Survivors of sexual assault and sexual harrasment in the U.S. Coast Guard were refused adequate medical care, according to a federal staff report released Wednesday.
The report indicates victims continued to experience mistreatment by the Coast Guard after they reported the assaults, and were denied the necessary documentation to access U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs services.
Victims were also refused their own records, impacting their ability to understand what happened to them and to move forward with their lives, according to the report.
One whistleblower told the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal that “being raped is bad enough. But the institutional betrayal has been more damaging for me. It was the culture.”
The whistleblowers reported lasting struggles with depression, anxiety, insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder and other health conditions as a result of trauma stemming from sexual assault and sexual harassment.
“The voices of these whistleblowers make clear that sexual assault and sexual harassment in the Coast Guard are fleet-wide problems, impacting enlisted members and officers just as pervasively as cadets,” Blumenthal wrote in a note from the chair at the front of the report. “For far too long, Coast Guard survivors have felt unheard and unseen. They have been brushed aside and silenced. This report seeks to redress that harm.”
The report contains testimonies from the more than 80 whistleblowers who came forward to report their personal experiences in the U.S. Coast Guard and at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London since the Senate subcommittee opened an inquiry into sexual misconduct within the Coast Guard in September 2023.
The experiences, spanning from the 1970s through the 2020s, reveal systemic and ongoing failures at the Coast Guard Academy and in the Coast Guard.
U.S, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan in a June 11 testimony said the Consolidated Appropriations Act, under which $1.5 million was allocated for the fiscal year 2024 for an independent review of the Coast Guard's efforts to address sexual assault and harassment, “will provide an unbiased assessment of the Coast Guard’s proposed organizational climate and culture improvements, victim and survivor support, and measures for preventing harmful behaviors.”
A former Coast Guard Academy cadet in 2014 reported to the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) that she was sexually assaulted by a fellow cadet in the 1990s.
That investigation, referred to as Operation Fouled Anchor, brought to light other potential victims of sexual misconduct at the Coast Guard Academy from 1988 to 2006 whose cases were either mishandled, not reported at the time, or not investigated.
The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is holding a field hearing on the Coast Guard whistleblowers sexual assault and harassment case Aug. 8 at Connecticut College in New London.
