
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 14, 1990                   TAG: 9005140224
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/6   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ANNAPOLIS, MD.                                LENGTH: Medium

WOMAN QUITS NAVAL ACADEMY AFTER `ASSAULT'

A female midshipman was dragged from her dormitory room, handcuffed to a urinal and taunted by male midshipmen in what Naval Academy officials said was a "good-natured exchange" that got out of hand.

Gwen Marie Dreyer resigned after the December incident, and the midshipmen involved were punished with demerits and a loss of leave time.

"We still don't believe that they understand that it was in fact an assault," said Carolyn A. Dreyer, Gwen Dreyer's stepmother. `And it would have been treated that way in any other school, in any other situation."

But academy officials ruled that the incident began as a friendly encounter that got out of hand and therefore couldn't be considered premeditated hazing, which can lead to dismissal.

"We take this kind of thing extremely seriously," said Academy Superintendent Virgil L. Hill Jr. "Admittedly the incident grew out of a good-natured exchange between friends. None of that takes away from the fact that they overstepped bounds and her end feeling was humiliation. That's sexual harassment. We don't allow that."

Dreyer, who was photographed while handcuffed to the urinal, was eventually freed by her roommates.

In her letter of resignation last month, Dreyer said resentment expressed toward women at the academy crushes their spirits.

"I understand that steps are now being taken to correct some very serious human relations problems," she wrote. "However, after what I've been through and have seen, not only because of what has happened to me personally, I have decided to leave."

She plans to study engineering at California State Polytechnic Institute in San Luis Obispo.

Two midshipmen were punished with demerits and loss of leave time. Six other midshipmen received written warnings for lesser roles in the incident.

Hill said the incident was an isolated one, but Dreyer's father and another academy graduate said it shows the academy still has not resolved resentment of women at the academy, which first allowed women in 1976.

by CNB