THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 29, 1994 TAG: 9406290390
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940629 LENGTH: WASHINGTON
Hansen, 28, who was to receive notice Tuesday of the Navy's intent to discharge her, said in a telephone interview that she'll continue to press her claim that she was flunked out of helicopter training last year in retaliation for a harassment complaint she had filed a year earlier.
{REST} The Navy inspector general has rejected Hansen's reprisal claims. One of her home state senators, Minnesota Republican Dave Durenberger, has asked for a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the allegations.
``This is more than fighting for my career,'' Hansen said. ``This is fighting for what's right.''
Hansen's complaints come as the Navy is in the midst of a public relations drive to showcase growing opportunities for its female members. In the wake of the 1991 Tailhook scandal, the Navy has issued sexual harassment restrictions that are the toughest of any military branch and has opened combat ships to service by women.
On Friday, the Navy withdrew the nomination of a key figure in the Hansen case, Adm. Stanley R. Arthur, to take command of all American forces in the Pacific. Durenberger had held up Arthur's transfer after the admiral, currently vice chief of naval operations, defended the Navy's handling of Hansen's allegations.
Pentagon spokeswoman Kathleen deLaski said Tuesday that Defense Secretary William Perry supported Arthur's conclusions but agreed that the Pacific command couldn't go unfilled during Senate hearings on Hansen.
Hansen, meanwhile, disputed a Navy official's assertion on Monday that she had demanded that the Navy finance a law school education and training as a commercial pilot as conditions for dropping her case. She declined to discuss a letter in which she laid out those conditions, describing it as ``all part of a negotiation meeting. It's not what they want; it's not what I want.''
``The thing that I've been fighting for all along was to be treated fairly,'' Hansen added. ``I didn't ask for any special treatment.''
Hansen, who joined the Navy in 1991, alleges that while she was in primary flight training in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1992, a flight instructor made a series of suggestive remarks to her and grabbed her by her ponytail, pulling her face toward his crotch.
Her complaint after that incident triggered a captain's mast, a disciplinary hearing, at which the allegations of suggestive remarks were upheld but the grabbing charge was dismissed. The instructor was given a letter of reprimand and left the Navy several months later.
Hansen went on to advanced helicopter training in Pensacola, Fla., where she charges that she was given failing grades in retaliation for the charges in Corpus Christi.
The Navy inspector general's investigation found that Hansen's performance throughout her training was average at best. Of 1,151 graduates of primary flight training in 1992, Hansen's grade point average was 57th lowest. And her average in the advanced helicopter training program in Pensacola, the inspector general said, was lower than that of any of the 315 pilots who graduated from the program that year.
Hansen says specific records of her training flights show she was performing adequately and was improving as a pilot. In a 96-page brief outlining her case, her Navy lawyer, Lt. Jeffrey Hunt, included instructor summaries of each of her training flights; the overwhelming majority of her grades were ``average'' with a sprinkling of ``above average'' and ``below average'' marks.
After the Navy began proceedings to remove her from flight training in March 1993, Hansen complained she was the victim of reprisals for her harassment charge and began pressing her case with Durenberger and other lawmakers. She's also been to the top of the Navy's chain of command, including a meeting last Friday with Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda, the chief of naval operations.
Boorda offered her a position on his staff in Washington, Hansen said Tuesday, but ``it had so many strings attached to have accepted it would have compromised my integrity.'' She also was offered a chance to pursue a variety of other career paths in the Navy but declined.
Hansen said she told Boorda of instances in which the Navy inspector general ignored evidence favorable to her in dismissing her claims of reprisal and that she left their meeting with the understanding that Boorda would look into her case more thoroughly.
But when Boorda's office got back to her on Monday, ``I was told that I needed to `stop this foolishness' (and that) no one was going to be punished.''
{KEYWORDS} WOMEN IN THE MILITARY SEXUAL HARASSMENT
by CNB