THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601120072
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
WHEN IT BROKE the now infamous story about the drunk Navy cook who repeatedly groped the breasts and thighs of a 23-year-old female sailor during an American Airlines flight Oct. 27, The Washington Post implicated ``20 or so'' other Navy personnel aboard for failing to intervene. (Headline: ``Navy Colleagues Fail to Act as Female Sailor Is Harassed on Airliner.'') My initial thought was: Why should they?
I have been waiting for The Post, or other media, to report facts to suggest that intervention, as a moral or practical matter, was recommended. After all, this was a commercial - not a Navy - flight from Norfolk to Alameda, Calif., via Dallas. The onus was on the airline and its employees, not fellow passengers, to protect this woman.
Such facts have not been forthcoming.
The woman, who has requested anonymity, testified in detail at a Dec. 29 military court preliminary hearing in San Diego about Chief Petty Officer George Powell's decidedly rude and crude behavior. She strenuously resisted, but her testimony only reinforced the impression that she was managing the situation alone - as is often the most effective course - and did not seek or require assistance. (A Navy chaplain and several civilian passengers did step in, however.)
So why did this incident explode into a Navy scandal? Why, despite an absence of evidence of wrongdoing by the other sailors aboard, did Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda order a service-wide ``stand-down'' for all active-duty personnel a day after The Washington Post reported the alleged assault?
Answer: The Post cast it in a scandalous light. And the Navy, under the post-Tailhook microscope, succumbed to the media pressure. Or so it would appear.
Before another ``bad apple'' is allowed to spoil the entire bushel, Navy leaders must determine how to deal fairly, intelligently and uniformly with charges of sexual assaults and harassment when the media loudly come calling. At the very least, an investigation of facts should precede any official action or comment.
This case is shaking out as a reasonable person might have predicted last fall: a single sloppy drunk, or, more compassionately, a disturbed man with a history of alcoholism, rudely pawed an uninterested woman. Not an unusual story. Not even a military story. Eventually the other sailors will be dropped from news reports, as the focus shifts to Powell's problems and the Navy's handling of his past - and current - discipline.
I do not mean to minimize the ordeal that this female sailor endured or the seriousness of sexual harassment and other sex-related discipline problems within the Navy. Nor do I mean to suggest that the Navy personnel on the AA flight should have ``looked the other way'' when Powell began to harass the woman.
But I do believe it is important to recognize that these sailors, having no legal duty to intervene, exercised their judgment and that their judgment cannot be objectively assessed in the absence of further facts. Appropriate questions that have not been asked and answered publicly include:
Where were they sitting on the airplane? How many seats were there? How much of the interaction between Powell and the female sailor did they or could they observe or hear? Did they understand what was taking place? If any observed the woman's distress, why didn't they intervene? Were they deterred from assisting by the response of other passengers or by the woman herself? Bottom-line: What were the circumstances?
American Airlines, on the other hand, does have a duty of care toward its passengers and may be held legally accountable for failing to take reasonable steps to protect one of them. The Post and other newspapers have not reported on the conduct of AA employees, such as flight attendants. What did they do during the alleged attack on the woman? Did they attempt to ameliorate her distress?
Since Tailhook, the Navy has undertaken an aggressive campaign to educate sailors about sexual harassment and to prevent it from happening. It now needs to back up its service-wide policies responsibly and fairly, case-by-case. That Powell's aberrant behavior triggered an all-Navy standstill, before the facts were known - or made known - is testament either to much confusion and fear or to public-relations slickness that will surely boomerang. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma is a lawyer and book editor for The Virginian-Pilot.
by CNB