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

DATE: FRIDAY, September 2, 1994                   TAG: 9409020049
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ACADEMY

The Air Force Academy in Colorado proclaims a "zero tolerance" policy against sexual harassment. Yet more than 230 women on its faculty and staff (not students) say in a survey that they have experienced sexual discrimination. Few ever made complaints.

There are a couple of things, at least, wrong with this picture. One is that so few complaints have been made. Women must be willing to come forward when they believe they are being discriminated against or harassed. If they remain part of a conspiracy of silence, the institution won't be able to take appropriate action against men who either do not understand or do not accept the academy's stated policy.

The second thing wrong most likely has a bearing on the first. There must be a climate at the military academy of respect for women as competent peers, whose abilities and career objectives are every bit as important to the institution as those of their male counterparts. Only in such a climate, where respect runs through the entire chain of command, will women think it isn't too risky to complain if they think an offense has been committed against them.

Creating this climate has nothing to do with creating a climate of fear, in which men are afraid, for example, to pay respectful compliments to women. Is it a really tough call to figure out whether turning a woman upside down and biting her on the posterior is harassment or congenial office hijinks? Yet even in such a clear-cut case of abuse, Dawn Duncan was advised by co-workers to keep quiet. She came forward only after the man allegedly tried to grab her a second time.

He lost his job, and now Duncan says her co-workers have made her feel guilty. What in the academy culture makes her responsible for his abuse of her? It's the "good old boy" network at work, says a captain who is fighting a sex-discrimination battle of her own with the academy.

Most of these good old boys would never do anything as outrageous as was done to Duncan, but they may feel sorrier for the pal who gets caught than for the woman he demeaned. With women proving their worth in the working world every day, it's time the military did more to rid itself of such a culture.