THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Tuesday, November 1, 1994              TAG: 9411010321
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   55 lines

5 WEST POINT FOOTBALL PLAYERS ACCUSED OF GROPING WOMEN THE FEMALE CADETS HAD RUN PAST THE TEAM DURING A PEP RALLY.

Five members of the United States Military Academy's football team are to face an official inquiry this week at West Point after being accused of groping female cadets who were part of a pep rally crowd that ran past a cordon of football players at the academy's game-week festivities.

A West Point inquiry ordered after three women initially complained has elicited reports from 18 female cadets who said they were brushed across the breasts during the ``spirit run'' on Oct. 20. In the event, 600 cadets, including 51 women, raced and rallied past the team cordon two days before the game with The Citadel.

Fifteen of the women considered the incident as deliberate, if fleeting, sexual harassment, while three others described it as inadvertent, said Lt. Gen. Howard D. Graves, superintendent of the Academy, who noted in disclosing the incident Monday that in none of the instances were women able to identify the offending players.

``We have studied very hard the lessons learned from Tailhook and from the Navy honor incident,'' Graves said, referring respectively to the sexual abuse of female Navy officers by male peers and to an Annapolis cheating scandal. ``We want to be very open and forthcoming about the process.''

Once the inquiry began, three players came forward and said they had brushed against female cadets inadvertently, according to the academy. Other football players, angry about the incident's effect on the team, reported teammates who were observed behaving inappropriately at the spirit run or heard laughing about it later in the showers, the general said.

That led to the inquiry into the five players out of the total of 200 varsity and junior varsity men who were in the cordon, Graves said. The Academy did not disclose the names of the five players or the women who filed the complaints.

In disclosing the inquiry, Graves denied any similarities to the Navy's Tailhook scandal and subsequent accusations of a cover-up.

``There's a difference between a cordon of cadets trying to build spirit and a gantlet of people who were drunk and who engaged in this kind of behavior before,'' he said.

He noted that cadet representatives of both sexes agree with his decision that unless evidence of more egregious and premeditated behavior is uncovered, the maximum penalty for players judged guilty will be a three-month suspension from the team and campus privileges, plus restriction beyond classes to daylong marching and rifle-carrying discipline.

KEYWORDS: SEXUAL HARASSMENT

by CNB