On 29 June 2022, LTG Steven Gilland became the 61st Superintendent of the United States Military Academy. On 1 July 2022, just 2 days later, he attended his first quarterly Board of Visitors meeting where sexual harassment statistics and mitigation/prevention strategies were discussed as they have been for a long time. To be fair, the unacceptable problem has existed long before his tenure as Superintendent began in 2022.
The problem, sadly, is ongoing. Notable sexual assault/harassment news from 2024 from mainstream media/internet query:
In April 2024, West Point cadet Tyjaha Batiste was sentenced to 21 months in prison and booted from the military after he pleaded guilty to 8 sexual misconduct charges.
“On 24 April 2024, at a general court-martial convened at West Point, NY, CDT Tyjaha K. `Batiste, U.S. Army, was convicted by a military judge, pursuant to his pleas, of eight specifications of indecent recording in violation of Article 120c, UCMJ. The military judge sentenced the accused to be confined for 21 months and to be dismissed from the service. The sentence was consistent with the terms of a plea agreement.”1
In March 2024, West Point cadet Jorge Camacho posted this on his LinkedIn page:
“Excited to announce that I will be going to the 173rd Airborne in Germany as an Armor Officer. Truly blessed for getting this opportunity.”
His LinkedIn page is blank after that post. The reason is likely because on 30 September 2024 Cadet Camacho was charged with sexual assault:
“The court documents detail a long string of events between December 2020 and October 2022 in which Cadet Jorge Hurtado allegedly groped cadets' breasts, genitals and other body parts on or near the campus -- all without their consent. He also faces one charge of exposing his genitals.”2
In June 2024, COL William Wright, a USMA class of 1999 graduate and professor at West Point, was charged with 9 counts of making inappropriate sexual remarks to female members of the West Point women’s tennis team and contacting a female cadet despite a no-contact order after the first charges were filed against him. The allegations of drinking with cadets and sexually harassing women were dropped in October 2024 but in December 2024 he was arraigned again on charges of drinking with cadets, tampering with witnesses, and falsifying information. Allegedly he had been reassigned to another billet at West Point with a no-contact order given to him to not contact female cadets…but he allegedly contacted cadets anyway.3
In December 2024, the Pentagon proclaimed that sexual assaults were finally down at the military academies. Then, out of the other side of their mouth, DoD admitted that female cadets/midshipmen are still afraid to file reports. Therefore, the trend is likely not as rosy as DoD had hoped. Assaults continue and women are afraid to file reports.
“In 2024, the percentage of women who experienced unwanted sexual contact at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Naval Academy and Air Force Academy fell to about 13% compared to about 21% last year, according to data presented to reporters.
However, this year's data presented by Foster and her colleagues also showed that women still broadly distrust academy leaders with their reports of sexual assault and, of the 783 cadets that experienced an assault, only 103 chose to actually file a report.”4
For comparison, almost 25% of college women reported being sexually assaulted while attending college according to a survey of 33 universities.5 While USMA’s statistic is better than the average at civilian universities, is 13-21% of women attending West Point and worse 6 of 7 of women who are assaulted not filing reports because they distrust their military (LTG Gilland’s) leadership a ‘good news’ story?
The disturbing part of the story is these incidents are the ones seen on mainstream media. Humans are imperfect and even the best organizations have ‘bad eggs,’ but the number of legal events in 2024 is concerning because of the likelihood that more has transpired that the public is not aware of. Because LTG Gilland has been so active to obstruct information flow out of West Point and hide scandals, it is likely the problem is much, much worse. Neither Gilland nor his predecessor, now retired GEN Williams, ever provided a follow-up to the 2022 cocaine scandal involving cadets, several on the football team, despite repeated requests and a FOIA submission. He has mocked public and congressional scrutiny of ‘his’ West Point. He has failed the women at West Point, faculty and cadets. Worse, it calls his ‘passionate’ and extreme DEI work into question as women’s safety still doesn’t seem to matter at USMA on his watch.
- https://www.jagcnet.army.mil/ACMPRS/cases/8055688e-818f-4845-84b5-991174764c61
- https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/09/30/west-point-cadet-faces-13-sexual-assault-and-harassment-charges.html
- https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/06/18/senior-west-point-officer-faces-multiple-charges-related-drinking-cadets-and-violating-no-contact.html
- https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/12/12/sexual-assaults-service-academies-are-finally-down-female-cadets-still-wary-of-reporting.html
- https://www.dlawgroup.com/sexual-assault-statistics-2024/
