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.
Carter Makes Last Pitch to Keep Combat Jobs Open to Women [Richard Sisk, Military.com, 11
January 2017]
 Defense Secretary Ashton Carter made the case Tuesday for retaining the current policy in the
military that opens up all jobs to women, including in combat roles.
 As he has previously, Carter said that keeping all jobs open to women who meet standards and
qualify was essential to recruiting and retention in modern society.
 A 1994 Pentagon policy preventing women from serving in combat was rescinded in 2013 by
then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and Carter in 2015 made the historic decision to lift the
restrictions on military occupational specialties.
Carter Makes Last Pitch to Keep Combat Jobs Open to Women
First women training for Marine infantry jobs to graduate boot camp [Jeff Schogol, Marine Corps
Times, 7 January 2017]
 Four female Marine recruits will be the first women to complete recruit training for infantry jobs
when they graduate from boot camp later this month.
 The four women have passed the physical standards required for infantry and other ground
combat military occupational specialties that both men and women must meet to continue training
in those jobs, said Capt. Greg Carroll, a spokesman for Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island
in South Carolina.
 Since Defense Secretary Ashton Carter approved the Marine Corps’ plan to allow women to serve
in all combat jobs in March, at least 180 women have been assigned jobs that have until now been
restricted to men only.
First women training for Marine infantry jobs to graduate boot camp
State Department Apologizes for Decades of Anti-LGBT Discrimination [Camila Domonoske,
NPR, 9 January 2017]
 On behalf of the U.S. State Department, John Kerry has issued a formal apology for the
department’s pattern of discrimination against LGBT employees during a period beginning in the
1940s and stretching for decades.
 Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., had asked the secretary of state for such an apology in late November,
calling the historical discrimination “un-American and unacceptable.”
 “Of course, the measures we take today cannot bring back years of anguish or erase decades of
institutionalized homophobia, but we can ensure that such injustices levied against the LGBT
community are never repeated again,” Cardin said.
State Department Apologizes For Decades of Anti-LGBT Discrimination
13 January 2017
Page 1
DEOMI News Highlights
Culture
Lady Liberty Will Be a Black Woman on a U.S. Coin
Mrs. King and Coretta: A Posthumous Memoir Explores Public and Private Selves
National park honoring Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman made official
President Obama Designates First National Monument Dedicated to Reconstruction
Read Martin Luther King Jr.’s inspiring Nobel Peace Prize speech
Review: ‘Accidental Courtesy’ Is Gentle Persuasion for Bigots
Discrimination
Air Force Grants Honorable Discharge to 91-Year-Old Gay Veteran
Beating of Disabled Teenager Highlights a Crime That Often Goes Unpunished
State Department Apologizes For Decades of Anti-LGBT Discrimination
Diversity
Carter Makes Last Pitch to Keep Combat Jobs Open to Women
Facebook’s Hiring Process Hinders Its Effort to Create a Diverse Workforce
First women training for Marine infantry jobs to graduate boot camp
LGBT groups ‘heartened’ by Mattis’ testimony
Mattis at Odds With Trump on Russia, Backs Women in Combat
Out-going SECNAV Mabus defends progressive personnel reforms
Supreme Court likely to boost public schools’ responsibilities to children with disabilities
Will Trump continue Obama’s national security diversity efforts?
Miscellaneous
2-star’s suicide prompts Army review of the health of its general officer corps
After ratings change backlash, effort to reform Navy jobs moves ahead
Air Force Expands Medical Waivers, No Questions on Prior Marijuana Use
Air Force Relaxes Tattoo Policy, Allows Sleeves
Army report: Self-doubt and sleep deprivation led to 2-star’s suicide
Coast Guard loosens tattoo restrictions
James says goodbye after three years as Air Force secretary
The Obama era is over. Here’s how the military rates his legacy
Misconduct
Another Navy officer gets prison time for taking bribes and prostitutes from ‘Fat Leonard’
Parris Island hazing scandal trials to begin in March
Racism
Baltimore Agrees to Broad Change for Troubled Police Dept.
Dylann Roof Is Sentenced to Death in Charleston Church Massacre
Justice Dept. releases scathing report, says Chicago police officers use unconstitutional force
Survey reveals disconnect between police and public attitudes
Sexism
Wal-Mart owes pharmacist $16.08 million for gender bias, sum may drop
Sexual Assault/Harassment
18 women sue ex-USA Gymnastics doctor in sex-assault case
13 January 2017
Page 2
Culture
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/us/black-lady-liberty-us-coin.html
Lady Liberty Will Be a Black Woman on a U.S. Coin
By Erin McCann
The New York Times, January 13, 2017
The 225th Anniversary Liberty coin. (Credit: U.S. Mint)
The United States Mint will release a commemorative gold coin in
April that will feature Lady Liberty as a black woman, marking the
first time that the American symbol has been depicted as anything
other than white on the nation’s currency.
The coin, with a $100 face value, will commemorate the 225th
anniversary of the Mint’s coin production, the Mint and
the Treasury Department announced on Thursday. Going on sale April 6, it will be 24-karat and weigh
about an ounce.
It is part of a series of commemorative coins that will be released every two years. Future ones will show
Lady Liberty as Asian, Hispanic and Indian “to reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of the United
States,” the Mint said in a statement.
The announcement comes at a pivotal cultural moment for the United States, a week away from a transfer
of power, following a bruising election dominated by debates about immigration, race and political
correctness.
And Lady Liberty is among the most potent of American symbols. Her best-known depiction, a gift from
France in 1886, stands in New York Harbor, a giant statue of a woman with white European features
beckoning with a lamp to the refugees of the world.
The Treasury Department said in a statement that it was looking “to the future by casting Liberty in a new
light, as an African-American woman wearing a crown of stars, looking forward to ever-brighter chapters
in our nation’s history book.”
Do not expect to see anyone spending them at the store. Coins like this do not circulate for everyday use,
but are minted for collectors in limited quantities. There will be 100,000 of them with the black Lady
Liberty. They will sell for far more than face value, depending on the value of gold, currently more than
$1,000 an ounce.
“As we as a nation continue to evolve, so does Liberty’s representation,” Elisa Basnight, the chief of staff
at the Mint, said at a presentation on Thursday in Washington. “We live in a nation which affords us the
opportunity to dream big and try and accomplish the seemingly impossible.”
The coin’s head (what the Mint calls the obverse) was designed by Justin Kunz and engraved by Phebe
Hemphill, and it shows a profile of Lady Liberty with a crown of stars that holds back her hair. The tail (the
reverse, in Mint lingo), shows an eagle in flight.
Women, in generic depictions or historic ones, have been underrepresented on American currency. Last
year, after a public campaign to put a woman on the $10 bill, the Treasury secretary, Jacob J. Lew,
announced a broad remaking of the nation’s paper currency — the bills that, unlike a $100 coin, circulate
among many Americans every day.
Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist and former slave, will appear on the $20 bill, and women and civil rights
leaders will be added to the $5 and $10 bills.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/us/black-lady-liberty-us-coin.html
Tubman will be the first woman featured on an American paper currency since Martha Washington in the
late 19th century.
Women have, occasionally, also appeared on circulated American coins. The suffrage leader Susan B.
Anthony appeared on $1 coins from 1979 to 1981, and Helen Keller, the author and activist, appeared on
the reverse image of the Alabama state quarter in 2003.
Sacagawea, the Shoshone guide who led Lewis and Clark to the West Coast, appeared on the $1 coin that
has been minted since 2000.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/books/review/coretta-scott-king-memoir-my-life-my-love-mylegacy.html
Mrs. King and Coretta: A Posthumous Memoir Explores
Public and Private Selves
By Patricia J. Williams
The New York Times, January 11, 2017
Coretta Scott King, late 1960s. (Credit: Arnold Michaelis/Pix Inc.
— The LIFE Picture Collection, via Getty Images)
MY LIFE, MY LOVE, MY LEGACY
By Coretta Scott King, as told to Barbara Reynolds
Illustrated. 356 pp. Henry Holt & Company. $30.
Nearly every image of Coretta Scott King since her husband’s death
has seemed suffused with preternatural stillness, her face fixed with
the brave solitude of timeless interior bereavement. For all of her
accomplishment and vivacity in real life, she has remained frozen in
the collective imagination, among that sad pantheon of civil-rightsera icons: the political widow in a pillbox hat. King describes the
weight of that identity in “My Life, My Love, My Legacy,” her
posthumous memoir, as told to the journalist Barbara Reynolds
over a period of 30 years. “There is a Mrs. King. There is also
Coretta. How one became detached from the other remains a mystery to me,” King says.
This book is distinctly Coretta’s story. While there is nothing to radically challenge the impression of her as
carefully restrained, what makes “My Life” particularly absorbing is its quiet account of a brutal historical
era, as experienced by a very particular kind of African-American woman: well educated, cautious, a
prototypically 1950s-style wife and mother. The book’s cover features a picture of King, young and
smiling, but still radiating that unmistakable aura of church-lady reserve.
Though such women have rarely been given voice, they were the staunch backbone of the civil rights
movement. They raised funds as well as children, did the accounting as well as the housework, taught
school and cooked the meals. They kept the minutes at N.A.A.C.P. meetings, played the organ at church,
coordinated their husbands’ schedules.
Like Coretta Scott King, they operated within a regime that was both punishing and exhausting for being so
utterly beholden to the politics of respectability. The pressure to disprove pervasive cultural stereotypes of
slovenliness, ignorance, criminal threat and rapacious sexuality meant striving for perfection always. One
could not risk being charged with the slightest human fallibility for fear of deadly retribution. The harshly
unforgiving surveillance of the larger white community was reiterated within black communities as the
stress of constant, and sometimes cruel, self-surveillance.
Living with terror is the thread that runs through “My Life.” This is a tale of church assaults before Dylann
Roof, of cattle prods before there were tasers, of nooses before there were chokeholds, of Cointelpro before
there was Breitbart, of voter suppression before anyone bothered to deny it. King’s earliest memories
include her parents’ home being burned down when she was 15 years old. As she grows up, neighbors
disappear. Bodies are found hanging from trees. Among the in-laws, her husband’s mother was shot and
killed in the middle of a church service by a mentally disturbed man; his brother was found floating in a
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/books/review/coretta-scott-king-memoir-my-life-my-love-mylegacy.html
pool under suspicious circumstances; and when his father, Martin Luther King Sr., passes away at the age
of 84, it marked “the first time any senior member of the King family had died a natural death.”
Some say that religion is, at base, a mechanism to handle the human response to mortality and loss. And for
all the death and tragedy in “My Life,” it is King’s grounding in her husband’s theology of peaceful
resistance that enables her survival against excruciating odds. Nonviolence, she reiterates, is not a matter of
passively accepting whatever happens. It is active. It is a practice. As her husband preached: “Justice is
really love in calculation.”
That power, of love as calculation, composes King, binds her together, time and again. Her practice of such
belief is meditative, and becomes reflected in her diction: She speaks of endurance, overcoming, soulsustenance for the long term. There is little in the way of open sadness in this book; after her husband’s
assassination, she turns to the project of creating the King Center as a monument to him, filling the
emptiness with boxes of his notes and speeches.
By the same token, there is a marked absence of expressed joy, other than at the birth of her children. Her
emotions are muted in a way that is intriguing rather than off-putting. This disposition also presents the
reader with a different way of looking at the world — one of extraordinary calm and the purest resolve. It is
restful somehow, and generous, in a manner that is unfashionable in our culture of 24/7 emotional display.
King’s language does not privilege personal happiness, private delights, exuberant emotional extremes of
any sort. Rather, her life is filtered through prescribed priorities, devotions, principles, commitments. This
is life lived in service to others rather than with concern for individual regard or even personal safety.
There is unusual inspiration in that mien. Before becoming King’s amanuensis, Barbara Reynolds was a
journalist assigned to do a story for The Chicago Tribune. They became such good friends that Reynolds
changed her vocation along the way: “Before I started hanging around with Mrs. King, I wasn’t much of a
Christian.” But hang around she did, and by the time King died in 2006, Reynolds had become an ordained
minister. It is but one small tribute to the power of the King family’s dedication to a “Ministry of
Presence.” The larger, more ecumenical meaning of Coretta Scott King’s life, love and legacy may be
found in the peace-lending power, needed now as never before, of prophetic traditions that hold us and
heal, “bringing into existence images and a destiny we had not seen or lived before.”
Patricia J. Williams is the James L. Dohr professor of law at Columbia University and a columnist for The
Nation.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/10/national-park-honoring-underground-railroad-heroineharriet-tubman-made-official/96394704/
National park honoring Underground Railroad heroine
Harriet Tubman made official
By Nicole Gaudiano
USA TODAY, January 10, 2017
Several sites recognizing the post-Civil War work of Harriet
Tubman, shown here in an image from between 1860 and 1875,
were formally designated as part of the National Park Service.
(Photo: H.B. Lindsley, AP)
WASHINGTON -- Sites where Underground Railroad conductor
Harriet Tubman lived and worshiped in Auburn, N.Y., officially
became a national park on Tuesday, adding to growing recognition
for the abolitionist and activist.
The Harriet Tubman National Park commemorates her post-Civil War advocacy for women’s suffrage and
other causes. It includes her home, a home she helped establish for elderly and indigent African Americans,
and the historic Thompson Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church and rectory, located near the cemetery where
she is buried.
A memorandum, signed by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell during a ceremony, established the park as the
414th unit in the National Park System.
“She’s a true American hero because she didn’t just secure the blessings of liberty for herself, she risked
her life to secure it for others and passionately fought to change her country to secure it for everyone,” said
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., during the ceremony with other New York lawmakers,
community and church members.
The Harriet Tubman Residence in Auburn, N.Y., became part of a
national park on Tuesday. U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell
presided over an official signing ceremony establishing it as the
414th unit of the National Park System. (Photo: Mike Groll, AP)
Born on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Tubman was enslaved for 30
years before escaping in 1849 to Philadelphia. She then returned to
Maryland to lead hundreds of slaves to freedom in the North over a
10-year-period and became known as “Moses” by African
American and white abolitionists.
A sister site in Cambridge, Md. -- the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park -became a national park in December 2014 and its visitors center is expected to open in March.
"I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger,” she’s been quoted as saying.
Tubman worked for the Union Army during the Civil War as a cook and nurse, and later as a scout and spy.
After the war, she cared for patients at the Home for the Aged she helped establish and she became active
in the women’s suffrage movement. She spent the last 50 years of her life in Auburn where she died in
1913.
Her legacy has received greater attention in recent years. In April, the U.S. Treasury
Department announced a plan for Tubman to replace Andrew Jackson as the portrait on the $20 bill.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/10/national-park-honoring-underground-railroad-heroineharriet-tubman-made-official/96394704/
Jewell said she can “hardly wait” to go to the ATM and find Tubman’s likeness on a $20.
“The country is taking steps, slowly but surely,” she said.
Yvonne Baskerville, a lay leader in the A.M.E. Zion Church, said Tubman’s recognition is “long overdue.”
“It’s unfortunate because a lot of children don’t even know the name ‘Harriet Tubman,’” she said.
The National Park Service is partnering with Harriet Tubman Home, Inc., and the A.M.E. Zion Church -which owns some of the properties -- to operate the park. The Auburn site’s designation as a national park
follows a lengthy legislative effort, beginning in 2000 with a law authorizing a study of how to best
preserve her legacy.
Auburn resident Judith Bryant, Tubman’s great-great-great grandniece, said she was thrilled to see the park
finally come to fruition.
“I’m just happy that it got done on President Obama’s watch,” she said. “It’s truly significant for the
country.”
Follow @ngaudiano on Twitter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/arts/president-obama-designates-national-monuments-to-civil-rightshistory.html
President Obama Designates First National Monument
Dedicated to Reconstruction
By Jennifer Schuessler
The New York Times, January 12, 2017
The A.G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Ala., a site President
Obama has named a civil rights national monument. Credit: Carol
M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge, via Getty Images
President Barack Obama on Thursday designated three new
national monuments devoted to civil rights history, including the
first National Park Service site dedicated to Reconstruction, the
still-contested period following the Civil War which featured the
advance, and then the sometimes violent rollback, of citizenship rights for African-Americans.
Two of the monuments commemorate civil rights history of the 1950s and 1960s. The Birmingham Civil
Rights National Monument will protect the A. G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Ala., which at one point
served as the headquarters for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the campaign leading up to
the Voting Rights Act, and link the motel to other sites in that city. The Freedom Riders National
Monument in Anniston, Ala., will include the Greyhound Bus Station where a racially integrated bus of
Freedom Riders testing desegregation was attacked in the spring of 1961, and the site where the same bus
was firebombed and burned some minutes later.
The Reconstruction monument includes several sites near Beaufort, S.C., which fell under control of the
Union Army in November 1861, and became one of the first places where emancipated slaves voted,
bought property and created churches, schools and businesses.
Mr. Obama, in a statement, said that all three new monuments together represented “critical chapters in our
history,” which he connected to one another as well as to National Park Service sites created during his
tenure to honor advances in women’s and gay rights.
“I have sought to build a more inclusive National Park System and ensure that our national parks,
monuments and public lands are fully reflective of our nation’s diverse history and culture,” he said.
The grounds of Camp Saxton in Beaufort County, S.C., also one of
the new monument sites.
For some historians, the creation of the Reconstruction monument,
by the nation’s first African-American president, represents a
particularly sweet symbolic victory. It is the culmination of a more
than 15-year effort that began in the last days of the Clinton
administration, when Bruce Babbitt, the outgoing secretary of the
interior, toured the area around Beaufort with the historian Eric
Foner, author of the classic study “Reconstruction: America’s
Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877.”
That effort later ran into significant opposition from the Sons of
Confederate Veterans and others, and died in Congress. It
was renewed in spring 2015 after the park service completed its
commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and
began a field study of sites across the country connected with the
much less-remembered period that came after.
Greg Downs, a historian at the University of California at Davis,
who wrote the study with Kate Masur, a historian at Northwestern, called the creation of the monument “a
long overdue moment, and one of the most significant expansions of the National Park Service since its
founding.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/arts/president-obama-designates-national-monuments-to-civil-rightshistory.html
Mr. Obama created the three monuments using the Antiquities Act, which allows the president to act
independently, though each designation was supported by legislation introduced by members of the
Alabama and South Carolina delegations. Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina,
said in a statement that the Reconstruction monument was “not a final product, but a first step in protecting
and preserving the many Reconstruction Era sites in Beaufort County.”
Mr. Foner said it represented a chance to tell a more accurate public story about Reconstruction, which he
said was still too often seen as a story of corrupt Northern carpetbaggers and incompetent black politicians,
rather than an inspiring but difficult period that saw the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
amendments as well as many social and economic advances for African-Americans.
“This was a pivotal moment in history that really changed the Constitution, and changed the definition of
American citizenship, which, in parentheses, is really under attack right now,” Mr. Foner said. “It really
began the process of making African-Americans equal members of American society.”
SEE ALSO:
Obama designates 3 civil rights sites as national monuments [USA TODAY, 2017-01-12]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/10/14/martin-luther-king-junior-nobel-priceacceptance-speech/73915354/
Read Martin Luther King Jr.’s inspiring Nobel Peace Prize
speech
USA TODAY, January 13, 2017
In this Dec. 10, 1964, file photo, U.S. civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. holds his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize medal in Oslo, Norway (Photo: AP)
Americans across the country will celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day on
Monday by committing to hours of community service in the name of the
civil rights leader.
Many are too young to have witnessed King, particularly when he was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1964. He was, at just 35, the
youngest to receive the honor. In keeping with his purpose, he donated
the $54,123 in prize money to furthering the civil rights movement.
King accepted the award in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 10, 1964. In the speech,
now 52 years old, King spoke about the urgent need for support and the
long road ahead to end racial injustice in the United States.
Here are a few excerpts from the moving speech:
"I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America
are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award on behalf of a
civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to
establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice."
In the speech, King noted that he first questioned why the civil rights movement received the award, when
it had "not yet won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize."
He concluded the award was granted in recognition, "that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political
and moral question of our time — the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting
to violence and oppression."
"Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of
India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes
for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live
together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood."
King said he believed that "unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."
"I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies,
education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits... I still believe that
one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed,
and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land....I still believe that we shall overcome!"
King concluded: "I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the
spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners — all those to
whom beauty is truth and truth beauty — and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is
more precious than diamonds or silver or gold."
Read the full speech here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/movies/accidental-courtesy-daryl-davis-race-america-review.html
Review: ‘Accidental Courtesy’ Is Gentle Persuasion for
Bigots
By Glenn Kenny
The New York Times, January 5, 2017
Daryl Davis at Confederate Park in Memphis with the statue of
Nathan Bedford Forrest, which has been the target of controversy
and graffiti. (Credit: Sound & Vision/First Run Features)
The African-American musician Daryl Davis, a journeyman who
has played backup for Chuck Berry, has an unusual hobby. He
cultivates cordial relationships with prominent racists — Ku Klux
Klan leaders, front men for neo-Nazi groups and so on — and
through a form of friendly persuasion, tries to steer them from their bigotry.
“Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America,” directed by Matt Ornstein, begins by showing Mr.
Davis tooling around the D.C. area, where he lives. He speaks with friends and neighbors, some AfricanAmerican, some not. One of his stops is Ben’s Chili Bowl, where he interviews the owner, Virginia Ali, a
friend, about progress and setbacks in race relations.
He goes to the Lincoln Memorial and points out the spot where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
The movie follows Mr. Davis to Los Angeles, where he delivers a lecture. He tells his audience, “Always
keep the lines of communication with your antagonist open,” because “if you’re talking, you’re not
fighting.” Then we see him patiently talking with white men and women who hold the most repellent views
imaginable. When Mr. Davis tries to share his philosophy with Black Lives Matter activists, however, the
discussion gets very heated — on both sides.
This movie arrives two weeks after Carl Paladino, a white political operative and ally of President-elect
Donald J. Trump, equated the first lady, Michelle Obama, to a gorilla, then said in a follow-up interview
that his remarks were “not racist.”
Stories like that make a particular moment in this movie even more pertinent: Mr. Davis, speaking to Faith
Morris of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, poses a knotty question about how far his cause
of eliminating race hate has yet to go. Her reply: “How long is this documentary going to be?”
SEE ALSO:
KKK members leave Klan after befriending black musician [Al-Jazeera, 2017-01-08]
Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America: Klan’s Best Friend [MTV, 2017-01-06]
Discrimination
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/Vet-Discharged-in-1948-for-HomosexualityGranted-Honorable-Discharge-410120455.html
Air Force Grants Honorable Discharge to 91-Year-Old Gay
Veteran
Spires' attorneys have said he is in poor health and would like a military funeral, which
the upgrade makes possible
NBC New York, January 9, 2017
(Video: NBC Connecticut)
A 91-year-old veteran who filed a lawsuit after he was discharged
from the U.S. Air Force over his sexual orientation has been
granted a change to his military record.
Hubert Edward Spires was discharged from the Air Force with an
undesirable designation in 1948 because he is gay, according to the
Yale Law School Veterans Legal Services Clinic.
Spires’ husband, who is a U.S. Army veteran, spoke on behalf of his partner of 58 years at a press
conference at the Yale Law School in November 2016.
"Despite the discrimination I faced, I left the military with an honorable discharge," Spire’s husband David
Rosenberg said. "It is an injustice that the military has treated Ed and me so differently, despite our equal
honorable service."
In 2011, Spires became eligible to apply for a discharge upgrade a year after the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't
Tell, the Clinton-era policy that banned gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. His
application was denied twice, once in 2014 and again in 2016, Yale's VLSC said.
In a letter dated Jan. 5, 2017, the Air Force Board of Correction of Military Records informed Spires that
his military records would be corrected to reflect an honorable discharge. His records will also be reviewed
to see if Spires is eligible for any financial benefits.
"...we believe it is more likely than not the applicant was discharged for his sexual orientation and there
were no aggravating factors in the record that could, in and of themselves, form the basis of an adverse
discharge. Therefore, in the interest of justice, we believe it is appropriate to recommend his records be
corrected as set forth below," the Record of Proceedings read.
Previously the Air Force cited the destruction of his military records in a 1973 fire at the National
Personnel Records Center in St. Louis as the reason for not changing Spires' discharge status to honorable,
according to the legal clinic.
Spires, who is in poor health and nearly died of pneumonia this past fall, wishes to have a military burial —
a benefit he was not entitled to because of his current undesirable discharge status, according to Yale's
VLSC.
Erin Baldwin, one of the law student interns who represented Spires, said that he and his partner are happy
to finally have the discharge status Spires deserved and waited for.
Follow us: @nbcnewyork on Twitter | NBCNewYork on Facebook
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/us/chicago-racially-charged-attack-video.html
Beating of Disabled Teenager Highlights a Crime That
Often Goes Unpunished
By Mitch Smith and Richard Pérez-Peña
The New York Times, January 6, 2017
CHICAGO — The appalling video seized the nation’s attention this week: A group of young people
kidnapped, bound, beat, slashed, gagged, humiliated and threatened to kill a teenager with mental
disabilities over nearly three days, and laughed about it as they carried out their acts.
But by far, the most unusual thing about the episode, advocates for people with disabilities have said, was
not the abuse itself, but the fact that it was recorded. Violence against people with disabilities is far more
common than most people realize, advocates have said, and frequently goes undetected or is not taken
seriously.
The victim in the attack here, an 18-year-old white man, suffered from schizophrenia and attention deficit
disorder, prosecutors said in court papers filed on Friday. The four accused attackers, ranging in age from
18 to 24, are black. The four appeared on Friday in Cook County Circuit Court and Judge Maria Kuriakos
Ciesil ordered them held without bail.
The defendants are accused of multiple felonies, including hate crimes. Prosecutors said the victim, who
was found by the police on Tuesday, was targeted based on his race and his disability. During a Facebook
video made by one of the defendants, another can be heard denouncing white people, and, at one point, a
man is heard saying he does not care if the victim is schizophrenic.
“I’m wondering as I’m hearing this, ‘Where was the sense of decency?’ ” Judge Kuriakos Ciesil asked. In
explaining her denial of bail, she added, “How do you put someone out there who has allegedly committed
such horrible offenses against a person?”
People with disabilities are more than twice as likely to be the victims of violent crimes as those without
disabilities, according to a Justice Department report based on Census Bureau surveys. And people with
mental disabilities are the most likely to be victimized.
But some advocates claim the disparity is actually much greater, saying crimes against those with
disabilities are less likely to be pursued by law enforcement. They believe people with disabilities may be
unable to take part in a survey or go to the police, or may have trouble being understood. As a result, their
complaints often are not taken seriously.
“There are probably thousands of other cases just like this one in Chicago, and in some cases worse, that
will never see the impact of the justice system because folks don’t know about it,” said Rebecca Cokley,
the executive director of the National Council on Disability, a federal agency. “In a lot of cases with people
with disabilities, the perpetrators are family members or caretakers, so what happens when the person who
would have to take you to the police station is your abuser?”
Advocates have said the underlying problem is a pervasive attitude, conscious or not, that people with
disabilities are not fully human. They pointed to a recent case in Idaho, where a white high school football
player was charged with shoving a coat hanger into the rectum of another teenager, who was black and had
mental disabilities, after having harassed the student and directed racial slurs at him for months.
Though the accused student was 18 at the time of the assault, he was sentenced to probation rather than
prison.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/us/chicago-racially-charged-attack-video.html
“We have, unfortunately, devalued disabled people forever, which means we devalue their suffering,” said
Curt Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, a nonprofit advocacy group.
“What we experience all the time is that police, prosecutors, judges say, ‘Oh, this case is hard, it’s not
worth our trouble. This person is hard to understand, or they’re not credible, or they won’t stand up to
cross-examination.’”
Mr. Decker said that when Congress spent years drafting, debating, and finally voting on hate crimes
legislation, which passed in 2009, it was a struggle to ensure that it punished crimes singling out people
with disabilities, as well as bias based on categories like race or sex. Forty-six of the 50 states have hate
crimes laws, according to the Anti-Defamation League, but 17 of them do not specify people with
disabilities as a protected group.
Vilissa Thompson, an organizer of the Harriet Tubman Collective, a coalition of advocates for disabled
black people, said, “People are ignorant about the extent of violence against disabled people, but what’s
worse is that there’s this kind of misplaced sympathy for the perpetrator, especially when it’s a parent or
caregiver.”
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/09/508966318/state-department-apologizes-for-decadesof-anti-lgbt-discrimination
State Department Apologizes For Decades Of Anti-LGBT
Discrimination
By Camila Domonoske
NPR, January 9, 2017
Secretary of State John Kerry attends a meeting of foreign ministers
at the NATO headquarters in Brussels on Dec. 6. On Monday,
Kerry issued an apology for the State Department's historical
mistreatment of LGBT people. (John Thys/AFP/Getty Images)
On behalf of the U.S. State Department, John Kerry has issued
a formal apology for the department's pattern of discrimination
against LGBT employees during a period beginning in the 1940s
and stretching for decades.
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., had asked the secretary of state for such an apology in late November, calling the
historical discrimination "un-American and unacceptable."
The Washington Blade reported on Cardin's request in early December, noting at the time that the State
Department said it was preparing a response.
The mass purge of gay staffers during the mid-20th century was known as the "Lavender Scare," which
coincided with the "Red Scare."
Author Eric Berkowitz, speaking to Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 2015, said the systematic discrimination
against gay people in that era has "gotten short shrift in the popular imagination."
At the same time as the persecution of alleged communists, "there was no less energetic a hunt to root out
what were called 'perverts' ... from the federal government," he said.
And it started in the State Department, explains David Johnson, the author of The Lavender Scare. He says
that in the '40s, the State Department was already systematically firing gay employees.
Then, in 1950, Joseph McCarthy claimed to have a list of communists in the State Department. In an
attempt to defend itself against the charges, the department pointed out that it was working hard to expel
"subversives" — by firing gay people. That disclosure kicked off the wider "Lavender Scare."
"The purges begin in the State Department," Johnson says. "And then in the politicized atmosphere of
McCarthyism, they doubled down."
In 1953, years after the State Department began firing gay employees, Dwight Eisenhower instituted a
nationwide ban on gay men and lesbians working for the federal government. Purges lasted for decades.
Careers were destroyed, and some employees committed suicide, Johnson says.
Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, wrote to Kerry on Nov. 29 to
ask that in his last months as secretary of state, he address that history.
Cardin said that more than 1,000 people were dismissed from the Department of State for their alleged
sexual orientation, and "many more" prevented from joining the department through discriminatory hiring
practices. As recently as the 1990s, he said, the State Department drove out personnel thought to be gay,
calling them "security risks."
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/09/508966318/state-department-apologizes-for-decadesof-anti-lgbt-discrimination
Cardin urged Kerry to acknowledge the discrimination, apologize for it — and perhaps install an exhibit
about it at the State Department's museum.
"Of course, the measures we take today cannot bring back years of anguish or erase decades of
institutionalized homophobia, but we can ensure that such injustices levied against the LGBT community
are never repeated again," Cardin said in a statement in early December.
Kerry responded with a statement released Monday. He began by highlighting the State Department's
recent support for LGBT and intersex employees. Then he wrote:
"In the past — as far back as the 1940s, but continuing for decades — the Department of State was
among many public and private employers that discriminated against employees and job applicants
on the basis of perceived sexual orientation, forcing some employees to resign or refusing to hire
certain applicants in the first place. These actions were wrong then, just as they would be wrong
today.
"On behalf of the Department, I apologize to those who were impacted by the practices of the past
and reaffirm the Department's steadfast commitment to diversity and inclusion for all our
employees, including members of the LGBTI community."
Human Rights Campaign Government Affairs Director David Stacy said in a statement that "although it is
not possible to undo the damage that was done decades ago, Secretary Kerry's apology sets the right tone
for the State Department as it enters a new and uncertain time in our country under a new administration."
But David Johnson, a history professor at the University of South Florida and the author of The Lavender
Scare, says that while the apology is welcome and overdue, Kerry's statement misrepresents the State
Department's role in the purge.
"The apology made it sound like the State Department was just one of many institutions that was
discriminating against gay men and lesbians ... that it was just sort of run-of-the-mill 1950s anti-gay
discrimination," he says.
"In fact, the State Department was unique in its level of homophobia," he says.
SEE ALSO:
Kerry apologizes for State Department discrimination against LGBT employees [CNN, 2017-01-09]
Kerry apologizes for past LGBT discrimination at State Department [The Hill, 2017-01-09]
Diversity
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/11/carter-makes-last-pitch-to-keep-combat-jobs-open-towomen.html
Carter Makes Last Pitch to Keep Combat Jobs Open to
Women
By Richard Sisk
Military.com, January 11, 2017
Female soldiers train for the Cultural Support Assessment and
Selection program in 2013. (Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika/Army)
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter made the case Tuesday for
retaining the current policy in the military that opens up all jobs to
women, including in combat roles.
"I can't talk to the next administration" and "I can't comment on
anything that might happen in future," Carter said, but he made
clear his belief that President-elect Donald Trump and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, Trump's choice
for Defense Secretary, would be making a mistake if they sought to change the policy.
As he has previously, Carter said that keeping all jobs open to women who meet standards and qualify was
essential to recruiting and retention in modern society.
"What matters for future of the all-volunteer force is that we emphasize, attract and retain the most
qualified people who can meet our standards" regardless of sex, Carter said. "It is important, it is essential
to the excellence of our military that we put foremost the ability of an individual to do the job," he said.
Carter was joined by Joint Chiefs Chairman Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford at what was his last Pentagon
news conference as Defense Secretary. In his previous post as Marine Corps commandant, Dunford, who
will remain chairman in the next administration, recommended that some combat positions be kept closed
to women and he pointedly did not attend Carter's announcement of his decision to scrap the combat
exclusion rule.
Rescinding or revising the Pentagon's personnel policies on women and transgender troops would not
require new legislation. The next defense secretary will have authority to change the policies and only
needs to notify Congress 30 days in advance.
The Republican Party's 2016 platform was in favor of exempting women from "direct ground combat units
and infantry battalions," but Trump's position on the issue was unclear.
He has argued against "political correctness" and social engineering in the military while adding that he
would first consult with generals before endorsing any changes.
Mattis' position on the issue also was not completely clear, but he has expressed strong doubts about the
current policy. In 2015, he said, "When you have to reduce standards -- as you would have to do, you
would have to do it -- and when you would mix, you know, when you mix eros, when you mix affection for
one another that could be manifested sexually, I don't care if you go anywhere in history, you will not find
where this has worked. Never has this worked."
Mattis' position on women in the military was expected to be explored at his confirmation hearing
Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
A 1994 Pentagon policy preventing women from serving in combat was rescinded in 2013 by then-Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta, and Carter in 2015 made the historic decision to lift the restrictions on military
occupational specialties.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/facebook-s-hiring-process-hinders-its-effort-tocreate-a-diverse-workforce
Facebook’s Hiring Process Hinders Its Effort to Create a
Diverse Workforce
Despite incentivizing recruiters to prioritize women, black and Latino engineering
candidates, the department’s demographics have not changed much in the past few years.
By Ellen Huet
Bloomberg, January 9, 2017
Facebook has put itself at the forefront of efforts to recruit a more diverse workforce, including a targeted
internal recruiting strategy in 2015 designed to bring in female, black and Latino software engineers.
Yet within Facebook’s engineering department, the push has been hampered by a multi-layered hiring
process that gives a small committee of high-ranking engineers veto power over promising candidates,
frustrating recruiters and hindering progress on diversity goals.
Facebook started incentivizing recruiters in 2015 to find engineering candidates who weren't already well
represented at the company – women, black and Latino workers. But during the final stage for engineering
hires, the decision-makers were risk-averse, often declining the minority candidates. The engineering
leaders making the ultimate choices, almost all white or Asian men, often assessed candidates on traditional
metrics like where they attended college, whether they had worked at a top tech firm, or whether current
Facebook employees could vouch for them, according to former recruiters, who asked not to be identified
because they were not authorized to speak publicly about their work.
Focusing on where someone went to school or whom they know in the company can often exclude
candidates from underrepresented backgrounds, said Joelle Emerson, a diversity consultant who helps tech
companies make their hiring more inclusive. "The fact that people are doing hours of interviews and then
getting into a room and then talking about where people went to school seems like the most baffling waste
of time," she said. The final step should focus on how candidates performed during the interview process,
she said.
“Facebook recruits from hundreds of schools and employers from all over the world, and most people hired
at Facebook do not come through referrals from anyone at the company,” a company spokeswoman wrote
in a statement. “Once people begin interviewing at Facebook, we seek to ensure that our hiring teams are
diverse. Our interviewers and those making hiring decisions go through our managing bias course and we
remain acutely focused on improving our ability to hire people with different backgrounds and
perspectives.”
Despite efforts by recruiters, Facebook's demographics in technology roles -- which includes engineers and
some other job categories – has barely changed, according to its yearly diversity reports. From 2015 to
2016, Facebook’s proportion of women in tech grew from 16 percent to 17 percent, and its proportion of
black and Latino U.S. tech workers stayed flat at 1 and 3 percent, respectively.
At most Silicon Valley companies, women, Latino and black employees are a small percentage of the
workforce. Many businesses have pledged to work harder to change that. Facebook has portrayed itself as a
leader in the effort, with executives giving public speeches on benefits and best practices. In 2015,
Facebook published videos of its internal diversity training and said it hoped other companies would use it
as an example. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has been a strong advocate of promoting and
encouraging women in the workplace.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/facebook-s-hiring-process-hinders-its-effort-tocreate-a-diverse-workforce
Urging recruiters to prioritize diversity without applying the same pressure to those making the final hiring
decisions is common in Silicon Valley, said Emerson, the diversity consultant. Tech firms focus on
recruiters and not on hiring managers "because it's far easier to think about bringing people into the
funnel," she said. "It's harder to think about changing a broader process that a company has been using for
maybe ten years." She said that successful companies like Facebook are particularly reluctant to change a
system they feel has worked well.
In 2014, Facebook for the first time released its demographic data, and by the following year, it hadn't
shown much progress in increasing the number of women, black or Latino workers. The following year, the
company decided to do something more. Publicly, executives talked about expanding programs that wooed
college students from a wide variety of backgrounds to intern at Facebook.
Behind the scenes, the company dangled a carrot for recruiters: double points. Recruiters usually got one
point for each candidate of theirs that took a job at Facebook. With the new incentive, they'd receive two
points if that person was a "diversity hire" -- someone who was a woman, or who was not white or Asian,
according to two former recruiters. A point system is rare among Silicon Valley companies, Emerson said.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on Facebook's point system in August.
Points are a major metric for Facebook's recruiters, and the double point system energized them. Those
who don’t earn their expected number of points are put on a performance improvement program, two
recruiters said. Recruiting teams gathered in a room for several hours a week to concentrate just on
sourcing a diverse set of candidates, said one recruiter. They expanded their searches to include engineering
schools in Africa and assigned candidates Facebook employee “buddies” of similar demographics for their
on-site interviews to make them feel welcome.
But after about six months, their enthusiasm turned to frustration. The recruiters saw that many of their
diversity candidates didn’t end up getting an offer. Two former recruiters blamed in part the engineering
department’s candidate review process, a twice- or thrice-weekly meeting at which every engineering offer
had to be approved.
At these regular meetings, the people in the room could include the recruiters and "sourcers"-- recruiters
who originally found the candidate. Occasionally, a "voucher" -- an employee who had referred the
candidate, or had interviewed them -- was present. A hiring manager, who sometimes had more say in who
was hired, could also be there, according to three former recruiters.
But the final decision was made by representatives from a group of about 20 to 30 highly-ranked
engineering leaders, according to two former recruiters. Each meeting usually had about two people from
this group, which included some engineering leaders at the director and vice-president level and chief
technology officer Michael Schroepfer, according to three former recruiters. Not all members of this group
came to the candidate review meetings often, and it was not always the same members who came to the
meetings, the former recruiters said.
The very people the recruiters had been pushed to bring in were often blocked at the final hiring meeting,
they said. Those were not the only candidates declined at the final stage, but getting “diversity candidates”
hired at Facebook proved to be such a struggle than many recruiters stopped trying, even with the double
point system, and went back to their usual strategies, two former recruiters said.
With reporting by Sarah Frier
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/articles/first-female-recruits-training-for-infantry
First women training for Marine infantry jobs to graduate
boot camp
By Jeff Schogol
Marine Corps Times, January 7, 2017
Recruits of Papa Company practice sweeping their opponent to the
ground July 1, 2015, on Parris Island as part of the Marine Corps
Martial-Arts Program. (Photo Credit: Pfc. Vanessa Austin.)
Four female Marine recruits will be the first women to complete
recruit training for infantry jobs when they graduate from boot camp
later this month.
“Upon successful completion of recruit training, the basically trained Marines will continue their entry
level training assigned to Infantry Training Battalion at the School of Infantry,” said Capt. Greg Carroll, a
spokesman for Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina.
The four women have passed the physical standards required for infantry and other ground combat military
occupational specialties that both men and women must meet to continue training in those jobs, Carroll
said.
For their final physical and combat fitness tests, the women had to do six pullups; run three miles within 24
minutes and 51 seconds; lift a 30-pound ammunition can 60 times within two minutes; conduct movement
to contact within 3 minutes and 26 seconds; and perform movement under fire within 3 minutes and 12
seconds.
They are the first women who have arrived at boot camp with infantry contracts since October, Carroll said.
Military.com first reported on Dec. 29 that nine female recruits with infantry contracts will begin
graduating from Parris Island this month.
Since Defense Secretary Ashton Carter approved the Marine Corps’ plan to allow women to serve in all
combat jobs in March, at least 180 women have been assigned jobs that have until now been restricted to
men only.
Thursday was a major milestone when three women joined 1st Battalion, 8th Marines after the Marine
Corps approved their requests for lateral moves into the following MOSs: rifleman, machine gunner and
mortar Marine. All three Marines graduated from the School of Infantry as part of the Marine Corps’
research into gender integration.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has tried to assuage Marines’ concerns that the physical standards for combat
jobs will be watered down to allow women to join them.
“I will never lower standards," Mabus said in April at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. “Let
me repeat that: Standards will not be lowered for any group!”
Former Assistant Commandant Gen. John Paxton Jr. told Marine Corps Times in August that he expected
women will be successful in infantry units. “This is not about women in uniform and it’s not about women
in combat,” Paxton said shortly before he retired. “The issue for us is … to make sure that the women who
aspire to be in those [military occupational specialties] can perform the standard so that anyone in that unit
— male or female — has no fear or misgiving that the performance of the mission and the accomplishment
of the mission is going to be done, regardless of gender.”
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/314081-lgbt-groups-heartened-by-mattis-testimony
LGBT groups 'heartened' by Mattis' testimony
By Rebecca Kheel
The Hill, January 12, 2017
© Greg Nash
Groups that advocate for LGBT troops were said they were
assuaged by retired Gen. James Mattis’ Thursday testimony
suggesting he won’t roll back rules set by the Obama administration
allowing such service members to serve openly.
“We are heartened by Gen. Mattis’ stated commitment during his
testimony not to reverse the profound progress we have made in
ensuring LGBT service members and their families are able to serve our nation with pride,” American
Military Partner Association President Ashley Broadway-Mack and OutServe-SLDN Executive Director
Matt Thorn said in a joint statement.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter lifted the ban on transgender troops serving openly last summer and the
repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that banned gay service members from serving openly also
came during the Obama administration.
Outside groups had been worried that Mattis, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department
of Defense, would be hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender troops based on past statements he’s
made blasting civilian leaders with a “progressive agenda” imposing “social change” on the military.
He was pressed on those issues by multiple Democrats during Thursday’s confirmation hearing and
ultimately said he would not roll back the changes unless a service secretary tells him there is a proven
issue with the policy.
At first, he demurred when asked if gay troops were undermining the military’s lethality. But asked later by
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) whether there’s anything innate about being a woman or identifying as
LGBT that would prevent someone from serving in a lethal force, Mattis flatly said, “No.”
That answer made Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, optimistic about Mattis’ commitment to
upholding the existing policies. Prior the hearing, Belkin had said he expected Mattis to “take aim” at
women and LGBT troops.
“When Gen. Mattis agreed that women and LGBT troops can contribute to the military's lethality, he was
supporting the long standing argument, backed up by a solid consensus in the research as well the
experiences of foreign militaries, that inclusive policy promotes readiness,” Belkin said in a statement
Thursday.
In their statement, Broadway-Mack and Thorn said that after Thursday’s hearing, they look forward to
working with Mattis.
“Because questions had been raised about his commitment on this front, uncertainty in the future had given
our military families great cause for concern,” they said. “His comments today give us hope for a working
relationship between our organizations and the new Defense Department leadership. If confirmed, we look
forward to working with Gen. Mattis in supporting our nation’s brave heroes and their families.”
They also pledged to hold the incoming administration accountable.
“We are committed to holding the incoming administration accountable and ensuring all who serve,
regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, have the support and respect they need and
deserve,” they said.
The Contents Of This Site Are ©2017 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., A Subsidiary Of News
Communications, Inc.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/12/mattis-odds-with-trump-russia-backs-women-combat.html
Mattis at Odds With Trump on Russia, Backs Women in
Combat
By Richard Sisk
Military.com, January 12, 2017
Defense Secretary-designate James Mattis testifies on Capitol Hill
on Jan. 12, 2017, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate
Armed Services Committee. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis set out positions at odds with the
campaign statements of President-elect Donald Trump on Russia
and Iran at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday to become the
nation's 26th secretary of defense.
Mattis also pledged to keep in place the current policies opening up all military occupational specialties,
including combat jobs, to women and allowing gays to serve openly.
Trump has expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and suggested working with the
Kremlin to combat terrorism, but Mattis used his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee
to warn against Russian aggression in Crimea, Ukraine and Syria.
"History is not a straightjacket, but I've never found a better guide for the way ahead," Mattis said, pointing
to the failures of U.S. policy since World War II in improving relations with the Soviet Union and now
Russia.
"Right now, the most important thing is that we must recognize the reality" of Putin's continuing
adversarial policies, he said.
Mattis said he would seek to bolster the NATO alliance and "defend ourselves where we must" against
Russia. He said he had discussed Russian aggression with Trump and "he's shown himself to be open" on
the issue, but "he understands where I stand."
On Iran, Mattis said the U.S. has no choice but to continue with support of the nuclear deal to rein in Iran's
nuclear programs, which Trump has suggested he may want to renegotiate or scrap.
"It's not a friendship treaty, but when America gives its word, we have to live up to it and work with our
allies" to police the agreement, Mattis said.
Under questioning from Sens. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, and Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York
Democrat, Mattis said he would support the current policy on women in combat roles and gays serving
openly.
"I have no plan to oppose women in any aspect of our military," Mattis said. On gays in the military, Mattis
told Gillibrand, "Frankly, senator, I've never cared about two consenting adults and who they go to bed
with."
Mattis elaborated on the issue of women in combat in his written responses to advance questions from the
committee.
When asked whether Defense Secretary Ashton Carter's previous decision to open combat arms units was
based on "an adequate review" of military analysis, Mattis wrote, "I believe that Secretary Carter
appropriately carried out his duties. I have not personally reviewed the data and analysis that Secretary
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/12/mattis-odds-with-trump-russia-backs-women-combat.html
Carter had available to him before he made a decision on this issue. For that reason, I cannot characterize
whether the review was adequate."
In response to a question on whether the occupational standards developed for ground combat occupations
reflect "actual, regular, and recurring duties," Mattis pledged to "study the rationale and implementation of
occupational standards across each of the Services. I will regularly consult with the Committee on the basis
for occupational standards."
In other remarks prepared for the committee, Mattis said his primary mission at the Pentagon would be
allow the State Department to negotiate from a "position of strength" to avoid conflicts in an era of rapidly
evolving worldwide threats.
"I will work to make sure our strategy and military calculus are employed to reinforce traditional tools of
diplomacy, ensuring our president and our diplomats negotiate from a position of strength," he said.
Mattis also said that Trump must avoid a go-it-alone approach on employing the military and instead work
through allies and partnered local forces to carry out missions.
"We must embrace our international alliances and security partnerships. History is clear: Nations with
strong allies thrive and those without them wither," Mattis said in what could be seen as an endorsement of
the same general strategy carried out by President Barack Obama.
His remarks appeared aimed at easing the concerns of senators over Trump's campaign remarks suggesting
that the U.S. might reduce commitments to NATO and alter relationships with key Asian allies Japan and
South Korea.
Mattis also showed deference to civilian control of the military in seeking a waiver from Congress to allow
him to succeed outgoing Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. Current law bars military officers from
accepting cabinet posts until seven years after retirement. Mattis stepped down as head of U.S. Central
Command in 2013.
"Civilian control of the military is a fundamental tenet of the American military tradition," he said, and "if
the Senate consents and if the full Congress passes an exception to the seven-year requirement, I will
provide strong civilian leadership of military plans and decisions."
"I recognize my potential civilian role differs in essence and in substance from my former role in uniform,"
said Mattis, who served 41 years in the Marine Corps.
The Senate panel later voted 24-3 to grant Mattis the waiver, signaling that he was headed for easy
confirmation before the full Senate. Voting against were Gillibrand; Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from
Massachusetts; and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut. Later in the day, the full
Senate approved the waiver by a vote of 81-17.
Mattis had agreed to testify on the waiver Thursday afternoon before the House Armed Services Committee
following his Senate hearing, but his appearance was abruptly canceled Wednesday, reportedly by the
transition team for President-elect Donald Trump for reasons yet to be specified.
House Democrats immediately threatened to vote "No" as a bloc against the waiver. Since World War II,
only one defense secretary has been confirmed under a waiver -- Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief
of staff during World War II.
"This is a major issue affecting civilian control of the military, and Congress has a responsibility to
consider it carefully with hearings and a mark-up," said Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington state Democrat
and the ranking HASC member.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/12/mattis-odds-with-trump-russia-backs-women-combat.html
Mattis, a legend in the Corps for his plain talk and lead-from-the-front style, was soft-spoken and reserved
in his exchanges with the committee, in contrast to his "Mad Dog" image promoted by Trump.
To bolster Mattis' credentials, he was introduced to the panel by a bipartisan team of former senators who
earned respect on both sides of the aisle during their long careers.
Former Sen. Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat who served as either chairman or ranking committee member,
and former Sen. William Cohen, a Maine Republican who served as defense secretary under President Bill
Clinton, both said that a Defense Secretary Mattis would honorably fill the role.
In his opening remarks, McCain said, "I, for one, could not be happier" to be presiding at the hearing,
which is the first step in the confirmation process. "Our nation needs Gen. Mattis more than ever."
In their questioning, committee Republicans depicted Mattis as a strong leader who would push for major
increases in defense spending and reverse what they see as a military strategy under the Obama
administration that projected U.S. indecision and weakness.
"You are going to be confirmed by a strong bipartisan vote" in the full Senate, Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas
Republican who ran against Trump in the primaries, told Mattis. "Thank you for your willingness to come
back and pull this country back from the precipice."
Cruz sought Mattis' support for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, made by Lockheed Martin with major
facilities in Fort Worth, Texas. Trump has questioned the huge cost overruns on the F-35 and suggested
that the F-18 Super Hornet might be an adequate replacement, but Mattis said that the F-35 "is crucial for
our own air superiority in the future because of its stealth" and advanced avionics.
He said continued production of the F-35 is also crucial to U.S. allies. "To them, it's an all-in situation,"
Mattis said.
Trump has doubts about the overall cost of the F-35, but "he just wants the best bang for the buck."
Mattis tended to avoid definitive answers to many questions, saying he would need more time to consider a
response and promising to get back to the committee, but he put down markers on a range of issues:
Russia and Iran
Mattis lumped Russia together with other threats as posing a significant danger to the shaky world order
brought about mainly by the efforts of the U.S. after World War II. "I think [stability in the world] is under
the biggest attack since World War II -- from Russia, from terrorist groups and with what China is doing in
the South China Sea," he said.
McCain said, "I've watched three presidents commit themselves to new relationships with Vladimir Putin.
All three have been an abysmal failure."
Mattis responded that "I think right now the most important thing is that we recognize the reality of what
we deal with [in] Mr. Putin. We recognize that he is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance, and that we
take the steps, the integrated steps -- diplomatic, economic, military and the alliance steps --- working with
our allies to defend ourselves where we must."
"I'm all for engagement, but we also have to recognize reality and what Russia is up to," Mattis said.
"There's a decreasing number of areas where we can engage cooperatively and an increasing number of
areas where we're going to have to confront Russia."
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/12/mattis-odds-with-trump-russia-backs-women-combat.html
On the Iran nuclear deal, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and critic of Trump, said that
during the campaign Trump "gave his word to the American people" that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action was a "terrible deal" and vowed that "I'm going to change it because it's terrible."
"It's not a deal I would have signed, sir," Mattis said in response, but the U.S. is now committed with its
allies to the deal and must abide by it. Mattis said he would back increased focus on Iran by the intelligence
community to detect any effort to cheat on the agreement.
He also said that Iran is a "destabilizing" force in the region and he would work with Joint Chiefs Chairman
Gen. Joseph Dunford on new strategies to counter Iran's influence. One way would be to work with Arab
partners in the region on collaborative anti-missile defense, Mattis said.
ISIS and North Korea
Mattis told the committee that he backs the current strategy to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria by
taking the strongholds of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, but said he would look for ways to intensify
and accelerate the campaigns.
Once ISIS is defeated in Mosul and Raqqa, the U.S. will still have to assist in guarding against terrorism by
the remnants of ISIS and assist in promoting political stability in Iraq and Syria, he said.
"Our principal interest in Iraq is to ensure that it does not become a rump state of the regime in Tehran and
party to Iran's quest for regional hegemony -- a quest that poses a threat to peace and stability," Mattis said
in written testimony to the committee.
He was less clear on how to proceed in Syria's civil war. "It does not lend itself to a one or two paragraph
answer," Mattis said. "It is necessary to define the problems posed by the conflict, and to establish what
level of priority we must assign to solving those problems in the midst of dealing with our other
challenges."
On both Iraq and Syria, Mattis said he would be guided by a single principle: "The most important thing to
know when you go into a shooting war is how you want it to end."
On North Korea, Mattis said that the U.S. "must cooperate closely with our allies in the region, in particular
the Republic of Korea and Japan, and work with other states with important interests in the situation,
including Russia and China" to rein in North Korea's threats and provocations. He also called for bolstering
U.S. homeland and regional anti-missile defenses.
"We need to continue to strengthen our homeland and theater missile defense capabilities while working
with our allies to strengthen their military capacity to deter and, if necessary, respond to aggression by
North Korea," he said.
At the hearing, Mattis declined to be drawn out on whether Trump had drawn his own "red line" by saying
of North Korea's threat to test launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile that "it won't happen." When
asked whether the U.S. should shoot down an ICBM test launch, Mattis said, "I don't think we should take
anything off the table."
Force of the Future
In his management of the Pentagon, Mattis said, "All personnel policies will be designed to bring troops
home alive and victorious." To do that, "It is imperative to disaggregate functions that add value, including
those that increase the lethality of the force and help the department achieve its aims, from functions that
are duplicative and unnecessary."
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/12/mattis-odds-with-trump-russia-backs-women-combat.html
How that plays out in terms of pay, headquarters staff reductions, and reforms in the way the Pentagon
buys weapons will have to await his review of Pentagon processes, Mattis said.
Mattis said he was open to making U.S. Cyber Command a full, unified combatant command. "I've got to
look at the breakout," Mattis said, but "philosophically, I'm OK with it."
Under questioning from the newest SASC member, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat,
Mattis indicated that he would retain the Defense Innovation Board and the Defense Innovation Unit
Experimental (DIUx) initiatives of outgoing Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to forge closer ties to the
high-tech community and speed DoD acquisitions of the latest in cutting-edge equipment.
Mattis said he "absolutely" agrees that the DoD must adapt to change, adding, "We should embrace any
area where we have that opportunity" to coordinate and collaborate with Silicon Valley and the high-tech
communities in other areas.
On women in the military, Mattis said that he would be guided by strict adherence to standards. "The
standards are the standards and, when people meet the standards, that's the end of the discussion on that,"
he said.
"Today, over 15 percent of today's active-duty force is female. Our military could not accomplish its
missions without these women. As we ask more from our female enlisted members and officers, we owe
them more as well," Mattis said. He noted that as a commander he had not hesitated in putting women on
the front lines with men.
Not a 'Mad Dog'
In Iraq, Mattis' call sign was "Chaos" and in his long career in uniform he acquired a reputation for
colorful, to the point, and sometimes expletive-laced quotes. Mattis said to his troops in Iraq, "Be polite, be
professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."
Along the way, Mattis acquired the nickname "Mad Dog." Trump has taken to calling him that, but the
lifelong bachelor sometimes called the "warrior monk" told the committee that the "Mad Dog" moniker
was not to his liking, and his friends never call him that.
When asked about the "Mad Dog" nickname by Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, Mattis
said: "Senator, first I assure you that that nickname was given to me by the press, and some of you may
have experienced similar occasions with the press where perhaps they didn't get it quite right."
Richard Sisk can be reached at [email protected].
https://www.navytimes.com/articles/on-the-eve-of-departure-secnav-mabus-defends-his-progressivereforms
Out-going SECNAV Mabus defends progressive personnel
reforms
By David B. Larter
Navy Times, January 12, 2017
(Photo Credit: MC3 Anderson Branch)
Few people inside President Obama’s Pentagon have been more
closely associated with the progressive changes in the military over
the past eight years than Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.
And now, on the eve of his departure, with an incoming
administration that has questioned his signature achievements such
as integrating women into combat units, Mabus is offering a final passionate argument for the next
administration to hold the line.
Mabus, the soft-spoken former governor of Mississippi, was one of the loudest voices in the department
calling for the 2011 repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that made gay service members keep quiet
about their sexual orientation or face discharge. More recently, he was a forceful advocate for the
Pentagon's decision last year to integrate women into combat roles in both the Navy and the Marine Corps.
Yet the women in combat policy may be in question now. The presumptive incoming secretary of defense
has been on the other side of the argument. Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis has spoken out against
integrating women into combat roles. Mattis has said that while he believes women could meet the physical
standards, it is still improper to put women into the “atavistic primate world” of close-quarters fighting.
“It would only be someone who never crossed the line of departure into close encounters fighting that
would ever even promote such an idea,” Mattis wrote in a book published last year, "Warriors & Citizens."
Mabus, speaking to reporters Wednesday, offered a full-throated defense of the progressive movement he’s
led inside the Navy, arguing that removing women from combat roles or rolling back Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
would make the military a less effective fighting force. Here are his remarks:
“You make the decisions you think are right at the time and will strengthen the Navy and Marine
Corps. We have a better force because we are more diverse.
Of course you could roll it back; you can roll anything back. But if you do, you will make us
weaker. If you do, you will be saying that because of what you look like, or your gender, or who you
love … even though you qualify for the job – even though you met every qualification – we’re going
to keep you from doing it. That’s no America, that’s not who we are.
How can you deny someone the honor of defending this country when they meet the standards? You
are not lowering the standards, you are not doing it to be diverse you are doing it to be better. So if
you want to go backwards. If you want to make us a weaker force, do it. But you will be a weaker
force if you do that.
I’ll finish with a story:
I was in Manaus, Kyrgyzstan, where everyone going in and coming out of Afghanistan passed
through – this was a few months after the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I did an all-hands call
with about 800 sailors and Marines.
https://www.navytimes.com/articles/on-the-eve-of-departure-secnav-mabus-defends-his-progressivereforms
Afterwards a first class petty officer, a corpsman, he had just finished his third combat tour with the
Marines. And he came up and he thanked me for pushing for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,
and he said he was gay and that he was scared to death his entire time in the Navy that he was
going to be found out and forced to leave.
Now here’s a guy who had just done three combat deployments, risked his life time after time to go
to Marines’ aid but his biggest fear was that he was going to be kicked out of the military for who
he was and who he loved. Now how wrong is that? And how bad is that for our force? If we didn’t
have him we would have been a weaker service.
So yes, they can roll it back, you can always roll things back. But you will make us a weaker
fighting force if you do. If that’s your aim, then go ahead. But that is what will happen.”
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-supreme-court-schools-disabilities-20170111-story.html
Supreme Court likely to boost public schools'
responsibilities to children with disabilities
By David G. Savage
Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2017
Supreme Court justices appeared ready Wednesday to clarify and strengthen the rights of the nation’s 6.7
million children with disabilities, perhaps by requiring public schools to offer a special education program
that will ensure they can make significant progress.
The case of a Colorado boy with autism, Endrew F. vs. Douglas County School District, could have a farreaching impact on millions of children and their parents as well as the budgets of school districts
nationwide.
At issue is a long-standing federal law that says children with disabilities have a right to a “free appropriate
public education.” Schools, courts and parents have been divided over what this promise means in practice.
Does it mean, for example, that a school must merely offer a minimal special program that may
offer “some educational benefit” to the child, as a federal appeals court in Denver ruled? Or instead, do
these children have a right to “make significant educational progress,” as lawyers for the outgoing Obama
administration contend?
During Wednesday’s argument, the justices struggled with the lawyers and among themselves to find the
right legal standard. At one point, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. drew knowing smiles from his colleagues
when he complained of the “blizzard of words” being tossed around, most of which had no clear meaning.
However, most of the justices appeared to favor setting a slightly higher standard, one that should lead the
child to make measured progress on academics or behavior. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said it would
not be sufficient for schools to provide an expert for five minutes a day and claim they were providing the
child “some benefit.”
But the chief justice and others said they were wary of setting an unrealistically strict standard that would
require students meet certain goals. They also voiced worries about costs and an explosion of lawsuits.
Parents who are dissatisfied with special educational programs may remove their children from public
schools, enroll them in private schools and then sue to have the costs paid by the school districts. But to
win a reimbursement, the parents must show that the public schools failed to provide the “appropriate”
education promised by the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.
A coalition of big-city school districts, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, warned the high
court of the growing cost of private programs, which on average are more than four times as expensive as a
public program. Los Angeles school officials said they spend $93 million a year on these private
placements.
In the case before the court, the parents of Endrew F., an autistic child from Douglas County, Colo.,
enrolled him in public school through fourth grade. They worked with teachers to devise a special
education program for him, but by fourth grade, his behavior was getting worse. He had repeated outbursts
in class, banged his head on the floor and twice ran away from the school.
His parents moved him to a private school where he was “thriving,” according to the 10th Circuit Court of
Appeals. Nonetheless, the judges ruled the public school system need not reimburse the parents because it
had provided their child with a minimally “adequate” educational program. “It is not the [school] district’s
burden to pay for his placement [in the private school] when Drew was making some progress under its
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-supreme-court-schools-disabilities-20170111-story.html
tutelage. That is all that is required,” wrote Judge Timothy Tymkovich, one of the 21 judges named as
possible Supreme Court nominees by President-elect Donald Trump.
Stanford law professor Jeffrey Fisher, representing the parents, said the Supreme Court should reject the
minimally adequate standard set by the 10th Circuit and instead say that children with disabilities have a
right to make significant progress at school.
Lawyers from the U.S. solicitor general’s office joined in support of the parents. Irv Gornstein, a counselor
in the office, said the law requires schools to provide a learning program “aimed at significant progress in
light of the child’s circumstances.”
While this is not a guarantee of progress, they said, it is an approach that will require schools to aim high.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/09/will-trump-continue-obamas-nationalsecurity-diversity-efforts
Will Trump continue Obama’s national security diversity
efforts?
By Joe Davidson
The Washington Post, January 9, 2017
President Obama speaks with National Security Adviser Susan E.
Rice, beside former British Prime Minister David Cameron, at the
closing plenary session of the April 2016 Nuclear Security Summit at
the Washington Convention Center. (EPA/Michael Reynolds)
Is national security workforce diversity really an issue when the
president’s national security adviser is a powerful black woman with
a spacious White House office just down the hallway from her boss,
a black man who embodies diversity?
Yes. It’s a big, persistent problem.
The encouraging news is Susan E. Rice has confronted the issue head-on, with solid support from her boss,
President Obama. She was the driving force behind his October presidential memorandum that instructed
agencies to take a series of actions “promoting diversity and inclusion in the national security workforce.”
Yet, despite those efforts, and others going back at least to the Foreign Service Act of 1980 that said “the
Foreign Service should be representative of the American people,” the national security workforce remains
starkly under-representative of the country it serves, particularly at the higher levels.
This reality makes the fate of the Obama administration’s diversity efforts all the more concerning. What
will become of them when this administration ends next week and that of President-elect Donald Trump
begins?
The tenor of Trump’s campaign and his history of racism (note his championship of the birther farce to
undermine Obama’s presidency) and ethnic degradation (note his Mexican rapists slur during his campaign
launch) provide no confidence for diversity advocates. And national security intelligence staffers generally
have reason to be wary, given his disparagement of their finding that Russian President Vladimir Putin
ordered cyber hacking to promote Trump’s election campaign, thus tainting the legitimacy of his electoral
college victory.
“Clearly, President-elect Trump lacks a history of sustained serious attention to inclusion and diversity,”
Ernest J. Wilson III, University of Southern California dean of journalism and communications, said with
restraint. He edited the book on this, called “Diversity and U.S. Foreign Policy.”
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Rice would not comment on what Trump might do regarding Obama’s memorandum, but during a Florida
International University speech in May, as Trump was capturing the Republican nomination, she spoke
against “voices out there that disparage our diversity” without naming him. “Those voices can be loud.”
Diversity, she told the graduates is “a national security imperative.”
The White House rejects criticism that the presidential memorandum was late, being issued in the final
months of Obama’s eight years, and not only because we now know who will follow him. A White House
statement pointed to his 2011 executive order establishing a coordinated government-wide diversity
initiative and a list of national security agency programs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/09/will-trump-continue-obamas-nationalsecurity-diversity-efforts
The October memorandum “was in large part to formalize and make more durable many of the practices
that had been put in place over the course of years,” the statement said.
If diversity is a national security imperative, statistics indicate an unfinished national security duty persists.
Two blatant examples — 90 percent of the State Department’s Senior Executive Service is white. The
Senior Foreign Service is 87 percent white.
The Senior Foreign Service feels “less diverse in terms of racial and ethnic background today than it was
20 years ago when I started serving in the State Department,” Rice said during an interview. She didn’t
have statistics on that point, but the anecdotal observations of the veteran ambassador and diplomat are
telling.
So was the importance of this issue to Rice by her willingness to discuss it Friday, just two days after the
death of her mother — who was a strong diversity influence. The career of Lois Dickson Rice, sometimes
called the “mother of the Pell Grants” for her work in implementing the college financial aid program, was
marked by inclusion and expansion efforts, as has been the work of her daughter and son John Rice, whose
Management Leadership for Tomorrow helps prepare people of color for senior management positions.
Diversity, Susan E. Rice said, “is kind of a family enterprise.”
The presidential memorandum she was instrumental in drafting focuses on data and directs agencies to take
a series of actions to promote diversity. It calls for a report to the president no later than 120 days after its
Oct. 5 date. That would be two weeks after Trump takes over, but Rice is confident it will be ready before
Obama leaves.
Ruth A. Davis, a retired pioneering black career diplomat gives Obama a B+ for his national security
diversity efforts, saying they “might have been a bit more pronounced.” He missed an A in part because he
could have selected more African American national security political appointees. She was the Foreign
Service Institute’s first black director and the first woman of color appointed director general of the Foreign
Service.
While not offering any view on what Trump might do, top administration appointees are working to ingrain
efforts to improve federal workforce diversity efforts before they leave.
After the election, Rice met with midlevel career staffers to ensure the president’s memorandum is actually
implemented. Other administration officials met with career employees from across government in
November.
“Given the nature of this campaign on this issue of diversity and inclusion,” Office of Management and
Budget Director Shaun Donovan told them, that is “all the more reason” they “should be thinking about
how you step up, how you join together in the coming months and years to make sure that this issue gets
carried on.”
That’s the challenge.
Miscellaneous
https://www.armytimes.com/articles/2-stars-suicide-prompts-army-review-of-the-health-of-its-generalofficer-corps
2-star’s suicide prompts Army review of the health of its
general officer corps
By Michelle Tan
Army Times, January 8, 2017
(Photo Credit: David Vergun/Army)
The Army has launched a sweeping review of the health of its
general officer corps after the suicide this summer of a two-star
general who was just days away from a promotion and new
command.
The review also comes on the heels of a series of high-profile
misconduct cases involving general officers that have tarnished the Army’s reputation.
Army Secretary Eric Fanning has tasked Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, who most recently led Army Cyber
Command, with looking at the overall health of the general officer corps after 15 years of war.
“It’s not because we felt we had some burgeoning, endemic problem,” Fanning told Army Times Jan. 4.
“It’s because one is too many, and it’s always good to take a knee, take a breath, and see if there’s
something new or that has developed because something’s changed.”
The number of allegations and subsequent investigations against senior officials – which includes
promotable colonels, general officers and senior executive service civilians – decreased in fiscal year 2016,
according to data from the Army inspector general.
This includes a decrease in the number of senior officials with substantiated misconduct. In 2016, the Army
recorded 30 senior officials with at least one substantiated allegation, compared with 39 in 2015.
The only category where the numbers went up in 2016 was sexual misconduct/inappropriate relationships,
according to the Army IG.
Seven allegations of sexual misconduct, inappropriate relationships and sexual harassment were
substantiated in 2016, compared with two in 2015.
The Army takes seriously all allegations of misconduct, Fanning said, adding that he’s “proud that we’re
investigating more, and yet substantiating less. The trends are all in the right direction, but like anything,
like sexual assault, suicide, we need to get to zero.”
Maj. Gen. John Rossi, 55, died July 31 in his on-post home at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, just days before
taking command of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
The Army in October announced that his death was a suicide, a rare instance that sent shock waves across
the force.
Army officials have not said what may have led Rossi to take his own life, except to say he was not
accused or suspected of any misconduct.
Fanning said he hopes Cardon’s review can take a hard look at how the Army is preparing and taking care
of its top leaders.
“It’s been a very long time since we’ve had a general officer commit suicide, and it’s worth looking at and
seeing if there’s anything we’re not recognizing that we’re not getting at,” Fanning said. “This is something
https://www.armytimes.com/articles/2-stars-suicide-prompts-army-review-of-the-health-of-its-generalofficer-corps
we need to do force-wide. We’ve been deploying, repeatedly, the Army for 15 years. We need to
understand how it’s affecting our soldiers and their families.”
The Army needs to understand the impact of combat and repeated deployments on its soldiers, Fanning
said.
“We need a better understanding of how that impacts those who volunteer to serve, making sure we
recognize it, treat it, and then understand any behavior and consequences from those, essentially, invisible
wounds that we’ve been trying to understand. We have a lot more to do.”
Cardon’s review also will include several headline-grabbing cases of general officer misconduct, including
Maj. Gen. Ron Lewis, who was Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s former senior military aide.
Lewis used his government credit card at strip clubs or gentlemen’s clubs in Rome and Seoul, drank in
excess and had “improper interactions” with women during business travel with Carter, according to a
report released in October by the Defense Department inspector general.
As recently as December, the Army busted down Maj. Gen. David Haight to the rank of lieutenant colonel
after he was revealed to have conducted a decade-long extramarital affair and lived a “swinger lifestyle,”
according to USA Today.
“Yes, there was a wave of them,” Fanning said about the recent spate of high-profile misconduct cases. “In
some ways, the wave is exaggerated because these take a while to investigate and a while to adjudicate. It’s
not that they’re happening at the same time.”
But it also is important to look at these types of waves and ask the difficult questions, he said.
“It always makes you stop and wonder, ‘do we have a problem?’” Fanning said. “There could be a bad
weekend with suicides. There could be a bad weekend with accidental deaths. It always causes you to step
back and go, ‘is there a problem here?’ ‘Is there a trend problem?’”
Fanning said he does not believe the Army has a trend problem when it comes to general officer
misconduct.
“We have the lowest numbers we’ve had in a while. Things are getting better,” he said. “But as with
anything else like this, one is too many, and we want to understand why.”
In addition to the review, the Army has already made some changes.
One is making sure that when the service is investigating allegations of general officer misconduct, it is
immediately also reviewing that officer’s security clearance.
This issue came to light in the case of Haight, where it was learned that his security clearance remained in
place for months after he had been fired from a top job at U.S. European Command, USA Today reported.
“What we uncovered was that determination was taking place too late in the process, in part because there’s
a queue for getting clearances,” Fanning said. “We made a change to move these up to the front of the
queue.”
Fanning said he’s proud of the Army’s generals.
“When you consider what general officers are asked to do, what anybody in uniform, for that matter, is
asked to do, particularly for the last 15 years [with] multiple deployments, away from families, in combat,
having lost a number of troops under their command, I think it’s pretty remarkable how strong our general
officer corps is,” he said.
https://www.armytimes.com/articles/2-stars-suicide-prompts-army-review-of-the-health-of-its-generalofficer-corps
Cardon is expected to provide a preliminary briefing to Fanning before the civilian leader leaves office Jan.
20 with the Obama administration. The review is expected to be completed by the spring.
Fanning said he hopes it helps prompt a larger study of post-traumatic stress.
“We need to do more as a military in understanding the effects of PTS, because anyone who volunteers to
serve and is injured in any way because of that service deserves to have those wounds diagnosed and
treated,” he said. “And we need to understand if those wounds are causing other types of behaviors and
we’re not seeing the linkage.”
Post-traumatic stress is a complicated issue, Fanning said.
“There are a number of people, and I’m one of them, who accept that if you go into combat, you are going
to have PTS, that 100 percent of people are going to have PTS,” he said. “It’s pure biology. Some people
find their way out of it, others don’t. It’s not a sign of strength. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s biology.”
The military asks its service members to “do things that go against how our bodies are hardwired,” Fanning
said.
“We’ve worked very hard at trying to make care more accessible, to try and take the stigma away by
embedding it at the operational level, by embedding it in schools,” he said. “That’s great, but we need to
change the paradigm. Care is going to be really easy to find if you need it. It should be you’re going to need
it, and it’s going to be part of what you do when you leave, when you return, and when you’re serving. It
should be an expectation.”
http://www.stripes.com/news/after-ratings-change-backlash-effort-to-reform-navy-jobs-moves-ahead1.448319
After ratings change backlash, effort to reform Navy jobs
moves ahead
By Wyatt Olson
Stars and Stripes, January 11, 2017
Vice Adm. Robert Burke, chief of Naval Personnel, speaks with
sailors at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman, Hawaii, during an
all-hands call that focused on Sailor 2025 and other personnel
issues, Monday, Jan. 9, 2017. (Nathan Christensen/U.S. Navy
photo)
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii — The Navy
has backed off on a controversial decision to scrap job-oriented
titles, but the effort to reform how those jobs are attained and
offered is moving forward, a top Navy official said Tuesday.
“Now that we’ve got the distraction of the naming issue put aside, we’re focusing on things of substance
that we wanted to tackle — the rating modernization — as well as Sailor 2025,” Vice Adm. Robert Burke,
chief of Naval Personnel, told a media roundtable in Hawaii.
Sailor 2025, an overhaul of the Navy’s personnel system, is intended to modernize policies, operating
systems and training.
The service announced in September it would end the 2-century-old job-ratings system that identifies
sailors by occupation and rank, though many vehemently opposed the change.
“Our sailors have many allegiances,” Burke said of the backlash. “They have allegiance to their ships, to
their warfare designations, to their squadrons and to their tribe. Ratings are another tribe, and there’s
tradition associated with it. I think there’s that aspect of it.”
At least for now, a yeoman first class will remain a yeoman first class, he said, adding that “everything else
in the project is continuing forward.”
“We fundamentally haven’t changed our personnel system since the draft went away [44 years ago],”
Burke said.
The Navy oversees a massive and sprawling personnel pool, with roughly 40,000 sailors entering the
service each year and the same number heading out. There are about 90,000 annual permanent-change-ofstation moves for operational and rotational tours alone, he said.
The Navy is hoping to attract and retain sailors through the modernization effort designed to reduce the cost
and toll of turnover.
Part of that reform is aimed at increasing flexibility so sailors don’t find themselves at career dead ends.
Too many “proven performers” aren’t promoted because their job specialties are “over-manned,” he said.
The modernization would create more flexibility by managing personnel by career tracks. For example, a
dental technician could qualify to be an X-ray technician after an additional month of schooling, Burke
said.
The Navy is working on identifying and categorizing similar jobs.
http://www.stripes.com/news/after-ratings-change-backlash-effort-to-reform-navy-jobs-moves-ahead1.448319
“That’s what the rating modernization is about: identifying that DNA that defines that career track he’s in
and looking at the differences for the DNA that’s required to do different jobs and just training them on
those different elements,” he said. “That’s the goal.”
Burke said the sailors he’s talked to have liked the proposal to change the way advancement exams are
structured. For example, he said there are 40 classifications within the corpsman rating that run the gamut
from dental and X-ray technician to mortician and aerospace medical technician.
A corpsman is tested on all 40 classifications when taking an advancement exam, Burke said. A worthy
goal would be to advance sailors based on testing of their individual skill sets rather than the “the whole
larger set,” he added.
“Sailors really like that idea,” Burke said.
However, increased job flexibility as the norm could cause the Navy to revisit the naming issue, he said.
“For example, if you come in as a cryptologic technician and you later become an electronics technician,
what do we call you?” he said.
During an all-hands call Monday at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, several sailors suggested that the first
rating a sailor assumes in the Navy will be “for life,” Burke said.
“We’ll get the sailors’ ideas on it and bring them to bear on what we call each other,” he said. “We can
cross that bridge later.”
[email protected] Twitter: @WyattWOlson
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/10/air-force-expands-medical-waivers-no-questions-priormarijuana.html
Air Force Expands Medical Waivers, No Questions on Prior
Marijuana Use
By Oriana Pawlyk
Military.com, January 10, 2017
Metal rolling machine with some filters for rolled marijuana joint.
(Still Life Concepts)
The Air Force is looking to expand its ranks in part by boosting the
number medical waivers for potential recruits, the service
announced Tuesday.
Prospective airmen routinely disqualified from serving because of
eczema, asthma and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or
ADHD, will now be given a second chance on a case-by-case basis.
Rules blocking recruits who have prior marijuana use will also be relaxed.
"As medical capabilities have improved and laws have changed, the Air Force is evolving so we are able to
access more worldwide deployable Airmen to conduct the business of our nation," Air Force Chief of Staff
Gen. David Goldfein said in a statement.
Individuals with these conditions will not need extra medical check-ups. "They'll just [need to] meet the
same annual preventive assessment that all airmen get," Lt. Gen (Dr.) Mark Ediger, the Air Force's surgeon
general, told Military.com on Friday.
"When airmen apply for enlistment or commissioning in the Air Force working with a recruiter, they go to
a military entrance processing station, or MEPS, to get a medical history and a physical … and if they give
a history of a condition that may represent something of concern, maybe disqualifying, then we'll ask the
individual to provide medical records" voluntarily, Ediger said in an interview at the Pentagon.
If medical records do not help clarify their history, military physicians may perform a secondary
evaluation.
"These airmen will be worldwide deployable the day they come in the door and be able to perform any
mission the Air Force needs them to," said Lt. Gen. Gina Grosso, deputy chief of staff for Air Force
manpower, personnel and services.
"We are always looking at our policies and, when appropriate, adjusting them to ensure a broad scope of
individuals are eligible to serve," said outgoing Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Cody.
"These changes allow the Air Force to aggressively recruit talented and capable Americans who until now
might not have been able to serve our country in uniform," he said in a statement.
Here's the new medical breakdown:
Prior marijuana use
The Air Force will still have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to airmen smoking or using marijuana,
but how many days, weeks or months prior to enlisting that a potential airman used will no longer be a
limiting factor.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/10/air-force-expands-medical-waivers-no-questions-priormarijuana.html
The service is no longer considering how long it has been since an airman used marijuana prior to service
in a move to "standardize" the questions asked of potential recruits.
Air Force admission sources were inconsistent on what timeframe was acceptable for prior marijuana use.
"Standards of pre-accession marijuana use were different for getting into the Air Force Academy vs. Air
Force Recruiting Service for enlistment or officer training school vs. AFROTC," said Air Force spokesman
Zachary Anderson.
"We didn't ask the same questions," Grosso said. "Some recruiters used if you smoked marijuana less than
five times, sometimes it was less than 15 times."
States legalizing recreational marijuana in one form or another -- Colorado, Alaska, California, Maine,
Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia -- made the Air Force question,
"How should we think about that?" Grosso said.
"What we decided to do is stop asking [about] prior marijuana use at the recruiter level," she said, because
"first of all, who really counts how many times they've used marijuana? So that just comes off the table."
Grosso reiterated that once a recruit enters the process of becoming an airman, any marijuana use detected
will automatically cause him or her to be separated from service.
"We do not have any waivers for that," she said. "And any drug dependency which we determine through a
different procedure is also fully disqualifying."
Ediger said a diagnosed substance abuse disorder -- not limited to marijuana -- will also preclude service.
"Through the [MEPS], there are some evidence-based screening questionnaires that can be used to screen
for that disorder," Ediger said. "Any condition that would require prescription of medical marijuana would
probably be a disqualifying condition to begin with."
The MEPS screening is not just for marijuana -- it looks for opioids or the abuse of prescription pain drugs
for recreational purposes.
A run-in with the law in a state where marijuana is illegal is also a disqualifying factor, Grosso said.
The Air Force routinely and randomly screens its airmen per rules outlined in the drug demand reduction
program policy.
Asthma
Under the previous policy, if a potential recruit's history showed he or she required periodic or significant
treatment for wheezing, there was a presumption it was asthma.
"The change to the policy on asthma: We're going to use some diagnostic testing to actually determine if a
particular applicant has asthma where the history is questionable -- a relatively frequent occurrence where
somebody at some point during their youth required treatment for wheezing, but sometimes it's not really
asthma," Ediger said.
For example, an infection or an unusual exposure manifesting with similar symptoms can sometimes be
misdiagnosed as asthma.
"What the policy says now is we're going to use a Methacholine challenge test," or a type of lung function
test that determines if an individual's airway is prone to spasms, and "it will trigger the spasm, and then we
have a breathing test to measure that," he said.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/10/air-force-expands-medical-waivers-no-questions-priormarijuana.html
"If the test is normal, we will not regard that applicant as having asthma and there's no qualification
question," Ediger said. "Previously, we did not offer the test."
Candidates who successfully pass this test will be processed for a waiver, the new policy states.
Those with a verified diagnosis of prolonged asthma remain unqualified to serve.
Ediger said while the service has not necessarily seen an increase in asthma cases, there "has always been a
significant number of applicants who had some history of wheezing or an actual diagnosis … but I think
the frequency which we see that really parallels the prevalence of asthma in the U.S. population."
According to the Centers for Disease Control's 2014 National Health Interview Survey, 17.7 million
American adults have asthma. About 6.3 million children also have the medical condition, the survey says.
"There is a legitimate concern, because of the range of environments we expose our airmen to. Triggering a
severe asthma attack in a remote environment … could be quite hazardous," Ediger said.
Eczema
Eczema is a skin inflammation often associated with allergies and affects roughly 30 percent of the
population.
"It is disqualifying … per [Defense Department] guidance," Ediger said, "but the Air Force has waiver
authority" over the condition, also known as Dermatitis.
Few waivers have been granted in the past for airmen whose medical history suggested they tested positive
for the disease, even if they showed no overt symptoms, he said.
Ediger said officials reconsidered giving out waivers because of airmen with eczema currently serving -- in
many ways, "we were able to treat and control their eczema."
"We found they were very successful in deploying -- it was extremely rare for them to require early
termination … and so based on that review, we made the determination that for those with a history of
eczema that was no longer active or currently active, mild eczema … that we will allow them to come into
the Air Force," he said.
Certain occupational restrictions may still apply for personal and mission safety, according to the new
policy.
"We know, for certain occupations, the skin is exposed to chemical solvents, extreme temperatures," Ediger
said, "and rather than put that airman into a job that is highly likely to aggravate their eczema," the service
will review the best fit.
Some blocked occupations may include aircraft maintainers, civil engineering and some jobs under Air
Force Special Operations Command, he said.
Recruits with eczema who qualify for service will be notified by a recruiter they may not qualify for certain
career fields, Ediger said.
The Air Force said the list of jobs will evolve over time and could not provide a set list at press time.
ADHD
A potential airman with a history of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder must demonstrate at least 15
months of performance stability -- either academic or through the individual's occupation -- off medication
for the condition immediately preceding enlistment or enrollment, according to the new policy.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/10/air-force-expands-medical-waivers-no-questions-priormarijuana.html
Previously, if an individual was ever treated for ADHD as a child and especially into adolescence, he or she
was disqualified from military service under DoD policy. The department relaxed some rules in 2010, and
further amended how it granted waivers in 2015, stating, "Each service's waiver authority for medical
conditions will make a determination based on all available information regarding the issue or condition."
Like its sister services, the Air Force is willing to consider a waiver.
If an individual took a prescription for ADHD after the age of 14, "we needed to see a period of 24 months
of demonstrated stability off medication before we considered them for a waiver" to join, Ediger said of the
previous policy.
Recent studies suggest there has been a spike in school-age children or young adults needing medication
for ADHD. "We're not sure why," he said.
More than one in 10 children received an ADHD diagnosis in 2011 and were treated by therapy,
medication or both, according to a CDC study published in 2015 featured in Psychology Today.
"Looking at our experience, we saw that, of those airmen with a history of ADHD we had waived into the
Air Force, that they had a very high success rate in completing their training and moving on to serve as
airmen," Ediger said. "So we determined we can shorten the period of demonstrated stability from 24
months down to 15 months."
Airmen must still abide by rules as outlined in the DoD's Medical Standards for Appointment, Enlistment,
or Induction in the Military Services, or DoDI 6130.03, the Air Force said.
Ediger said officials will continue to monitor previously diagnosed airmen, "and we'll consider further
modifications based on what occurs with the airmen we waive in."
Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/10/air-force-relaxes-tattoo-policy-allows-sleeves.html
Air Force Relaxes Tattoo Policy, Allows Sleeves
By Oriana Pawlyk
Military.com, January 10, 2017
The Air Force is changing its rules on tattoos. (U.S. Air Force
photo illustration)
The Air Force on Tuesday announced it will no longer limit the size
of airmen's body tattoos, in a significant shift that opens up the door
to popular sleeve tattoos.
The policy change is slated to take effect Feb. 1.
The change in regulations will allow both arm and leg sleeves, Lt.
Gen. Gina Grosso, deputy chief of staff for Air Force manpower, personnel and services, told Military.com
in an exclusive interview Friday at the Pentagon.
"As a next step in this evolution, we are opening the aperture on certain medical accession criteria and
tattoos while taking into account our needs for worldwide deployability and our commitment to the
profession of arms," Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said in a statement.
The service is axing its "25 percent rule," which prohibits tattoos that cover more than a quarter of an
exposed body part. That rule was added to the Air Force Guidance Memorandum, or AFI 36-2903, "Dress
and Personal Appearance," in 1998, then updated with a measuring tool in 2010, said Air Force spokesman
Maj. Bryan Lewis.
Tattoos will now be allowed on the chest, back, arms and legs and will not be restricted to size, according
to Grosso. "Size will not be a factor anymore," she said.
Grosso added, "Old policy, current policy, anything that's inappropriate, racist, sexist, inappropriate picture
-- those have never been acceptable and will still not be acceptable."
Tattoos, brandings or body markings on the head, neck, face, tongue, lips and or scalp will still be
prohibited.
There will be no restriction on the arm up to an individual's wrist, Grosso added. But "the only tattoo you
can have on your hand is on one finger, and that's for both hands," she said. An example of this would be a
wedding ring tattoo.
"You can't have it on two fingers -- out of your 10 fingers, you can have it on one finger," she said.
Current airmen with existing hand tattoos that were authorized under the previous policy will be
grandfathered in under the old policy standards.
The service previously allowed tattoos to be visible while in PT gear, but not service dress or other formal
uniforms. If an airman had an "excessive" tattoo -- exceeding the 25 percent rule -- but was granted a
waiver by his or her command, the individual was required to cover up the tattoo while in uniform. The
waiver would remain on the airman's service record until he or she left the service or removed the tattoo.
Commanders still have authority to require an airman to remove a tattoo if it is deemed offensive or to
cover it up during a ceremony, Grosso said.
"If a commander felt like it would be more appropriate to have everybody in a standard uniform, they could
ask an airman to cover the tattoo for certain events; they have that authority. But not to [force them to]
remove it," she said. "We trust commanders to do the right thing in those situations."
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/10/air-force-relaxes-tattoo-policy-allows-sleeves.html
The same goes for singular finger tattoos, she added.
Airmen cannot tattoo themselves with symbols linked to hate groups, gangs, extremist or supremacist
organizations, or anything the Air Force classifies to be obscene, or which advocates sexual, racial, ethnic
or religious discrimination, the policy states. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations has a running
list of what is considered offensive.
"If presented with a request from Air Force officials, AFOSI would research the symbol to determine if it
has been reported to law enforcement in the past as associated with hate groups," OSI spokeswoman Linda
Card said. "We defer to DOJ, FBI, and ATF for an official stance on any symbol's association with hate
groups."
The service reviews dress and appearance policy every four years. With Defense Secretary Ash Carter's
efforts to bring in and retain a diverse array of service members -- his "Force of the Future" initiative -- the
policy changes "dovetailed together" to "get access to more talented young people," Grosso said.
"The Air Force, the Army and the Navy are all fairly similar [in their tattoo policies]," Grosso said.
"The Marine Corps right now is really the most conservative, I would say."
Last spring, the service said officials had convened a working group to assess studies and feedback from
airmen on how best to address body ink. James in August said the group was also reviewing where the Air
Force stood in comparison to its sister services.
"The tattoo policy will be reviewed as part of that greater look," James said, "and one thing I specifically
asked for as part of that review is that we look at what the other services are doing because we're ... in a
healthy and friendly competition with our sister services, and we don't want to lose out on good recruits -at least without thinking it through on what the tattoo situation is," she told Air Force Times during an
editorial board at the time.
Grosso said that the Air Force recruiting service also collected data for a couple of months on people
coming in to inquire about joining the service.
"Almost one out of every two people coming in had a tattoo," she said, "and about one out of every five
needed a waiver -- for the size."
While not a scientific study -- Grosso did not say how many people total were asked, just that potential
recruits casually spoke with recruiters about the subject -- the basic survey data on a future retention aspect
"showed what we're experiencing, that we were clearly excluding people that were otherwise qualified,"
she said.
Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
SEE ALSO:
Air Force loosens tattoo rules, recruiting restrictions [Air Force Times, 2017-01-10]
https://www.armytimes.com/articles/army-report-self-doubt-and-sleep-deprivation-led-to-2-stars-suicide
Army report: Self-doubt and sleep deprivation led to 2star’s suicide
By Meghann Myers
Army Times, January 11, 2017
(Photo Credit: David Vergun/Army)
Maj. Gen. John Rossi was two days away from pinning on a third
star and taking the reins at U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense
Command last summer when he hanged himself.
Army investigators ruled his July 31 death a suicide and attributed
the tragedy to a wave of career and medical stress that impaired his
judgment and distorted his sense of self-worth, coming to a head that last week in July, according to a 15-6
investigation released Wednesday.
"They ultimately overwhelmed his psychological defenses and ability to cope with these negative emotions,
resulting in his decision to commit suicide during the last period of time in which he was likely to be alone
before assuming command of the SMDC," according to the report.
The findings have prompted an Army-wide review of mental health issues in the general officer corps to be
headed up by a three-star, Army Secretary Eric Fanning told Army Times in a Jan. 4 interview.
“It’s not because we felt we had some burgeoning, endemic problem,” he said. “It’s because one is too
many, and it’s always good to take a knee, take a breath, and see if there’s something new or that has
developed because something’s changed.”
That review will also look at a number of high-profile misconduct cases that have plagued the Army's top
ranks in recent years, including 30 reports of general wrongdoing and seven of sexual misconduct,
inappropriate relationships or sexual harassment in fiscal year 2016. Army officials said Rossi was not
suspected or accused of any misconduct.
"We will continue to work with and teach our leaders to create an environment where it's okay to ask for
help no matter your position or rank, and reinforce in all soldiers and leaders that it is their duty to lend a
helping hand," an Army spokesman said in a statement to Army Times.
"Smart enough for the job"
For Rossi, 55, the pressure of his impending three-star command converged with long periods running on
little sleep to create a deadly combination.
The general believed he didn't deserve the honors he had received, according to the investigation, and used
his relentless work ethic to cover up what he perceived as his intellectual shortcomings.
During his previous tour commanding the Fires Center of Excellence at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, his staff told
investigators, the career air defense artillery officer became less sociable than in the past and seemed to
find less enjoyment in the job than in his previous assignments.
"According to some of his former subordinates, he was not comfortable with the field artillery aspects of
his job, and he spent countless hours attempting to familiarize himself with these issues to appear
competent and knowledgeable," according to the report.
He also apparently suffered from medical issues during that tour at Fort Sill, but details were redacted from
the report that was released to the public.
https://www.armytimes.com/articles/army-report-self-doubt-and-sleep-deprivation-led-to-2-stars-suicide
He had an "irrational belief that he was intellectually incapable of mastering the technical aspects of the
SMDC, particularly those related to space defense," according to the investigation.
Rossi's wife told investigators that once they moved into their Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, home on July
23, he suddenly revealed his doubts about his fitness for the new job, according to the investigation.
"He told her that there was 'so much information' associated with the job that he didn't know or understand,
and that he 'didn't think he was smart enough for the job,' " according to the report.
Hard work wouldn't be enough to excel there, he believed, and he was terrified that he would be exposed as
a fraud and let down his family and the Army, according to the report.
Just over a week later, the general went home in the middle of the day, turned up some music and took his
life. Details of the discovery are redacted, but his wife came home to the scene.
"Maj. Gen. Rossi's death was a tremendous loss for the Rossi family and, indeed, our entire Army family,"
the Army spokesman said.
Running on fumes
To keep up his pace, Rossi slept only five hours a night. The investigation found he'd followed this routine
for most, if not all, of the previous two years, a kind of sleep deprivation that is associated with an inability
to deal with stress as well as suicide.
The National Institutes of Health recommends seven to eight hours of sleep per night for adults, and notes
that sleep deprivation can lead to myriad behavioral issues, including trouble with problem solving and
controlling emotions.
The general also had a dark side, colleagues told investigators. He seemed to fixate on death, they said,
carrying cards with the names of every soldier who had died under his command and blamed himself for
not doing enough to save them.
"Finally, one witness said that 'death seemed to follow' [Rossi]," an investigator wrote. "He had 12 soldiers
die of various causes during his command at Fort Sill, he was the public spokesperson for III Corps and
Fort Hood during the Maj. [Nidal] Hasan shooting incident, he drove down the 'Highway of Death' during
the first Gulf War. It is possible that his exposure to and apparent fixation with death may have desensitized
him to the act of taking his own life."
Though Rossi's personality and lifestyle may have put him at higher risk for suicide, according to the
investigation, his stress level is common among general officers.
"Many aspects of general officer responsibilities and lifestyles carry inherent risks, but there are inadequate
systems in place to identify individual general officers who may be at risk," the investigator wrote.
Fanning told Army Times he hopes the upcoming review will help identify some of the causes and signs of
stress unique to top brass.
"It’s been a very long time since we’ve had a general officer commit suicide, and it’s worth looking at and
seeing if there’s anything we’re not recognizing that we’re not getting at,” he said. “This is something we
need to do force-wide. We’ve been deploying, repeatedly, the Army for 15 years. We need to understand
how it’s affecting our soldiers and their families.”
http://www.theday.com/military/20170111/coast-guard-loosens-tattoo-restrictions
Coast Guard loosens tattoo restrictions
By Julia Bergman
The Day (New London, Conn.), January 11, 2017
Tattoo shop. Shane M. Phipps/U.S. Air Force
Reacting to the increasing acceptance and popularity of body art,
the Coast Guard has revised its tattoo policy to make it less
restrictive.
A Dec. 29 Coast Guard memo details the changes, which
are described as "minimal but important."
Neck tattoos are now allowed as long as they are not visible above
the collar of the light blue shirt that Coast Guardsmen wear as part
of their everyday uniform, known as Tropical Blues.
For tattoos that are near the collarbone, supervisors will have to ensure that no more than 1 inch of the
tattoo is visible above the undershirt worn beneath uniforms.
As for the hand, members can have a tattoo "ring" on their finger, excluding the thumb. Only one tattoo is
allowed per hand, and the tattoo cannot extend past the knuckle.
Permanent eyeliner makeup, done through cosmetic tattooing, is allowed for women with some exceptions;
for example, the eyeliner cannot extend past the outer corner of the eye.
Aside from the aforementioned exceptions, tattoos are not allowed on the head, face (including inside the
mouth), neck or hands. Ultraviolet or black light tattoos are allowed, and the same restrictions for regular
tattoos apply.
Members who are "unable" or "unwilling" to abide by the policy will be separated from the Coast Guard,
the document says.
The updated policy also applies to Coast Guard Academy cadets, according to spokesman David Santos.
Over the years, the various service branches have continued to revise their tattoo policies, often doing so to
help widen their pool of potential candidates and to retain current members.
The Air Force recently announced that starting Feb. 1, it is doing away with the rule requiring that tattoos
on the chest, back, arms and legs to be less than 25 percent of the exposed body part, known as the 25
percent rule.
Navy sailors, as of late April 2016, can now have a neck tattoo, as long as it isn't longer than 1 inch in any
direction. And there is no limit to the size or number of tattoos they can have below the elbow and knee.
[email protected]
© Copyright 2017 The Day, New London, Conn. . All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
https://www.airforcetimes.com/articles/james-says-goodbye-after-three-years-as-air-force-secretary
James says goodbye after three years as Air Force secretary
By Charlsy Panzino
Air Force Times, January 11, 2017
(Photo Credit: Air Force)
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James was honored Wednesday
as her three-year tenure of leading the service comes to a close.
The ceremony at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland included remarks
from Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Chief of Staff Gen. David
Goldfein.
James, the 23rd secretary of the Air Force, was hailed for putting airmen first, including a focus on the
remotely piloted aircraft and nuclear forces.
Carter said James established an important feedback loop between airmen and senior leadership, and she
will pass those lessons on to her successor.
“[She] never lost sight of what that greatest strength is: our people,” Carter said during the ceremony.
James visited Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana last week to gain feedback from areas affected by her
Force Improvement Program initiative, which was implemented to improve and bring changes to the
intercontinental ballistic missile mission to include upgrading vehicles for security forces, offering the
nuclear force incentive pay, and changes to testing and training regiments for the nuclear force.
Malmstrom was one of her first stops shortly after taking over as secretary in 2013, and she said she has
seen improvement in the nuclear force since.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter participates in a farewell ceremony
for Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James Jan. 11 at Joint Base
Andrews, Md. Carter and James will both leave their jobs on Jan.
20 with the outgoing Obama administration. (Photo Credit: Air
Force)
Carter pointed to how James has run focus groups with nuke airmen
to learn how the Air Force’s policies are affecting them. One of her
priorities was creating more temporary duty opportunities for
nuclear enterprise airmen so they can see how their work plays into national security as a whole.
James also focused on the remotely piloted aircraft sector and acknowledged that those airmen are some of
the most impacted by the manning strain.
In 2015, James signed a memo to increase pay for 18X drone pilots from $650 per month to $1,500, if they
continue flying unmanned aircraft beyond their six-year commitments.
Goldfein said operational stress levels have improved for those airmen.
“The deliberate leadership of James has been instrumental in a number of areas and promises to normalize
the RPA community in the near future,” he said.
Carter said James not only revitalized the nuke enterprise mission and RPA plan, but was also a strong
advocate to prevention of sexual assault, violence and suicide
https://www.airforcetimes.com/articles/james-says-goodbye-after-three-years-as-air-force-secretary
He also noted how she promoted diversity and inclusion, launching initiatives to help increase opportunities
for women, minorities and enlisted airmen. These initiatives included making it easier to waive height
restrictions for pilots to setting diversity requirements for career field development teams.
James said she was thankful to Carter and President Barack Obama for the trust they placed in her.
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James was honored Jan. 11 with
the Defense Department's medal for distinguished public service
during a farewell ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, Md. Photo
Credit: Air Force
“When I took the job, I knew it would be the honor of my
professional lifetime,” she said.
Instead of opting to talk about her accomplishments over the past
three years, James said she wanted to share some of her experiences with airmen during her time as
secretary.
“What I didn’t understand at the time is what an absolute joy it would be and how much I have learned
from all of you,” James said to the hangar full of airmen.
She told the crowd about four different airmen she was privileged to meet and “who will inspire me
forever.”
The stories ranged from her first time attending a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware of
an airman killed in action in Afghanistan to being counted among the ranks of such Tuskegee Airmen as
Col. Charles McGee. James was named an honorary Tuskegee airman in October.
James closed out her farewell speech saying airmen had done more for her than she ever could have
imagined.
“Let me say one more time: Aim high, airmen, aim high,” she said. “I know you will, and I’ll be watching.”
Charlsy Panzino covers the Guard and Reserve, training, technology, operations and features for Army
Times and Air Force Times. Email her at [email protected].
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/obama-legacy-military
The Obama era is over. Here’s how the military rates his
legacy
By Leo Shane III and George R. Altman
Military Times, January 8, 2017
President Barack Obama addresses Marines in Afghanistan. (Defense
Department photo)
President Barack Obama will step down after eight years as commander
in chief with one of the most influential tenures leading the U.S.
military, but not necessarily the political support of service members.
His moves to slim down the armed forces, move away from traditional
military might and overhaul social policies prohibiting the service of
minority groups have proven divisive in the ranks. His critics have accused him of trading a strong security
posture for political points, and for allowing the rise of terrorists like the Islamic State group whom the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were supposed to silence.
But Obama’s supporters define him as the Nobel Peace Prize winner who ordered the elimination of Osama
bin Laden and refocused military strategy while wrestling with an uncooperative Congress and
unprecedented budget restrictions. They insist the military is more nimble now, and more prepared to deal
with unconventional warfare against non-traditional threats across the globe.
More than half of troops surveyed in the latest Military Times/Institute for Veterans and Military Families
poll said they have an unfavorable opinion of Obama and his two-terms leading the military. About 36
percent said they approve of his job as commander in chief.
Their complaints include the president’s decision to decrease military personnel (71 percent think it should
be higher), his moves to withdraw combat troops from Iraq (59 percent say it made America less safe) and
his lack of focus on the biggest dangers facing America (64 percent say China represents a significant
threat to the U.S.)
But more than two-thirds support Obama's mantra that securing America means building strong alliances
with foreign powers. And more than 60 percent think his use of drones and special forces teams for
precision strikes — instead of large-scale military operations — has helped U.S. national security.
That’s a conflicted response to a president who entered the White House vowing to end U.S. involvement
in Iraq and Afghanistan but instead leaves as the first American president to oversee two full terms with
combat troops deployed to hostile zones.
In a departure memo released Jan. 5, Defense Secretary Ash Carter defended Obama’s “record of progress”
with the military by praising the White House moves as creating “a smaller yet more technologically
advanced and capable military that is ready for the threats of today and the challenges of tomorrow.”
“America is today the world’s foremost leader, partner, and underwriter of stability and security in every
region across the globe, as we have been since the end of World War II,” Carter wrote. “But even as we
continue to fulfill this enduring role, it’s also evident that we’re entering a new strategic era … and it
requires new ways of thinking and new ways of acting.”
The White House did not respond to repeated requests for an interview with Obama to discuss his defense
moves and the military legacy he’ll leave behind.
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/obama-legacy-military
In a farewell speech during a military honor review on Jan.
4, Obama said he saw his top priority overseeing
America’s military as balancing the need to use force with
the need to honor the armed forces.
“You committed yourself to a life of service and of
sacrifice,” he said. “And I, in turn, made a promise to you
… that I would only send you into harm's way when it is
absolutely necessary, with the strategy, the well-defined
goals, with the equipment and the support that you needed
to get the job done. Because that’s what you rightfully
expect and that is what you rightfully deserve.”
Still, many troops see Obama less as a wartime commander
in chief and more as a politician managing Pentagon
affairs. Through his presidency Obama has repeatedly
promised to keep the military “the strongest fighting force
the world has ever known” but many troops question his
stewardship of the institution, particularly when it comes to
the defense budget.
'IT'S THE PRESIDENT'S FAULT'
“There’s no question this era will go down as the third
‘hollow’ army, and it’s the president’s fault,” said James
Jay Carafano, deputy director of international studies at the
conservative Heritage Foundation. “For all his promises,
the operations tempo hasn’t gone down as much as he
hoped, and he has invested little in the military.”
Troops responding to the Military Times/IVMF poll saw
years of defense budget fights as the largest blemish on
Obama’s presidency. Two-thirds said spending caps
enacted in 2011 have had a very negative effect on military
morale, and another 28 percent said it was harmful to a
lesser extent. Fewer than two percent saw the budget caps
as a positive for the military.
Conservatives have attacked Obama for the lower defense
budgets for years, arguing that his insistence on pairing
military spending with non-defense spending has crippled
Pentagon efforts to modernize and recapitalize.
The caps — known as sequestration — have been blamed
for shortfalls in parts and repairs, cuts in training time and
a gradual drawdown in military manpower. They’ve also
contributed to a host of compensation trims, as Pentagon
leaders have held down pay increases and stipend raises in
recent years to help offset funding reductions in other
areas.
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/obama-legacy-military
Obama has shouldered much of the blame for sequestration, even with lawmakers approving the plan and
failing to draft a repeal. In recent years, administration officials have tried to push back on the narrative that
the president is responsible for that host of budget fights that have consumed Washington and, by
extension, the military.
“The Defense Department has faced this new strategic era while dealing with significant impediments
presented by Congress, including budget uncertainty, the first government shutdown in a generation, the
repeated denial of reform proposals to make the defense enterprise more efficient, and efforts to
micromanage the organization of the department,” Carter said in his memo.
“Despite this, the Department has been able to manage its strategic priorities during eight consecutive years
that began with continuing resolutions, albeit at increasing levels of programmatic risk.”
Still, independent military advocates have said lower-than-anticipated defense budgets put enormous strain
on military families in recent years. A November Military Times/IVMF poll, conducted in the immediate
aftermath of Donald Trump's election victory, showed that more than 60 percent of active-duty service
members felt improving troops’ pay and benefits should be a top priority of the incoming administration.
Obama has pushed back on the idea that tighter budgets have ruined the services, one of Trump's favorite
talking points. Last week, Obama said the military remains “the most capable fighting force on the face of
the Earth” despite financial challenges.
“Our Army, tested by years of combat, is the best-trained and best-equipped land force on the planet,” he
said. “Our Navy is the largest and most lethal in the world, on track to surpass 300 ships. Our Air Force,
with its precision and reach, is unmatched. Our Marine Corps is the world’s only truly expeditionary force.
Our Coast Guard is the finest in the world.”
The White House in recent years has helped broker a pair of short-term deals to get around the budget caps,
but failed to find a permanent solution with Republican leaders. Trump has promised to do just that, but
will likely face the same political obstacles.
Carafano said he is hopeful that a change in administrations will produce different results.
“We don’t have a just-in-time industrial base anymore, so any changes in defense spending will be
gradual,” he said. “But these problems are reversible. We just have to have a president who is interested.”
'A RELUCTANT WARRIOR'
Those budget concerns were at the core of Trump’s attacks on Obama on the campaign trail, with
accusations that the president was uninterested in “defending” America and too quick to prefer diplomacy
over military might.
In speech before troops in Florida in December, Obama said that he never shied away from military
intervention, but instead took a responsible, cautious approach to those grave decisions.
“I believe that we must never hesitate to act when necessary, including unilaterally when necessary, against
any imminent threats to our people,” he said. “But I have also insisted that it is unwise and unsustainable to
ask our military to build nations on the other side of the world, or resolve their internal conflicts.”
Obama will leave office with American military units still in the Middle East and Afghanistan, but
overseeing training and assistance missions, not direct combat. He has received criticism both for failing to
zero-out those deployments and moving too fast to pull down the numbers before those regions were fully
secure.
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/obama-legacy-military
“He’s a reluctant warrior,” said Phil Carter, director of the
Military, Veterans and Society Program at the progressive
Center for a New American Security. “He has struggled to end
the wars overseas and fulfill those promises, and he never
managed to do so.”
Troops polled appear divided on whether Obama ever achieved
the proper balance on those deployed force levels. Nearly 60
percent of poll respondents said the drawdown of U.S. troops
from Iraq made America less safe. A slightly smaller 55 percent
said moves to pull U.S. forces out of Afghanistan has hurt this
country’s national security.
While half of troops surveyed see the reduced emphasis on
large-scale overseas missions as harmful to military readiness,
45 percent see the shift to training and advising missions as a
positive for the armed forces. For his part, Obama appears to
have no such qualms about the approach. “Instead of pushing all
of the burden onto American ground troops, instead of trying to
mount invasions wherever terrorists appear, we’ve built a
network of partners,” Obama said in his speech, calling his
decisions “a smart strategy that can be sustained.”
But Trump and Republican lawmakers have ridiculed the
president’s foreign policy as scattered, quick to find any option
other than a possible fight. They point to what they see as an
overly trusting agreement with Iranian hard-liners over nuclear
weapons and indecisive, unfulfilled threats against Syrian
President Bashar Assad for attacks on his own people.
And a host of Obama’s own former defense officials have helped
pile on that narrative. In his memoir, former Defense Secretary
Robert Gates blasted Obama as a leader “who doesn’t believe in
his own strategy” and said his plans in Iraq and Afghanistan
were “all about getting out.” He also accused Obama of
distrusting senior military leaders, and treating them as potential
adversaries. Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, head of
U.S. Central Command under Obama and Trump’s nominee to
serve as defense secretary, last fall called Obama’s anti-ISIS
strategy “unguided by a sustained policy or sound strategy,
replete with half-measures.”
While overseeing U.S. operations in Afghanistan in 2010, Army
Gen. Stanley McChrystal was effectively fired by Obama after
reports of their fights over military strategy were made public. In
2014, Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, today a top adviser to
Trump, was dismissed as director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency over his criticism of Obama’s soft approach to Islamic
terrorism.
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/obama-legacy-military
The president's conflict with military leaders came
even as First Lady Michelle Obama launched the
White House Joining Forces initiative, designed to
better educate the public on the service and sacrifice of
military personnel and their families.
'WE CAN NO LONGER AFFORD TO ALLOW
BARRIERS'
The biggest impact of Obama’s tenure may be felt by
those serving in the ranks, and how dramatically that
population has changed in recent years. Since 2009,
White House-led changes have allowed gay troops to
serve openly for the first time, women to serve in
combat posts, same-sex couples to receive military
benefits, and transgender service members to announce
their presence in the ranks.
“Inertia is the most powerful force in the Defense
Department,” said Phil Carter, the analyst, who served
as an Army adviser in Iraq in 2005-2006. “Some of
these changes may have happened without [Obama],
but he gets credit for forcing them quicker than they
wanted.”It’s unclear if the departing president will get
credit or blame. About 30 percent of troops surveyed in
the latest poll said the Pentagon's move to open all
combat jobs to women has hurt military readiness,
versus 15 percent who see it as a positive.
The new open-service policy for transgender troops is
less popular, with 41 percent of those surveyed calling
it harmful and only 12 percent calling it helpful.
But both of those leave the majority of troops in the
middle, saying the changes have had no real effect on unit effectiveness.
And the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law was seen by many in the military community as a
significant problem when it was finalized in 2010, but now is seen as no big deal to most troops. Only 17
percent of troops surveyed by Military Times and IVMF saw openly gay troops as a negative for military
readiness, versus 24 percent who believe it has improved the force and 58 percent who say little changed
after the repeal was finalized.
Obama and a host of defense officials have defended the changes as a way to “strengthen the military”
without compromising military readiness. “As an all-volunteer force, the Defense Department must be able
to draw from 100 percent of America’s population, focusing purely on a person’s willingness and ability to
serve our country,” Ash Carter wrote in his exit memo. “We can no longer afford to allow barriers
unrelated to a person’s qualifications to prevent us from recruiting and retaining those who can best
accomplish the mission.”
Phil Carter said that, long-term, those policies could be among the most significant military moves of
Obama’s presidency. Advocates have called them life-altering for their members.
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/obama-legacy-military
Following the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal, officials from the Human Rights Campaign lauded the moves
as long-overdue permission for “brave men and women currently serving to have the freedom to come out
and be honest with their comrades about who they are and who they love.”
Officials from the Service Women’s Action Network called the combat roles expansion “a new era for
American women to serve the nation with valor and courage on the battlefield.”
STRONG SUPPORT AMONG WOMEN, MINORITIES
Among troops in the poll, Obama was more popular with officers (44 percent favorable rating) than
enlisted troops (35 percent favorable) and more popular among Navy personnel (43 percent favorable) than
those in any other service. In each of those groups, the percentage of troops who held a negative view of his
presidency still outweighed his supporters.
That has been a recurring theme for Obama among the military. Past reader polls by Military Times (which
unlike the IVMF-partnered polls were not conducted in a scientific manner) have consistently shown him
with higher unfavorable numbers than positive marks. Right after taking office in 2009, 40 percent of
readers said they had an unfavorable view of him, with 35 percent having a favorable opinion. His
favorable marks dropped down in similar reader polls in following years, and his unfavorables grew. Still,
the outgoing president does appear to be admired by some segments of the military. More than 60 percent
of women have a favorable view of him, in contrast with 36 percent who disliked his presidency.
Roughly 57 percent of minorities in the military approve of the work done by the country’s first black
president. And almost 90 percent of troops who voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton
(about 29 percent of service members in the poll say they did) have a favorable opinion of the last eight
years of White House policies. Now, all of those them will answer to a new commander in chief.
Nearly 49 percent of troops who voted in the last election said they cast a ballot for Trump, and he enters
this Oval Office with 46 percent of active-duty service members saying they have a favorable view of him
and 37 percent saying they have an unfavorable view.
In his exit memo, Ash Carter said warned that the incoming administration will face many of the same
challenges that Obama faced, albeit with a better plan of attack from the outgoing president. “While the
next administration will continue to be challenged by an evolving security environment, I am confident that
our military is up to the task of protecting our nation in the years ahead,” he wrote.
OUR METHODOLOGY
Between Dec. 16 and 21, Military Times and Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military
Families conducted a voluntary, confidential online survey of U.S. service members. The questions focused
on President Barack Obama’s time in the White House and the nation's current political climate.
The survey received 1,664 responses from active-duty troops. A standard methodology was used by IVMF
analysts to estimate the weights for each individual observation of the survey sample. The margin of error
for questions on Obama’s popularity is 2 percent. Other questions have slightly higher margins of error.
The survey audience was 87 percent male and 13 percent female, and had a mean age of 30 years old. The
respondents identified themselves as 73 percent white, 12 percent Hispanic, 11 percent African American,
4 percent Asian and 9 percent other ethnicities. Respondents were able to select more than one race.
Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at
[email protected]. George Altman covers military transition issues, education and post-separation
employment and entrepreneurship for Military Times. He can be reached at [email protected].
Misconduct
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/01/12/another-navy-officer-gets-prison-timefor-taking-bribes-and-prostitutes-from-fat-leonard/
Another Navy officer gets prison time for taking bribes and
prostitutes from ‘Fat Leonard’
By Craig Whitlock
The Washington Post, January 12, 2017
A Navy officer who blamed his addiction to sex for becoming entangled in a corrupt relationship with an
Asian defense contractor was sentenced Thursday in San Diego to 30 months in federal prison.
Lt. Cmdr. Gentry Debord, 41, a supply officer based in Singapore, became the seventh current or former
Navy official to receive prison time in a sex-for-secrets scandal that has dogged the maritime service for
more than three years. Three other officers, including an admiral, have pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court
in San Diego, the hub of the investigation, but have not been sentenced. Many others remain under
scrutiny.
In a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, Debord admitted to taking bribes over several years in the form
of travel, entertainment and prostitutes from Glenn Defense Marine Asia, a Singapore-based contractor that
provided fuel and supplies for Navy ships at Pacific ports.
In exchange, Debord helped Glenn Defense submit bogus invoices bills to the Navy, according to court
records. He also served as a mole for the company’s president, Leonard Glenn Francis, known in Navy
circles as “Fat Leonard,” by tipping him off about an internal investigation into the firm.
Francis, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges in 2015, has admitted to bribing “scores” of Navy
officers with prostitutes, alcohol and extravagant meals. But court papers portray Debord, who was
married, as a particularly easy mark because of his eagerness for illicit sex.
When Debord wanted to arrange for a tryst during a port visit, he would email Francis or Glenn Defense
staffers and request “cheesecake” or “bodyguards” — coded language for prostitutes. He also sought, and
received, paid apartment or hotel rooms for his assignations at ports throughout Asia.
For example, when Debord was serving on the USS Essex in 2008, he emailed one of Francis’s employees
ahead of a visit to Thailand. “Is it possible to get us two hotel reservations,” he inquired. “Also, I would
like some cheese cake.”
According to his plea agreement, Debord’s never-ending demand for prostitutes became a source of
amusement to Glenn Defense staffers, one of whom called him “sex crazy” in an email to his colleagues.
In a court filing, Debord’s attorney blamed his behavior, in part, on what he called an addiction to sex. “He
was a young guy and he had this addiction, this sex addiction, that made him vulnerable,” defense lawyer
Robert Schlein of San Diego said in a phone interview.
Schlein had argued for a more lenient sentence of 24 months in prison. He said Debord was contrite and not
trying to make any excuses for his actions.
“This guy was the most remorseful person I had run across in many, many years,” Schlein said. “He
acknowledged that he had dishonored his family and the Navy, that he had given the Navy a black eye, and
that he had basically ruined his name.”
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/articles/parris-island-hazing-scandal-courts-martial-to-begin-in-march
Parris Island hazing scandal trials to begin in March
By Matthew L. Schehl
Marine Corps Times, January 6, 2017
(Photo Credit: Pfc. Sarah Stegall, USMC)
QUANTICO, Va. -- Courts-martial for three Marine drill
instructors from Parris Island convened Friday and trials for
allegations of misconduct linked to the ongoing hazing and abuse
scandal will begin in March.
The three Marines were arraigned Friday morning in quick
succession during a hearing at Marine Corps Base Quantico. All three declined to enter pleas of ‘guilty’ or
‘not-guilty.'
Staff Sgt. Matthew T. Bacchus is charged with maltreatment, violation of a lawful order and making a false
official statement. Staff Sgt. Jose Lucena-Martinez is charged with failure to obey a lawful general order
and making a false official statement; Sgt. Riley R. Gress is charged with maltreatment, failure to obey a
lawful order and making a false official statement.
If convicted, the three Marines each could face a maximum punishment of confinement up to one year in
the brig, forfeiture of up to two-thirds pay for 12 months, a bad conduct discharge and reduction in rank to
E-1. Three separate dates were set for back-to-back trials, which will run from March 31 to April 25, 2017.
The three Marines are still on administrative duty at Parris Island, but are not working in any supervisory
capacity, said Capt. Joshua Pena, a spokesman for Training and Education Command.
The arraignments come a day after an Article 32 hearing in which their senior drill instructor, Staff Sgt.
Antonio Burke, was accused of cruelty and maltreatment, failure to obey a lawful general order and making
a false official statement.
The Article 32 hearing will help his commander determine whether Burke should face a general courtmartial, which allows for punishments in excess of one-year confinement.
At the day-long hearing -- the military’s equivalent of a civilian court’s grand jury proceeding -- four
recruits testified that Burke had ordered them to conduct “illegal” physical training in a derelict building as
punishment; commandeered one recruit’s Facebook account and mobile phone to harass the recruit’s sister;
had the recruits do his homework; and asked the recruits to cover for him when he failed to provide medical
care to a recruit who repeatedly passed out and later was diagnosed with a heart condition and medically
discharged.
The charges are the result of a command investigation into abuse and mistreatment of recruits at the East
Coast training depot, prompted by national outrage after three major incidents rocked the Marine Corps in
2016 alone.
On March 18, Raheel Siddiqui, a Muslim Marine recruit, jumped 40 feet down a stairwell to his death after
he was hazed and struck by his drill instructor.
Following Siddiqui’s death, the Corps launched two investigations into drill instructor misconduct at Parris
Island. A third investigation into hazing allegations in 2015 was ongoing at the time of Siddiqui’s death,
but ultimately folded into the other two.
Burke’s Article 32 hearing and the arraignments of his three subordinates are not connected with Siddiqui’s
death.
Racism
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/baltimore-police-consent-decree.html
Baltimore Agrees to Broad Change for Troubled Police
Dept.
By Eric Lichtblau and Jess Bidgood
The New York Times, January 12, 2017
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch speaking at a news conference
in Baltimore on Thursday. Credit: Patrick Semansky/Associated
Press
BALTIMORE — Nearly two years after the death of a black man
in police custody led to violent riots here, the Justice Department
and city leaders announced on Thursday a long-sought agreement to
impose greater oversight and training on a police force found to
have routinely harassed minorities.
Negotiators have been rushing for weeks to complete the deal
before the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald J. Trump and the expected confirmation of his attorney general
pick, Senator Jeff Sessions. Both men are seen as hostile to police oversight agreements like the one put in
place on Thursday, with Mr. Trump denouncing what he called the “war on police” during his presidential
campaign.
Justice Department negotiators are moving quickly to complete a second investigation in Chicago, which
has also been wracked by violence and tension between the police and residents. The findings of that
investigation could come as early as Friday.
Announcing the Baltimore deal at City Hall, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said she was confident that
the reforms mandated by the deal would take hold even if the Trump administration were to take steps to
try to undo it.
“This agreement is binding and it will live on,” said Ms. Lynch, flanked by Mayor Catherine Pugh, Police
Commissioner Kevin Davis, Vanita Gupta, the head of the civil rights division at the Justice Department,
and others.
Mr. Davis said the pact provides “a path forward” that he said will benefit both his officers and the city’s
residents and that it should serve as a model for thousands of other police departments in tackling tensions.
Baltimore came under Justice Department scrutiny after an African-American man, Freddie Gray, 25, died
of a spinal cord injury he received while in police custody in 2015 as he was being transported in a
department van.
The death led to widespread protests — Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, called in the National Guard to
quell riots — and appeals for federal intervention. In the ensuing political fallout, the Democratic mayor,
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, dismissed the police chief and six officers were charged in Mr. Gray’s
death; none were convicted. The episode roiled racial tensions nationwide amid a string of other deaths of
black men in police confrontations nationwide, from Ferguson, Mo., to Staten Island.
A CALL FOR CHANGE
Baltimore and its police department have agreed to:

End unlawful stops and arrests.

Prevent discriminatory policing and excessive use of force.

Make improvements in training and technology.

Foster more community oversight and transparency.

Select an outside, independent monitor.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/baltimore-police-consent-decree.html
The Justice Department filed a 227-page consent decree in federal court on Thursday just minutes before
announcing the deal. A judge must approve it before the city and the Police Department begin putting in
place more than a dozen changes, including improved training and technology, community oversight, and
greater transparency in dealings between the police and the public.
Once that is done, the crucial first step will almost surely fall to the Trump administration: working with
the city to recommend an outside, independent monitor to determine whether Baltimore is adequately
taking steps to address what a blistering Justice Department report in August found was systemic racial bias
in its policing.
Ms. Pugh, a Democrat who has been in office 33 days, recounted hectic, 1:30 a.m. phone calls with
negotiators in the weeks leading up to the agreement. She called the results “a great day” for Baltimore.
She made clear what she considered the most important element: “training, training, training, training.”
The agreement requires officers to go through 80 hours of training in practices like community policing and
proper tactics for stops, searches and arrests. Another measure will require improved safety technology and
video cameras inside police vans like the one used to transport Mr. Gray when he died.
The Justice Department’s report on city policing last year found that officers routinely stopped large
numbers of people in poor, black neighborhoods for dubious reasons, and arrested residents merely for
speaking out in ways police officers deemed disrespectful.
In Baltimore, a city that is 63 percent black, the report found that 91 percent of those arrested on
discretionary offenses like “failure to obey” or “trespassing” were African-American. Blacks made up 60
percent of Baltimore’s drivers but accounted for 82 percent of traffic stops. Of the 410 pedestrians who
were stopped at least 10 times in the five and a half years of data reviewed, 95 percent were black.
The findings also painted a picture of a police culture deeply dismissive of sexual assault victims and
hostile toward prostitutes and transgender people.
The decree’s requirements are intended to prohibit unlawful stops and arrests, and to prevent discriminatory
policing and excessive force.
Document: Baltimore’s Consent Decree
Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, called the agreement “a chance to re-establish
trust” between residents and the police after a painful few years.
DeRay Mckesson, a well-known voice in the Black Lives Matter movement who lives in Baltimore, said he
was impressed by the decree’s wide range.
“It is the first consent decree that I have seen that addresses the Police Department’s internal affairs
division,” Mr. Mckesson said by text message, “and goes further to ensure that officers are not targeting
poor citizens or citizens in historically ‘high-crime’ areas and addresses the response to citizens in crisis or
with mental health challenges.”
Provisions of the decree prohibit the police from stopping people based solely on where they are, or how
they respond to the presence of a police officer. The Supreme Court has ruled that officers can stop a
person who flees from them in high-crime neighborhoods.
“This starts to push back on that line and says, ‘Look, we’re really reinforcing that people have a right to
avoid contact with the police and the place they live shouldn’t be an important factor in how much Fourth
Amendment protection they get,’” said David Jaros, an associate professor of law at the University of
Baltimore.
“But at the same time,” Mr. Jaros added, “it’s ambiguous as to what its reach is,” and whether it limits
police actions further than existing law does.
Tessa Hill-Aston, the president of Baltimore’s branch of the N.A.A.C.P., said she was heartened to see that
the Police Department had already implemented reforms — like testing body cameras and changing aspects
of prisoner transport — and hoped the consent decree would bring more.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/baltimore-police-consent-decree.html
But Tawanda Jones, the sister of Tyrone West, who died in 2013 after a struggle with the police, said the
rush to finish the deal and the coming handover of power in Washington had eroded her faith that the
decree would bring about meaningful change in Baltimore.
“What does a piece of paper mean? It means nothing,” Ms. Jones said. “It’s not a training issue; it’s a
system that is broke. It’s a system that doesn’t hold people accountable.”
Eric Lichtblau reported from Baltimore, and Jess Bidgood from Philadelphia.
A version of this article appears in print on January 13, 2017, on Page A10 of the New York edition with
the headline: Baltimore Agrees to Broad Changes and Oversight to Curb Bias in Police Dept.
RELATED COVERAGE
Obama Races to Overhaul Police in Baltimore and Chicago Before Trump EraJAN. 10, 2017
Findings of Police Bias in Baltimore Validate What Many Have Long Felt AUG. 10, 2016
Some Women Won’t ‘Ever Again’ Report a Rape in Baltimore AUG. 11, 2016
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/us/dylann-roof-trial-charleston.html
Dylann Roof Is Sentenced to Death in Charleston Church
Massacre
By Alan Blinder and Kevin Sack
The New York Times, January 10, 2017
Mr. Roof at times represented himself and showed no remorse in
court. The death-penalty decision was reached in three hours.
(Video: Neeti Upadhye and Elsa Butler)
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Dylann S. Roof, the unrepentant and
inscrutable white supremacist who killed nine AfricanAmerican churchgoers in a brazen racial rampage almost 19
months ago, an outburst of extremist violence that shocked the
nation, was condemned to death by a federal jury on Tuesday.
The jury of nine whites and three blacks, who last month found Mr. Roof guilty of 33 counts for the attack
at this city’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, returned their unanimous verdict after about
three hours of deliberations in the penalty phase of a heart-rending and often legally confounding trial.
Mr. Roof, who had said in a closing argument hours earlier that he could ask jurors “to give me a life
sentence, but I’m not sure what good that would do,” showed no expression as Judge Richard M. Gergel of
Federal District Court announced the verdict.
Melvin Graham, whose sister Cynthia Hurd, 54, a librarian, died in the attack, welcomed the decision.
“It’s a hard thing to know that someone is going to lose their life, but when you look at the totality of what
happened, it’s hard to say that person deserves to live when nine others don’t,” Mr. Graham said at a news
conference. “How do you justify saving one life when you took nine, and in such a brutal fashion?”
The Rev. Anthony B. Thompson, the widower of another victim, Myra Thompson, said in an interview on
Tuesday that while he remained “in awe” at how much Mr. Roof enjoyed doing what he did, he would not
relinquish his forgiveness. “I forgave him, and I’m not going to take that back ever,” he said.
Members of Mr. Roof’s family, who have been mostly silent since his arrest, said in a statement on
Tuesday that they would “struggle as long as we live to understand why he committed this horrible attack,
which caused so much pain to so many good people.”
The jury’s decision offered some vindication for the Justice Department, which sought the death penalty
over the misgivings of the attack’s adult survivors and the relatives of many victims. During a two-hour
closing argument on Tuesday, Julius N. Richardson, an assistant United States attorney, urged jurors to
“hold this defendant fully accountable for his crimes.”
The guilt of Mr. Roof, who coolly confessed to the killings and then justified them without remorse in a
jailhouse manifesto, was never in serious doubt during the first phase of the proceedings in December. And
by the time jurors began their sentencing deliberations on Tuesday, it seemed inevitable that they would
lean toward death, not only because of the heinous nature of the crimes but because Mr. Roof, 22, insisted
on denying any psychological incapacity, called no witnesses, presented no evidence in his defense and
mostly sidelined his court-appointed lawyers.
The jury’s sentencing decision effectively capped Mr. Roof’s federal trial for the killings on June 17, 2015,
the Wednesday when he showed up in Emanuel’s fellowship hall and was offered a seat for Bible study by
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/us/dylann-roof-trial-charleston.html
the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney. Mr. Roof sat quietly, his head hung low, for about 40 minutes while the
group considered the Gospel of Mark’s account of the Parable of the Sower.
Then, with the parishioners’ eyes clenched for a benediction, Mr. Roof brandished the .45-caliber
semiautomatic handgun he had smuggled into the church in a waist pouch. First taking aim at Mr.
Pinckney, a state senator and the youngest African-American elected to South Carolina’s legislature, he
began to fire seven magazines of hollow-point rounds.
The reverberation of gunfire and clinking of skittering shell casings subsided only after more than 70 shots.
Each victim was hit repeatedly, with the eldest, Susie Jackson, an 87-year-old grandmother and church
matriarch, struck at least 10 times.
During the brief siege, the youngest victim, Tywanza Sanders, 26, pleaded with Mr. Roof not to kill. “You
blacks are killing white people on the streets every day and raping white women every day,” Mr. Roof said
during the rampage, according to the jailhouse manifesto written within seven weeks of his arrest.
Before leaving the church, Mr. Roof told one of three survivors, Polly Sheppard, that he was sparing her so
she could “tell the story.” He stepped over one minister’s bleeding body on his way out a side door, Glock
pistol at his side. The killer said later that he had expected to find officers waiting for him and had saved
ammunition to take his own life.
But the police, alerted by 911 calls from Ms. Sheppard and Mr. Pinckney’s wife, Jennifer, who was hiding
with their 6-year-old daughter, had not yet arrived. Mr. Roof got into his black Hyundai Elantra and drove
into the night.
Officers in Shelby, N.C., detained Mr. Roof the next morning. After his extradition, prosecutors refused his
offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.
In addition to Ms. Hurd, Ms. Jackson, Mr. Pinckney, Mr. Sanders and Ms. Thompson, four other people
were killed: Ethel Lee Lance; the Rev. DePayne Middleton Doctor; the Rev. Daniel L. Simmons Sr.; and
the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton.
They were familiar, frequent presences at the church known as Mother Emanuel, the oldest A.M.E.
congregation in the Deep South and one with a storied history of resistance to slavery and civil rights
advocacy over nearly 200 years. During the trial, family members filled reserved seats in the courtroom
each day, and 23 relatives and friends delivered emotional testimonials.
Ms. Hurd had adopted a simple motto for life: “Be kinder than necessary.” Ms. Lance was a perfume
aficionado with a gentle smile that unified her family. Ms. Middleton Doctor’s first sermon was titled “The
Virtuous Woman.” Mr. Simmons, a Vietnam War veteran, had been among the first blacks in South
Carolina hired to drive a Greyhound bus. Ms. Coleman-Singleton was a beaming mother whose ebullient
preaching made her popular in Charleston’s churches. Ms. Thompson was a workhorse of Emanuel who
served on many committees. Mr. Sanders, whose parents found hundreds of poems in his bedroom, aspired
to become a lawyer.
Although Mr. Roof declined to testify or present any evidence, his trial was unusual for the jury’s ability to
hear from an accused mass murderer in his own unapologetic words. They watched video of his two-hour
confession and heard readings of his online essays, a journal found in his car, letters to his parents and his
jailhouse manifesto.
The trial became a duel of competing narratives on the defendant, a slightly built ninth-grade dropout. In
the prosecution’s depiction, Mr. Roof was the personification of evil, a racist ideologue, radicalized on the
internet, who plotted an intensely premeditated assault over more than six months, waiting only until he
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/us/dylann-roof-trial-charleston.html
was 21 and old enough to buy a weapon. In his closing argument on Tuesday, Mr. Roof said, “I felt like I
had to do it, and I still feel like I had to do it.”
But in the portrayal suggested by defense lawyers, Mr. Roof was a deeply disturbed delusionist who most
demonstrated his incapacity by denying it. Indeed, Mr. Roof insisted on representing himself during the
sentencing phase to prevent his experienced capital defense team from introducing potentially mitigating
evidence about his family, educational background or mental health.
The results of at least two psychiatric evaluations have been kept under seal by Judge Gergel, who ruled
Mr. Roof competent to stand trial and to represent himself.
Mr. Roof’s rampage, which the authorities said was not coordinated with any organized groups, staggered
this area, which was already reeling from the shooting death two months before of an unarmed black man
by a white police officer in North Charleston.
But two days after the church killings, with a blank-faced Mr. Roof standing in the Charleston County jail,
five relatives of the victims publicly offered him forgiveness during an extraordinary bond hearing. The
following week, President Obama argued in a soaring eulogy for Mr. Pinckney, which culminated in an a
cappella rendition of “Amazing Grace,” that the attack’s lessons offered a way forward for race relations.
The Rev. Sharon Risher, a daughter of Ms. Lance, said she harbored a deep opposition to the death penalty,
but found her stand tested by Mr. Roof and his lack of remorse.
“I don’t believe in the death penalty, but I’m my mother’s child and with everything that’s happened
sometimes I want him to die,” Ms. Risher, who watched the entire trial, said in an interview on Monday.
“It’s like, you know what, this fool continues to just be evil. I’m just glad that they didn’t leave that
decision to me. I just reconciled myself that whatever they decided he will never see the light of day again.”
Federal law classifies the jury’s decision as a binding “recommendation,” and Judge Gergel scheduled a
sentencing hearing to begin Wednesday morning.
Yet the verdict confers no certainty that Mr. Roof will ever be put to death. His case will probably go
through years of appeals — the courts could well consider his mental competency and even the tearful
tenor of the sentencing phase — and the scarcity of lethal injection drugs could hinder his execution.
That it at times seemed more important to Mr. Roof to not be depicted as mentally ill than to avoid
execution prompted some in the courtroom to question whether he simply preferred to die than to serve a
long life in prison. But his commitment to his cause — the restoration of white power through violent
subjugation — never publicly flagged.
Mr. Graham reflected Tuesday that someday Mr. Roof could adopt a strong Christian faith.
“He decided the day, the hour and the moment that my sister was going to die, and now someone is going
to do the same to him,” he said. “But unlike my sister, he has another chance. He’s in God’s hands, and if
he turns his life around, and if he makes a humble confession to God, when he gets there, when he gets
there, he can join my sister and the others in heaven.”
Chris Dixon contributed reporting.
SEE ALSO:
Jury sentences Dylann Roof to death for Charleston church slayings [The Washington Post, 2017-01-10]
Angry, forgiving families confront Dylann Roof at hearing [The Associated Press, 2017-01-11]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/01/13/justice-dept-to-announce-results-ofinvestigation-into-chicago-police/
Justice Dept. releases scathing report, says Chicago police
officers use unconstitutional force
By Mark Berman and Matt Zapotosky
The Washington Post, January 13, 2017
U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
A sprawling federal investigation into the Chicago Police
Department found that it “engages in a pattern or practice of use of
excessive force,” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced
Friday.
In a scathing 161-page report, released while Lynch spoke at a
news conference in Chicago, the Justice Department said
investigators found that city’s police officers use force, “including deadly force, that is unreasonable.”
The 13-month investigation further determined that this pattern was “largely attributable to systemic
deficiencies” in the city and police force, according to the report, which said that the police department’s
uses of force are unconstitutional. Investigators determined that the Chicago police force has not provided
officers with proper guidance for using force, failed to hold officers accountable for improper uses of force
and has not properly investigated such incidents.
Vanita Gupta, head of the department’s Civil Rights Division, said that Chicago officers were found to
have shot people who posed no immediate threat and shocked people with Tasers simply for not following
verbal commands.
During the probe, investigators said they found cases where children were subjected to force for minor
issues, including a 16-year-old girl hit with a baton and then shocked with a Taser for not leaving school
when she was found having a cell phone. In another case described in the report, an officer “forcibly
handcuffed a 12-year-old Latino boy” riding his bicycle near his father and refused to explain why.
Gupta faulted the department for not adequately training its officers on using force, using decades-old
videos that provided guidance inconsistent with current law and even the department’s own policies. And
she said Chicago’s accountability system was “broken,” with officers rarely being held accountable for
their misdeeds.
Lynch said that the Justice Department’s investigation found that there is “considerable work to be done” to
reform the Chicago police force, which will require independent oversight. As a result, she said the Justice
Department would begin negotiations with city officials to enter a court-enforceable consent decree. She
was joined at the news conference by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) and Eddie Johnson, the police
superintendent.
Authorities also released an agreement, signed Friday by Emanuel and Gupta, that commits the city toward
further reforms. This is intended to put Chicago on the road toward a court order that would resemble the
one just announced in Baltimore on Thursday.
Both announcements, in Baltimore and Chicago, arrive in the twilight of the Obama administration, which
has aggressively launched investigations of police departments to probe for civil rights violations, and they
arrive just a week before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who long painted himself
during the campaign as a staunch friend of law enforcement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/01/13/justice-dept-to-announce-results-ofinvestigation-into-chicago-police/
The Justice Department began its Chicago investigation in December 2015, just weeks after authorities in
the city released video footage showing an officer fatally shooting Laquan McDonald, a black 17-year-old.
This dashboard-camera recording, withheld for more than a year by city officials, showed Officer Jason
Van Dyke firing 16 shots into McDonald, some after the teenager had already crumpled to the ground,
despite initial accounts that the teenager had lunged at the officer. The video unleashed a torrent of anger
on the streets of Chicago, which became the latest in a series of cities that boiled over in recent years after a
fatal encounter involving police.
The recording has continued to reverberate in the country’s third-largest city. Not long after it was made
public, the Justice Department announced plans to launch a “pattern or practice investigation” to see
whether the Chicago police force violates the Constitution or federal law. Emanuel,
facing intense criticism, ousted Garry F. McCarthy as police superintendent, while voters decisively
dismissed Anita Alvarez, the prosecutor in the case, in an election that highlighted the McDonald shooting.
Emanuel also created a task force to review how the Chicago police handled accountability, training and
oversight, and the group released a scathing report last year, describing the McDonald video as a tipping
point giving “voice to long-simmering anger.”
In what some viewed as a prelude to the Justice Department’s findings, the task force’s report described
repeatedly hearing from people who felt some police officers are racist and said the police force’s own data
“gives validity to the widely held belief the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to
people of color.”
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, left, with Police Superintendent
Eddie Johnson. (Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters)
Chicago officials have vowed to pursue
police reforms and increased transparency, and have also
announced plans to beef up the policing ranks as the city confronts
an explosion of bloodshed and just saw its deadliest year in two
decades. Eddie Johnson, the police superintendent, has called for
Van Dyke and four other officers to be fired over the episode, accusing them all of lying about the
shooting. Van Dyke was arrested and charged with murder the day the McDonald footage was released.
Distrust remains an issue between police officers and residents in Chicago. In a poll taken last year, 1 in 3
residents said the city’s police officers were doing an excellent or good job, and far fewer black residents
(12 percent) felt that way then white residents (47 percent) or Hispanic residents (37 percent).
While Emanuel had initially resisted calls for a federal civil rights investigation, calling it “misguided,” he
relented and said that he would welcome such a probe and pledged complete cooperation.
“We know we have some things that have to get done to make changes,” Emanuel said at an appearance
Thursday, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s in our interest. There is no going back to a day when
we’re not gonna do that. The view, though, is it’s not to be done to the police. The police officers are part
of the solution to solving and achieving public safety.”
The agreement expected to be announced Friday is not legally binding. After announcing it, city and
federal officials will begin negotiating a consent decree, which the official familiar with the probe says
could take some months before producing a court-enforceable order.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/01/13/justice-dept-to-announce-results-ofinvestigation-into-chicago-police/
The Justice Department can investigate and force systemic changes on local police departments and sue
them if they do not comply. This authority was given to the federal agency in 1994, when Congress acted in
the wake of the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers and subsequent unrest
following the acquittal of the officers involved.
During the Obama administration, the Civil Rights Division has opened 25 investigations into law
enforcement agencies, according to the Justice Department. Probes have found patterns of excessive force
used in police departments including Portland, Ore., Cleveland, Albuquerque, New Orleans, Seattle and
Puerto Rico, among others.
The Chicago probe is the largest pattern and practices investigation in the Justice Department’s history,
Zachary T. Fardon, the U.S. attorney in the city, said last fall, though the Puerto Rico inquiry involved a
larger department.
The announcement in Chicago comes a day after Lynch traveled to Baltimore for officials to outline efforts
to revamp policing there. Baltimore’s agreement on reforms came after the Justice Department released,
last year, a blistering report accusing the city of discriminatory policies targeting black residents.
Both investigations were launched during a period of acute tension nationwide, coming amid heated
protests sparked by the deaths, usually of black men or boys, during encounters with police.
The looming end of President Obama’s time in the White House has prompted a push to reach agreements
in Baltimore and Chicago, as the administration seeks to cement a legacy of police reform before Trump is
sworn in.
In Chicago, the head of the police union has said he was concerned federal investigators were rushing to
finish the probe before Trump’s inauguration. The official familiar with the investigation said the probe
was not rushed, but instead came to a natural conclusion after more than a year.
Still, left unclear is what happens to the negotiations between the city and the Justice Department when it
has new leadership. The incoming administration is expected to be less aggressive with police departments,
a sense enhanced during the confirmation hearing this week of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Trump’s pick
for attorney general.
Speaking on Capitol Hill, Sessions suggested that entire departments filled with good officers could be
tarred by the work of individuals and was critical of lawsuits that force reforms.
“These lawsuits undermine the respect for police officers and create an impression that the entire
department is not doing their work consistent with fidelity to law and fairness, and we need to be careful
before we do that,” Sessions said.
Sessions would not commit to leaving unchanged agreements that are in place when he takes over, though
he said he would enforce them until changes are made.
SEE ALSO:
Chicago police beset by racial bias, unconstitutional policing, DOJ finds [USA TODAY, 2017-01-13]
Chicago Police Routinely Trampled on Civil Rights, Justice Dept. Says [The New York Times, 2017-01-13]
Feds release scathing report on Chicago police abuse [The Associated Press, 2017-01-13]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/survey-reveals-disconnect-between-police-and-publicattitudes/2017/01/10/65b24f3a-d550-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html
Survey reveals disconnect between police and public
attitudes
By Scott Clement and Wesley Lowery
The Washington Post, January 11, 2017
Two-thirds of the nation’s police officers say the deaths of black Americans during encounters with police
are isolated incidents, not a sign of broader problems between law enforcement and black citizens,
according to a Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday.
The findings underscore a stark disconnect between many rank-and-file officers and the public and reveal
that scrutiny since the 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown has prompted many officers to be less
aggressive in day-to-day policing.
The survey of nearly 8,000 local officers is the first nationally representative measure of police reaction to
the debate about officers’ treatment of black Americans that followed Brown’s shooting in Ferguson, Mo.,
and sparked a national protest movement.
The survey, which drew on departments with at least 100 officers, was administered from May to August
2016 by the National Police Research Platform in partnership with Pew.
It reveals in detail how officers view their jobs and the scrutiny they face: More than 8 in 10 officers say
the public does not understand the risks and challenges of their jobs, and a similar number say their
departments are understaffed. Half reported concerns about their safety.
“Our goal was to measure how police
think about these issues,” said Rich
Morin, senior editor at the Pew
Research Center. “And to offer an
insight into police lives, both the good
and the challenges.”
When a separate Pew poll asked
Americans overall about black
individuals who died in police
encounters, 60 percent said the deaths
represent broader problems between
police and black citizens. But only
31 percent of police officers say the
same, Pew found.
Police expressed cynical views of protests across the country following controversial deaths. The poll finds
that 92 percent say protests have been motivated at least in part by long-standing anti-police bias; only
35 percent say protesters were motivated by a genuine desire to hold officers accountable.
Officers say the high-profile deaths have changed the way they do their job — and have made it harder.
More than 7 in 10 say officers have become more timid about stopping to question suspicious people,
roughly three-quarters say fellow officers report they are more reluctant to use force when necessary, and
more than 9 in 10 say fellow officers have grown more worried about their safety.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/survey-reveals-disconnect-between-police-and-publicattitudes/2017/01/10/65b24f3a-d550-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html
“How officers see their job and how they perform on their job has changed as a result of these high-profile
incidents and the resulting protests,” Morin said.
The degree to which the nation’s officers reject the notion of systemic racial issues and dismiss protests
surprised some policing experts, including some chiefs and union officials. Several said that the gulf in
perception between police and the public underscores a much deeper divide.
“I wish the community had a greater understanding of why the police do what we do, and sometimes we
have to do a better job of putting ourselves in their shoes as well,” said Don De Lucca, the chief of police in
Doral, Fla., and president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. “We’re at a crossroads, and
we both need to be willing to listen.”
In the survey, most officers say their
departments have tried to improve
relations with black citizens and that
many officers have been trained to deescalate potentially deadly situations.
Two-thirds support the use of bodyworn cameras by officers.
At the same time, only 1 percent of
officers say their department’s rules on
using force should be stricter, while
more than 7 in 10 say they are “about
right.”
“If we climb into the mind-set of police
officers who are going to keep doing
this job, if they are policing from a
defensive stance, then it changes the nature of police and citizen encounters and not in a positive way,” said
Cara Rabe-Hemp, a criminal justice professor at Illinois State University. “What we’re seeing is that this
divisiveness is likely to lead to increased violence rather than the lessening of violence.”
Rabe-Hemp said that Pew’s findings underscore a theme she has heard often from officers: “What you’re
hearing is the police saying that ‘we’re already accountable.’ ”
For decades, white and black Americans have expressed divergent views toward police and violent
encounters between officers and black citizens. But Pew’s new survey of officers reveals even wider racial
divisions among officers.
Seventy-two percent of both white and Hispanic officers say they see blacks killed in police altercations as
isolated incidents, but only 43 percent of black officers agree. A majority of black officers say those deaths
are a sign of broader problems between police and black citizens.
On racial equality, 92 percent of white officers say the country has made the changes needed to achieve
equality between black and white citizens, compared with only 29 percent of black officers. Among the
public, 57 percent of white people and 12 percent of black people say the necessary changes have been
made.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/survey-reveals-disconnect-between-police-and-publicattitudes/2017/01/10/65b24f3a-d550-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html
In the survey, black officers also
express more sympathy than their white
colleagues toward protesters — nearly 7
in 10 black officers say protests are
driven by a genuine desire for
accountability, while fewer than 3 in 10
white officers say so.
More than half of the officers surveyed
said they have become more callous
since joining law enforcement.
“If officers feeling like ‘all of these
guys are calling me racist’ then they
shut down and go into defensive mode,”
said Daniel Linskey, the former
superintendent in chief of the Boston
Police Department. “It becomes us
versus them. I’m just going to come in
every day, make my arrests and go
home safe.”
While the vast majority of officers say
high-profile shootings have made their
jobs harder, 67 percent say they agree
that “most people respect the police,”
seven percentage points more than in a similar survey that ended in early 2014.
Yet, 75 percent of officers say that interactions between police and black citizens have become tenser, and
there are signs relations may be worse than many officers think.
Six in 10 white and Hispanic officers alike say their department’s police have a positive relationship with
the black community, but only 32 percent of black officers say the same.
“The police are the most visible component of a failed government system in those communities, and we’re
taking the brunt of it, some of it well deserved,” said Garry McCarthy, the former superintendent of the
Chicago police.
McCarthy said that the public needs to understand how relatively rare killings by police are, less than one
half of 1 percent of the gun deaths last year in Chicago. And, he said, police need to be willing to
acknowledge that many residents and protesters have legitimate complaints about encounters with law
enforcement.
“In many cases the police have earned the distrust,” McCarthy said.
The Pew Research Center National Survey of Law Enforcement Officers was conducted online May 19Aug. 14, 2016, among a national sample of 7,917 police officers in local police and sheriff‘s departments
with at least 100 sworn officers (excluding state agencies). The margin of sampling error is between two
and three percentage points for many questions but is as high as nine points for department-specific
questions. General public results based on a survey of 4,538 U.S. adults conducted online and by mail Aug.
16-Sept. 12, 2016; the error margin is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/survey-reveals-disconnect-between-police-and-publicattitudes/2017/01/10/65b24f3a-d550-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html
Emily Guskin contributed to this report.
Scott Clement is the polling manager at The Washington Post, specializing in public opinion about politics,
election campaigns and public policy. Follow @sfcpoll
Wesley Lowery is a national reporter covering law enforcement and justice for the Washington Post. He
previously covered Congress and national politics. Follow @WesleyLowery
SEE ALSO:
'Ferguson effect': 72% of U.S. cops reluctant to make stops [USA TODAY, 2017-01-11]
U.S. police say black killings, protests raised tensions: survey [Reuters, 2017-01-11]
Poll finds stark disconnect between police and the public [CNN, 2017-01-11]
Supreme Court Has Had Enough With Police Suits [Bloomberg, 2017-01-09] [OPINION]
Sexism
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-walmart-verdict-idUSKBN14U2C1
Wal-Mart owes pharmacist $16.08 million for gender bias,
sum may drop
By Jonathan Stempel
Reuters, January 10, 2017
Wal-Mart Stores Inc has been ordered by a federal judge to pay $16.08 million to a former New Hampshire
pharmacist in a gender bias case, but the amount is only about half what a jury awarded and may fall
substantially further.
U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe also asked the New Hampshire Supreme Court to advise whether the
plaintiff Maureen McPadden was entitled under state law to any of the $15 million of "enhanced" damages
that comprised most of the award.
Though "reasonable minds can differ," Wal-Mart "asserts - not implausibly" that such damages are not
available, the Concord, New Hampshire judge wrote on Jan. 6.
Wal-Mart considers the damages award "improper," spokesman Randy Hargrove said in an email. "We
look forward to the New Hampshire Supreme Court's determination."
The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer has said it does not tolerate discrimination.
McPadden accused the world's largest retailer of using her loss of a pharmacy key as a pretext for her
November 2012 dismissal from a store in Seabrook, New Hampshire, after more than 13 years at the
retailer.
She said Wal-Mart actually fired her in retaliation for her raising concerns about whether prescriptions
were being filled properly. McPadden also said her gender played a role, saying a male pharmacist who
later lost his key was not fired.
Jurors originally awarded McPadden $31.22 million, a sum that McAuliffe said was "to say the least,
startling."
As required by federal law, the judge later reduced the punitive damages component, to $300,000 from $15
million, and in a Jan. 5 order said McPadden deserved just $111,591 of front pay, one-fifth what the jury
had awarded.
Wal-Mart had sought to overturn the entire verdict, but McAuliffe rejected that request in September.
Rick Fradette, a lawyer for McPadden, said that if enhanced damages were ever warranted, "it is where the
world's largest private employer continues to discriminate against women in the 21st century.
"Wal-Mart's posture has been that it will fight this to the end," he said. "We'll see what the New Hampshire
Supreme Court has to say."
The case is McPadden v. Wal-Mart Stores East LP, U.S. District Court, District of New Hampshire, No.
14-00475.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)
Sexual Assault /
Harassment
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/health/gymnastics-doctor-sexual-assault-lawsuit/index.html
18 women sue ex-USA Gymnastics doctor in sex-assault case
By Marilia Brocchetto
CNN, January 11, 2017
Former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar
Eighteen women and girls have filed a federal lawsuit against disgraced former USA
Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar, alleging that he
sexually assaulted them repeatedly for years during physical examinations.
The plaintiffs alleged a pattern of sexual abuse, disguised as treatment, that began in
the late 1990s and continued into 2016. Most of the girls were teenagers at the time of
the alleged assaults, although several were as young as 9.
Nassar, 53, is already facing state and federal criminal charges, including sexual
assault with a person under 13 and possession of child pornography.
CNN reached out to Matt Newburg, Nassar's attorney in the criminal cases, who said he does not represent
him in the civil case. It could not be immediately determined whether Nassar has retained an attorney in the
civil suit.
Seventeen of the plaintiffs in the civil suit, filed Tuesday, have chosen to remain anonymous. The other,
Rachael Denhollander, says she was assaulted by him repeatedly at Michigan State in 2000, when she was
15 and seeking treatment for wrist and back pain.
"The decision to pursue civil charges was painful and it was difficult. It is a decision to continue to be
immersed in these events on a national scale, for an extended period of time," Denhollander told reporters
at a press conference Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The victims in the lawsuit are or were athletes in a variety of sports, including gymnastics, swimming,
figure skating, track and field, field hockey, basketball, and soccer.
Also listed as defendants in the suit were USA Gymnastics, the national governing body for the sport, with
whom Nassar was affiliated from 1996 to 2015; Michigan State University, where Nassar worked from
1996 to 2016; and Twistars USA, a Michigan gymnastics facility where Nassar also worked.
Nassar was the team doctor for the Michigan State University gymnastics and women's crew teams, an
associate professor in MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine and a physician for the US national
gymnastics team through four Olympic Games.
The lawsuit alleges that USA Gymnastics, MSU and Twistars were negligent in allowing the abuse to
occur, and that Michigan State kept Nassar on its staff even though at least three of his patients had filed
complaints about his behavior.
The suit claims that MSU investigated one of the alleged victims' complaints in 2014 but dismissed them
after determining that the victim "didn't understand the 'nuanced difference' between sexual assault and an
appropriate medical procedure."
In a statement, Michigan State University said an internal review "discovered no evidence that any
individuals came forward to MSU with complaints about Nassar before Aug. 29, 2016, other than the 2014
complaint that was investigated by MSU Police and our Title IX office."
Michigan State fired Nassar last fall and has launched an internal investigation.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/health/gymnastics-doctor-sexual-assault-lawsuit/index.html
"The university began an internal review in September, looking at all aspects of operations involving
Nassar's work at the university," MSU's statement continued. "It will continue as new information and/or
allegations are brought forward. An external law firm is advising MSU on the review, which will result in
disciplinary action if appropriate. Also, MSU initiated a separate review looking closely at our clinic
policies and operations to determine if there are steps we should take to make improvements."
An attorney for the alleged victims, Stephen Drew, said Michigan State University Police have since
received more than 60 additional complaints since allegations against Nassar started to surface. MSU
spokesman Jason Cody put that number lower, at around 50 complaints.
USA Gymnastics said in a statement that it's appalled by the allegations against Nassar.
"When we first learned of athlete concerns regarding Dr. Nassar in the summer of 2015, we immediately
notified the FBI and relieved him of any further assignments. USA Gymnastics has fully cooperated with
the FBI in its investigation. We find it appalling that anyone would exploit a young athlete or child in this
manner, and we are grateful to the athletes who have come forward."
Calls to Twistars USA were not returned.
Nassar was arrested on the sexual assault charges last November. In December, a federal grand jury
indicted him on child pornography charges.
Nassar, who has pleaded not guilty, is being held at the Newaygo County Jail in White Cloud, Michigan,
on the federal charges.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory damages. It also seeks institutional reform and new measures
of accountability to ensure the safety and protection of other young athletes.
CNN's Evan Simko-Bednarski and Lauren Del Valle contributed to this report.