probe into Marines United to reveal the scope of
wrongdoing. Meanwhile, outraged lawmakers want to hold congressional hearings and look to amend
military law, making it easier to punish those who target women.
The contentious back-and-forth inside the members-only community offers a rare look at how its members
have responded to the misconduct that threatens to undermine public confidence in an institution largely
viewed throughout American society as honorable and trustworthy. It also raises an important question:
The mob mentality fosters online abuse. Can it be overcome by those wishing to fight back?
Prosecuting Marines over nude photo scandal could be difficult
That's what happened within Marines United when Marine veteran John Albert took a stand.
"I am so incensed at the members of our Marine community that would let this go on unchecked," he wrote
on Reddit in September while explaining why he reported the page, prompting Facebook to shut it down.
Albert, 30, who identified himself publicly last week after his Reddit post was recirculated online, said he
was added to the group by an acquaintance and absolutely sickened by what he saw.
An enlisted infantryman who deployed to Afghanistan twice before being medically retired with shoulder
injuries, Albert appealed to the values instilled in every Marine at boot camp — honor, courage and
commitment — and admonished those who did nothing while women were stalked, ridiculed and
threatened.
"If you were part of the problem," he wrote, "then you are an absolute disgrace to our dead brothers,"
Albert wrote.
Albert told Military Times recently that more people must step into the fray on social media and push back
against the practice of posting pictures of women without their consent or making comments that can
encourage sexual assault.
"There are 30,000 people in Marines United," he said. "Where are the other several hundred thousand
retired and inactive Marines? Group-think and people unwilling to go against the masses: That's what
allowed this stuff to go on."
Marines' nude photo scandal could lead to significant jail time
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/marines-nude-photo-scandal-reddit
It appears now that when Albert first spoke up last year, he had tacit support among others inside Marines
United. But those who felt the same way also acknowledged feeling reluctant to voice their disapproval
publicly.
"I agreed with you," one Reddit user wrote last week after Albert's post was recirculated. "However, I
wanted to fit in and ... was too afraid to go against the majority, but I am glad there are Marines out there
like you that said: 'F--- that. I'm going to do the right thing.' "
On Friday, the Marine Corps' top general, Commandant Robert Neller, concluded a week of public
appearances by holding a 25-minute press briefing at the Pentagon. Asked about the apparent fallout within
Marines United, the general bluntly said, "I don't really know or am I interested in what their internal
dialogue is."
Privately, though, some in the Pentagon acknowledge that, in addition to any formal action to be taken by
military leaders, the effort to undermine this culture of misogyny must rely to a degree on individuals like
Albert, a sort of vigilante who has held his ground even as others hurl insults at him, threaten his safety and
accuse him of betrayal. Military leaders have struggled to influence this type of behavior. And while arrests
and criminal convictions may serve as a deterrent, many have said that change will have to be led from
within the military's lowest ranks.
Marines United was nominally intended to help prevent veterans from committing suicide, a defense that's
been offered by many in recent days. But the group's leaders were also unabashed about its other mission
serving as a pipeline for compromising imagery often shared without the women's consent.
Facebook disabled the page after Albert reported it last fall, but those who maintained the database of nude
photos quickly restarted it and dismissed internal criticism.
Someone purporting to be an administrator for Marines United, a Reddit user identified as MUActual
published a "public relations" statement after the community was reactivated in September. He
acknowledged that its content "is at worst juvenile, but exactly what you would expect from the kind of
men who have experienced what less than one tenth of one percent of the population has experienced."
The post says members posting explicit images should seek permission from the women before sharing
them with the entire group, but stopped short of forbidding the imagery that was at times pornographic or
advocated sexual violence.
"We do not wish to make any further efforts to censor our members," the message says. "After all, a Marine
with a clean sense of humor is a lonely Marine."
A Pentagon source familiar with Marines United provided Military Times with Facebook screen shots
showing the link to a Google Drive account where the images had been stored. A separate post indicating
the administrators were preparing to release the public relations statement prompted one member to reply:
"Just curious how well is that gonna go when they start handing out" nonjudicial punishment and courtsmartial. "... Hope you know how hot that fryer is prolly gonna get."
Military Times has been unsuccessful in numerous attempts to contact the individuals who appear to have
made these posts.
The Marine Corps is the only military service that segregates men
and women during basic training. Many have argued this why
misogyny is so prevalent. Photo Credit: Sgt. Richard
Blumenstein/Marine Corps
Last week, after the scandal came to light, a different type of
Facebook group was activated. Called Not In my Marine Corps, the
community includes active-duty Marines, veterans and others
"dedicated to ending sexual harassment and assault" in the ranks.
There's nothing secretive about it, nor does it discriminate on the
basis of gender. The page and its corresponding website include
anonymous stories of sexual harassment and violence endured by women in uniform dating back years.
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/marines-nude-photo-scandal-reddit
And there are two calls to action. They want the Uniform Code of Military Justice amended to address the
sort of nonconsensual photo swapping fueling abuse online. And they want the Marine Corps to integrate
recruit training, to allow young men and women to train side by side as they do in the Army, Navy and Air
Force.
"All military services' general and flag officers require Senate confirmation before they may assume their
post or next highest rank," the website says under a section titled Turn up the Heat. "Demand that their
hearings be delayed until they pledge written support to make this a priority for immediate action."
One of the group's founders, Erin Kirk-Cuomo, told Military Times that her organization has heard from
hundreds of women in the past week. "They're afraid to come out and report. They're terrified of
retribution, of being labeled a problem," said Cuomo, 36, a former Marine sergeant. Beyond directing
women to legal and psychological assistance, she hopes to encourage people to intervene in the future.
"Marines United had 30,000 followers," she said. "Many were bystanders who saw this happening and
didn't say anything. If you see something like that, you need to stand up and do something."
Andrew deGrandpre is Military Times' senior editor and Pentagon bureau chief. On
Twitter: @adegrandpre. With additional reporting by Marine Corps Times' Jeff Schogol. On
Twitter: @JeffSchogol
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/articles/marines-update-social-media-policy
Marine Corps social media policy: Cyberbullying is illegal
By Jeff Schogol
Marine Corps Times, March 15, 2017
Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller has made it clear that Marines who engage in cyberbullying and
other predatory behavior online can face criminal charges.
“Marines have got to understand that using social media to degrade, denigrate or be disrespectful to another
Marine is not just not who we are, but it’s illegal,” Neller told lawmakers on Tuesday.
Posted later that day, ALMAR 008/17 lists the articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that apply to
the types of behavior found on the Marines United Facebook group and other websites.
The Marine Corps’ updated social media policy makes clear that Marines who threaten, harass or
discriminate against people online can be charged with failure to obey an order or regulation, the message
to the Corps says.
“Existing orders and the UCMJ have long prohibited sexual or other harassment, fraternization, retaliation,
reprisal, and hazing,” Neller said in the ALMAR. “Marines are reminded that their conduct, even off-duty
or online, may violate Navy and Marine Corps orders and regulations.”
Even though the UCMJ does not include a specific provision on cyberbullying, Neller feels that military
law provides commanders with the tools they need to address the issue, he said at Tuesday’s Senate Armed
Services Committee Hearing.
“To me, we’ve stated what behavior in cyberspace is acceptable and not acceptable,” Neller said. “To me,
that is the weight of Article 92: Disobedience of an order.”
Marines who make disrespectful or insubordinate comments about civilian or military leadership online can
also be charged under Articles 88 through 91 of the UCMJ, the ALMAR says. Any Marines who mistreat
other Marines of a lower rank online could be charged under Article 93.
But critics argue that the UCMJ’s strictest punishments under Article 120c do not apply to Marines who
share or steal photos that were originally taken consensually.
“My understanding is … if you’re on a public-facing webpage and you post a picture, that in itself can be
construed as consent,” Neller said on Tuesday. “If someone else takes that picture, there is no criminal
action. I’m not saying I agree with that, but that is an interpretation."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., asked Neller if the UCMJ needs a “revenge pornography” provision to
make such scenarios a criminal offense.
“I think that would be helpful in the accountability process,” Neller replied.
SEE ALSO:
Corps to Update Social Media Rules in Wake of Marines United Scandal [Military.com, 2017-03-13]
Mattis: Social Media Misconduct by DoD Personnel Won’t be Tolerated [Defense.gov, 2017-03-10]
Chairman: Military Behavior Must be Honorable Day-to-Day, Online [Defense.gov, 2017-03-10]
Prosecuting Marines over nude photo scandal could be difficult [Military Times, 2017-03-10]
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/articles/marines-contemplating-changes-to-boot-camp
Marines eye changes to recruit training amid renewed calls
for coed boot camp
By Jeff Schogol
Marine Corps Times, March 14, 2017
(Photo Credit: Sgt. Jennifer Schubert.)
Changes to recruit training could be coming, Commandant Gen.
Robert Neller told lawmakers Tuesday in a tense session about the
ongoing investigation into whether Marines viewed nude pictures
of female troops, veterans and civilians and harassed those women.
A spokesman for Neller, Lt. Col. Eric Dent, declined to say whether
the evaluation of recruit training to which Neller referred may include desegregating boot camp, so that
men and women would be integrated during the 13-week program.
“He said we are looking at changes,” Dent told Marine Corps Times after the hearing. “Nothing to report
on yet other than we are looking at how we conduct recruit training to see if there are ways to improve.”
Neller, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Ronald Green and Acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley were
grilled for more than two hours during an open Senate Armed Services Committee hearing before briefing
lawmakers in a closed session on Tuesday.
About 500 people of the 30,000-member Marines United Facebook community are believed to have viewed
the nude pictures, said Neller, who added the Marine Corps’ policy on social media is being updated to
more directly address cyber bullying.
The nude photos on the members-only Marines United site has set off a criminal investigation into whether
Marines wrongfully posted photos of naked female Marines and subjected them to online harassment.
Other services are also investigating similar sites allegedly involving other service branches.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said the misogynistic and possible illegal behavior seen on “Marines United” and
other websites is symptomatic of larger problem that starts at boot camp.
“Are you willing to reconsider the role that Marine recruit training plays in this and re-evaluate the Marine
Corps’ policy of gender segregation at basic training?” Warren, D-Mass., asked.
The Marine Corps is taking a “very long look at how we do recruit training,” said Neller, who did not
address whether any specific changes are being considered. He also took issue with Warren’s
characterization of boot camp as segregated.
“We’re not separating men and women anymore in the Marines?” Warren asked.
Male and female recruits from all of the services live separately because they are lodged in open squad
bays, Neller said, but at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina, both male and female
recruits conduct “a good portion” of their training together,” including the Crucible, the grueling 54-hour
capstone to boot camp.
“To say, that we’re segregated, I don’t believe is a fair statement,” Neller said. “But we do it differently
than everybody else.”
But when Warren pressed Neller on the matter, he conceded that male and female Marine recruits do train
separately during parts of boot camp.
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/articles/marines-contemplating-changes-to-boot-camp
“We are looking at the entire way that we do recruit training from how we educate and train our drill
instructors to how we do the entire program of instruction for men and women,” Neller said.
On Jan. 1, 2016, then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus had ordered the Marine Corps to completely integrate
recruit training, but Corps leadership ultimately persuaded him to allow male and female recruits to
continue to train separately for some events.
“The Marines did a very good job of showing ... that the way it’s done now sets both men and women up
for greater success,” Mabus told Marine Corps Times on Feb. 2, 2016.
However, the Service Women's Action Network is advocating for the Marine Corps to follow the Army,
Navy and Air Force by fully integrating all boot camp training.
“The Marine Corps is the only service that segregates men and women at basic training,” SWAN said in a
March 6 statement. “Women Marines are physically separated from men and held to different and lower
training standards. This creates and perpetuates an ‘us versus them’ environment where women are viewed
as a lesser category of Marine and ultimately results in high levels of harassment and assault.”
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/articles/ncis-identifies-hundreds-of-marines-from-facebook-group
NCIS has identified hundreds of Marines who are members
of Marines United
By Jeff Schogol
Marine Corps Times, March 16, 2017
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has identified hundreds of Marines who are members of the
Marines United Facebook group, where some members allegedly shared nude photos of female troops,
veterans and civilians, a Democratic House lawmaker said on Thursday.
NCIS is investigating whether Marines shared the nude photos without the women’s consent and harassed
them online. So far, investigators have 1,200 members of Marines United, including 700 active-duty
Marines and 150 Marines in the Reserve, Rep. Jackie Speier, of California, said at a news conference.
About 500 of Marines United’s roughly 30,000 members are believed to have viewed the nude
photographs, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller told senators on Tuesday.
Neller said he did not know what motivated Marines to cyberbully the women whose pictures were shared.
“I’ve heard it described as the dark humor of veterans, but that’s a cop-out,” Neller said. “But we also
know that there are Marines that are participating in this, who have never been shot at in their lives. So
they’re just trying to get credibility—I don’t know.”
There is one major legal issue prosecutors may face: If the pictures shared online were originally taken
consensually, the strictest penalties under the Uniform Code of Military Justice may not apply to Marines
who shared them without permission.
That’s why Speier has proposed a bill that would allow service members to be prosecuted for sharing
revealing pictures that “a reasonable person would know or understand” are intended to remain private
without permission of the people depicted in the pictures.
“Clearly the antiquated language of the UCMJ must be fixed to address this national scandal and to restore
the reputations of not only our brave service members, but the Marine Corps itself,” Speier said at
Thursday’s news conference.
Gloria Allred, an attorney who represents two women whose pictures were shared on Marines United
praised Speier’s proposed bill and said Congress needs to take further action.
“The House Armed Services community needs to conduct a hearing as soon as possible to hear from the
female victims of Marine United and other web pages,” Allred said at the news conference. “Both the
Senate and the House have asked General Neller to testify, but we need Congress to hear from the victims
of this scandal. Their voices need to be heard. I represent a number of those victims but none have been
invited to testify.”
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/03/10/task-force-investigate-cultural-roots-alleged-usmc-photosharing.html
Task Force to Investigate Cultural Roots of Alleged USMC
Photo Sharing
By Hope Hodge Seck
Military.com, March 10, 2017
US Marine with the Female Engagement Team, 1st Battalion 8th
Marines, Regimental Combat team II stands in formation during a
ceremony for the birthday of the Marines at Camp Delaram in
Helmand province, Afghanistan. (Paula Images)
The commandant of the Marine Corps promised accountability for
Marines found to have shared nude photos of female service
members without their consent, and promised that a newly formed
task force would address the service "culture or subculture" that
spawned the illicit activity.
In a briefing to reporters at the Pentagon Friday, Gen. Robert Neller -- for the third time in less than a week
-- publicly denounced the alleged activity on Marines United, a private Facebook group exposed March 4
in an investigative report.
"These allegations, they undermine everything we stand for as a Marine Corps and as Marines," he said.
"Discipline, honor, professionalism and respect and trust amongst each other."
The task force, to be led by Assistant Commandant Gen. Glenn Walters, will ensure victims of the alleged
photo-sharing and denigration receive adequate support and assistance, Neller said. It will also, he said,
address underlying cultural issues that may have created a permissive environment for bad behavior online.
"They're going to look at what's going on while developing plans for corrective actions and
recommendations for policies, procedures and education and training of Marines that will prevent this in
the future," Neller said. "The culture that -- I'd say subculture -- that may have given rise to this."
When the Marine Corps first got a tip Jan. 30 from reporter Thomas J. Brennan about the Marines United
page, the service acted quickly to shut it down, Neller said. To date, he said, the Corps is aware of fewer
than 10 women who have come forward publicly to identify themselves as victims of the page, though
Brennan has indicated he is aware of about 30.
Neller said he has spoken with Brennan, a medically retired Marine and Purple Heart recipient, and voiced
his disgust that Brennan has reported being threatened by other Marines from the Facebook page.
"He's been threatened, which I find as disgusting as anything that somebody who would try to bring this to
the attention would be attacked by other Marines," Neller said.
The question of the culture that motivated this alleged bad behavior has been the subject of much
discussion. A veteran Marine officer, Kate Hendricks Thomas, told Military.com earlier this week that, as a
deployed lieutenant, she used to carry around a can of black spray paint to obliterate explicit drawings of
herself on the outhouses at the forward operating base she served on.
Harassment of female troops and veterans online isn't new either. Female Marine veterans told
Military.com this week about incidents of having their photos shared and being targeted and harassed on
Facebook that date back nearly 10 years.
Neller indicated he was, to an extent, blindsided by the current scandal.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/03/10/task-force-investigate-cultural-roots-alleged-usmc-photosharing.html
"If you'd asked me two or three weeks ago what's my number one concern, it wouldn't be looking for
websites where Marines are allegedly posting pictures of other Marines and making degrading,
misogynistic, objectifying comments," he said. "I kind of thought we were getting ready to modernize the
force."
At the same time, Neller said, he had been aware of reports of abusive behavior by Marines in 2013 and
2014 that caught the attention of Congress, and said any answer for why the Marine Corps did not act more
decisively than would sound like an excuse.
"Thinking back, why wasn't I talking about this," he said. "I don't have a Facebook page, I don't do social
media. I don't know what group or demographic in the Marine Corps is involved in this. I don't know if
they think they're helping us. I don't know."
Neller acknowledged too, that an apparent problem with the way male Marines treated their female
counterparts extended beyond the scope of the internet.
"It's not just on social media," he said. We've been fighting for 15 years. Men and women, side by side. I
don't know what else [female Marines have] got to do to [have male Marines] say, 'yeah, good to go.'"
Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
SEE ALSO:
Marine scandal hits home for Ohio women veterans [The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 2017-03-11]
Marines to create task force after nude photo scandal [The Hill, 2017-03-10]
Secret Marines group is still sharing nude photos amid scandal [CNN, 2017-03-09]
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/042b13c35da34d3a922366bd3187dd31/mattis-meet-military-leaders-nudephoto-sharing
Top Marine asks women to 'trust us' in nude-photo inquiry
By Lolita C. Baldor
The Associated Press, March 10, 2017
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller pauses during a
news conference at the Pentagon, Friday, March 10, 2017. Neller
said that an investigation into reports that nude photos of female
service members are being secretly posted online without their
permission has an effect on the entire Marine Corps and must be
done carefully. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer than 10 women victims have come
forward so far in the investigation into nude photos of female
service members that were posted online without their permission, the top Marine general said Friday. He
pleaded with female Marines to "trust us" and reach out to make complaints or seek help.
"I need their help," said Gen. Robert Neller, the Marine commandant. "I'm going to ask them to trust us. I
understand why that might be a bit of a reach for them right now. But I can't fix this. ... The only way there
is going to be accountability in this is somebody comes forward and tells us what happened to them."
Former and current female Marines have said their photographs and those of women in other services were
shared on social media without their consent. The other military services say that they are now looking into
the matter to see if their service members are involved, but they say so far no other victims have come
forward.
Nude photographs of female Marines and other women were shared on the Facebook page "Marines
United," and the accompanying posts included obscene and threatening comments.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service launched an investigation into the matter and is urging victims of
the photo-sharing to come forward. NCIS says it has received numerous tips.
Speaking to Pentagon reporters, Neller expressed frustration and disgust at the nude-photo sharing. He
acknowledged there are a lot of unanswered questions about what happened, how many people or Marines
were involved, and what some of the legal parameters will be for punishing service members who posted or
shared the photos or who made threatening comments about them.
He said the controversy has an effect on the entire Marine Corps and the investigation must be done
carefully.
"We don't want to be in a hurry. We want to make sure we're thorough and we're within the law," Neller
told a Pentagon news conference.
"This affects our entire organization," the general said, noting that men and women Marines have been
serving side-by-side at war for 15 years, many losing their lives.
The photo-sharing underscores longer-standing issues surrounding women in the Marine Corps. In 2015,
the Marine Corps was the only military service to ask that women be excluded from competing for certain
frontline combat jobs. Then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter rejected the request, and women are now
allowed to seek combat jobs in all the military services.
But there still may be a sense that women aren't accepted by some members of the corps.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/042b13c35da34d3a922366bd3187dd31/mattis-meet-military-leaders-nudephoto-sharing
"So what do you gotta do to get in?" said Neller, staring into the line of cameras in the back of the room. "I
mean, c'mon guys. They just want to do their job. Let them do their job. And you do yours."
Neller has created a task force to look at the scope of the problem and any underlying issues, and to
develop plans for any corrective actions, policy changes or additional training that may be needed.
Separately, officials said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will meet with military and civilian officials in
coming days about the reports.
Mattis also issued a statement condemning the actions.
"The purported actions of civilian and military personnel on social media websites, including some
associated with the Marines United group and possibly others, represent egregious violations of the
fundamental values we uphold at the Department of Defense," Mattis said in a written statement.
Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday that Mattis wants the services to take
appropriate action.
Active-duty Marine Marisa Woytek and former Marine Erika Butner appeared at a news conference in Los
Angeles on Wednesday to applaud the investigation.
Butner, 23, who served for four years before leaving the Marines in 2016, said she contacted investigators
in January and told them there was an online storage drive that contained "indecent photos of women from
all military services, organized by name, rank and even where they were stationed."
The women's lawyer, Gloria Allred, said there may be hundreds of such postings and that they prompted
pornographic and violent replies, including some recommending that female Marines be raped or shot.
Victims can reach the NCIS by going to http://www.ncis.navy.mil/ContactUs/Pages/ReportaCrime.aspx
SEE ALSO:
Marines May Offer Reputation Software to Victims of Photo Scandal [Military.com, 2017-03-10]
GoFundMe campaign launched to support female servicemembers and veterans after nude photo scandal
[Marine Corps Times, 2017-03-10]
Their Intimate Photos Were Shared. Now the Marine Corps Wants Them to Speak Up. [The New York
Times, 2017-03-10]
Top U.S. Marine vows accountability, asks victims to come forward [Reuters, 2017-03-10]
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/articles/neller-testifies-on-photo-scandal
Top Marine: Nude photo-sharing scandal shows 'We’ve got
to change'
By Jeff Schogol
Marine Corps Times, March 14, 2017
Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller faced more than two hours of questioning on Tuesday from angry
senators, who believe the new investigation into whether Marines shared nude photos of women without
their consent and harassed the women online represents a cultural problem within the Corps.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., spent several minutes lambasting Neller for the Marine Corps’ failure to
protect women who have been targeted by members of the Marines United Facebook group and other
websites.
“We have countless victims who have come forward — and they’re not just being harassed online,”
Gillibrand said. “Once their name, face, where they are stationed is posted, do you think the harassment
ends online? It doesn’t. I spoke to a civilian yesterday who has continued to be harassed in her community
because her ex-boyfriend exploited her online.”
Gillibrand did not identify the woman, but Marine Corps Times was able to independently verify that she is
Kelsie Stone, who has said she is sometimes afraid to leave her house because people come up to her at
work and on the street to talk about revealing pictures, which she had sent confidentially to her former
boyfriend, a Marine.
Senators pointed out that the Marine Corps has known for years about male Marines harassing and
denigrating women online, yet the Corps has failed to curb such abusive behavior.
“Why should we believe that it’s going to different this time than it’s been in the past?” Sen. Jeanne
Shaheen, D-N.H., asked.
Neller said the Marine Corps is going beyond the symptoms of cyberbullying and sexual assault to tackle
the bigger cultural problem of making sure Marines understand that “all Marines are Marines."
Neller assured Shaheen that the Marine Corps will hold any Marines involved in illegal behavior
accountable and let commanders know they can take actions when they see online harassment.
“This issue of denigration of women, objectification of women, misogyny — however you want to
articulate it — or just bad behavior, is tied to the way that some group of male Marines look at women in
the Marine Corps,” Neller said. “I think we can fix that.”
“Is it going to be different? It’s got to be different, and that’s my charge to myself,” he added.
But Gillibrand said that response “rings hollow,” and she called his other answers “unsatisfactory.”
“Why does it have to be different — because you, all of the sudden, feel that it has to be different?”
Gillibrand said. “Who has been held accountable? If we can’t crack Facebook, how are we supposed to be
able to confront Russian aggression and cyber hacking throughout our military?”
Neller replied calmly that he agreed the Marine Corps has a cultural problem and then added: “I’m
responsible. I’m the commandant. I own this. You’ve heard it before, but we are going to have to change
how we see ourselves and how we treat each other. That’s a lame answer, but ma’am, that’s the best I can
tell you right now. We’ve got to change. And that’s on me.”
The Marine Corps will soon update its policy on social media to more directly address the issue of
cyberbullying, and Neller issued a March 10 white paper ordering commanders to support victims of online
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/articles/neller-testifies-on-photo-scandal
harassment and raise awareness about the underlying causes of cyberbullying to “ultimately eliminate the
conditions that allow this cancer to grow.”
“We have lost trust with some of our Marines and we have to rebuild it,” Neller wrote.
Maj. Gen. Loretta Reynolds, commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command, attended the
hearing. She will serve as an adviser to Neller and the Marine Corps' task force that is looking into
underlying attitudes that has led to online harassment, said Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Ryan Alvis.
But Sen. Angus King, an Independent from Maine, raised questions about how effective the Marine Corps’
response can be if the type of behavior toward women seen on Marines United is tacitly condoned within
the ranks.
“You can have proclamations and issue letters and everything else, but if you’ve got lower ranking officers
and non-commissioned officers who are winking and laughing and they deliver the statement with a little
grin, that undermines the whole thing,” King said. “This to me of a serious cultural problem that goes
beyond the specifics of orders.”
Neller agreed that the Marine Corps is struggling to instill in Marines the belief that they cannot be
bystanders to abusive behavior.
“I was told once by a senior officer that the Marine Corps is built on discipline: It’s a rock; it’s the
foundation of our house,” Neller said. “Every time you walk by something you know that’s wrong, it’s the
equivalent of taking a hammer and hitting that rock and putting a chip in it. If enough people walk by,
pretty soon that thing is going to crack. We may be at that point.”
King argued that any policy changes the Marine Corps makes will be moot unless the officers and NCOs
accept that denigrating women is wrong. He added that Marines are mocking Neller and the entire Marine
Corps leadership on a new website: Marines United 2.0.
“They’re not getting the word, here,” King said.
“Well, then we’ll have to get the word to them,” Neller replied.
SEE ALSO:
Marine leaders vow to combat online nude photo sharing [The Associated Press, 2017-03-14]
Marine Corps Leaders Express Outrage About ‘Marines United’ Activity [Defense.gov, 2017-03-14]
Senators tear into Marines on nude photo scandal [The Hill, 2017-03-14]
Senator rips top Marine over nude photo scandal [CNN, 2017-03-14]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/us/with-their-leaders-at-a-loss-marine-veterans-fight-abusers.html
With Their Leaders at a Loss, Marine Veterans Fight
Abusers
By Dave Philipps
The New York Times, March 17, 2017
Shawn Wylde, a Marine veteran, is fighting back on Facebook
against groups that harass women. (Credit: T.J. Kirkpatrick for The
New York Times)
As a nude photo sharing scandal continued to spread through the
military this week, Marine Corps leaders warned Congress that they
were not sure how to combat the group of “nameless, faceless
predators” who post images of female Marines online.
“There is a risk I cannot protect people on social media,” the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen.
Robert B. Neller, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, saying it was a cultural problem
he did not know how to address.
But the uncertainty has not stopped an unlikely scattering of young Marine veterans who have decided to
take on the group themselves. While the Marine Corps commissions a task force and goes through a
meticulous investigation, these veterans have been gathering intelligence and making counterstrikes online,
tracking the illicit members as they try to hide and unmasking the anonymity that allows the groups to
thrive.
They are also feeding information back to Marine Corps investigators.
“The Marines’ response is to be careful and slow, but the people they are after move very fast,” said James
LaPorta, who led an intelligence team in Afghanistan as a sergeant and for the last two weeks has been
tracking the moves of Marines United, the private online group that was recently revealed to be secretly
compiling nude photos of hundreds of women in the Marine Corps. “If you want to catch them, you have to
move at their speed.”
Marines United, which consists of thousands of active-duty and veteran Marines, has hopped from
Facebook page to Facebook page, changing its name each time it gets shut down, while still trading illicit
photos and taunting federal investigators.
“The Marine Corps thought because they shut a Facebook page down, the group was dead,” said Mr.
LaPorta, 30, who left the Marines in 2014. “We had to show them it was just metastasizing into other back
rooms.”
Mr. LaPorta and other veterans trying to fight groups like Marines United have been deluged with online
harassment themselves. Other Marines have called them traitors and threatened them with violence, but
they have pressed on in what they see as a battle for the future of the Corps.
“The Marine Corps can’t do this alone. The internet is too huge,” Mr. LaPorta said. “We need to police
ourselves.”
They say the fight is up to them in part because trying to get Marine Corps leaders, who are often near
retirement, to recognize and address the power of social media in the military is as slow and frustrating as
teaching an aging parent to set up a new laptop.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/us/with-their-leaders-at-a-loss-marine-veterans-fight-abusers.html
“There is a disconnect between the upper echelon and a digital millennial generation,” said Thomas
Brennan, 31, a former Marine sergeant who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and revealed the existence of
Marines United this month.
Mr. Brennan said he was frustrated by what he saw as a slow and outdated response, as commanders
convene a task force made up largely of older, high-ranking Marines and put out new social media policies
that will be ignored or ridiculed online.
He added that the military’s response so far had been ineffective, noting that he had given investigators
dozens of names and files on Marines United nearly two months ago but was not aware of the authorities’
having taken any action.
“I almost feel like they didn’t want to admit this stuff existed,” Mr. Brennan said. “And when we forced
them to, they were caught off guard.”
A Marine Corps spokesman said he could not comment on the ongoing investigation.
Earlier this week, Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, announced that investigators had
identified 700 active-duty Marines and 150 Marines in the Reserve who were involved in the Marines
United group.
For several years, the Marine Corps has known of web pages where Marines shared racist and sexist
memes, as well as photos of female Marines posted without their consent. Despite a number of public
reports, the Corps has failed to crack down on the sites.
Thomas Brennan, a Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan,
revealed the existence of the Marines United Facebook group this
month. (Credit: Eamon Queeney for The New York Times)
For several years, active-duty and veteran Marines in a group called
Just the Tip of the Spear have been posting illegal and offensive
material on Facebook, Instagram and other sites. Like Marines
United, they have posted nude photos of servicewomen without
their permission. In some cases, they have also posted the women’s
telephone numbers and other private information. When women complained, the site’s followers often
harassed them more.
Shawn Wylde, a Marine captain who served in a mixed-gender support battalion in Iraq, reported the site to
Marine law enforcement as soon as he saw what was happening in 2013.
“I got nothing, not even a call back,” said Mr. Wylde, 36, who was discharged in 2012 and has since built
an online T-shirt company that does $8 million in annual sales. “I got angry that the Marine Corps was
doing nothing.”
Mr. Wylde runs a Marines Facebook page called Silkies, named after the ubiquitous green Marine Corps
workout shorts: a page he uses, in part, to steer business to his company. He has become, by his own
description, “pretty good at online marketing,” which gave him a fresh idea for how to tackle the problem.
When news emerged this month that the Marines were still engaged in the same type of online harassment,
Mr. Wylde decided to fight Just the Tip of the Spear on his own by tracking down the anonymous members
and unmasking them one by one by posting their names on the Silkies Facebook page.
With $10,000 of his own money, he bought targeted ads on Facebook on Monday to appear on the pages of
young Marines, especially young female Marines. The ads featured a meme of Defense Secretary Jim
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/us/with-their-leaders-at-a-loss-marine-veterans-fight-abusers.html
Mattis denouncing the shadowy groups and asking everyone to send information on the anonymous
ringleaders to Mr. Wylde, so he could out them.
“It’s clear the leadership doesn’t understand how social media works,” Mr. Wylde said. “But I do, so I
figured I had to do something.”
Mr. Wylde is an unlikely crusader for decency. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to defrauding the government of
nearly $100,000 in unearned housing and veterans benefits, and served four months in a federal prison.
But he said he was newly motivated by the disrespect the groups continued to show toward women in the
Marines.
“I served with a lot of great women in Iraq. One was actually killed by an I.E.D.,” he said, referring to an
improvised explosive device. “These guys harassed a woman who was a friend of mine. I wanted it to end,
and it didn’t look like anyone was going to do anything.”
He added: “The main point here is to make a cultural change, not get them prosecuted. That would be great,
though.”
Within hours, Mr. Wylde said, his ads began bringing in tips. Several women wrote in with information on
men who they said were running Just the Tip of the Spear. Two of the tipsters claimed to be the wives of
key members of the group.
Some of the men are still active Marines. One of the founders of Just the Tip of the Spear was named
Marine of the Year by The Marine Corps Times, according to Mr. Wylde. He has given the men’s names to
the Marine Corps but said the Corps had not responded.
The New York Times tried to contact several of the men named, but none replied.
Some female veterans close to the men said that some were veterans who spent most of their time online
and had been unable to transition from their military life.
Since Mr. Wylde began his efforts on Monday, many of the Marines he has accused have shut down their
social media accounts. The group has also lost at least two corporate partnerships. And one of the founders,
apparently unnerved and unaccustomed to public scrutiny, has publicly challenged Mr. Wylde to a fight.
All week, as Mr. Wylde has continued his crusade against anonymous trolls, his Silkies site has been
flooded with messages of support, many of them from women who were targets of the group.
“You are single-handedly restoring my faith in my brothers,” one female Marine veteran wrote. “I’ve seen
so many of those troll pages, I was starting to believe maybe that’s what our brothers really thought of us.”