Wellesley College advised Pentagon on victim office
WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department enlisted Wellesley College's Centers for Women to advise the Pentagon on how to set up a top-level victim's advocate office for military women who have suffered sexual assault or harassment, and to assist the families of soldiers in cases of domestic violence.
The Pentagon awarded the grant earlier this year to come up with ways to implement a central Office of the Victim's Advocate. It would augment similar programs in the different service branches to assist women who face the type of abuse that took place at the Air Force Academy last year, and has been alleged in other branches through the years.
The recommendations, made in a report delivered to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld in September, have not been made public and are under review, according to project officials.
But the involvement of Wellesley, a leading all-women's college with an elite reputation, has already stirred up complaints by some conservative activists, who contend that creating a victim's advocate office would create a culture of complaint in the military, presuming male guilt, destroying careers, and damaging morale.
''Implementation of a self- interested Wellesley proposal could create a new job market for women's studies graduates schooled in man-hating ideology," says Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness, which has opposed gays in the military and women serving in combat roles.
''Sexual assault is always wrong and should be punished promptly at the local level," Donnelly said. However, a victim's advocate ''would operate as an office of male bashing that would nuclearize the war between the sexes."
Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly has also attacked the plan in interviews and on her website.
''Wellesley is doubly bad because it is completely feminist," Schlafly said in an interview. ''The whole thing is a taxpayer-funded operation to establish the notion that men are natural batterers and women are victims and women are always right and men are always wrong."
The $50,000 Pentagon grant asked the Wellesley Centers for Women, a combination of two of the college's study arms, to ''provide background analysis on the current state of victim advocacy services in both the military and civilian sectors of the Department of Defense," according to a description on the centers' website. The analysis, it said, was to include an ''assessment of the options" for establishing the victim's advocate office.
Linda Williams, a criminal justice professor at University of Massachusetts-Lowell who directed the six-month-long project, declined to discuss the recommendations, citing the terms of the Pentagon contract that mandates confidentiality.
But Williams, who studied incest in the Navy as part of a previous military project, said the interpretation by conservatives that her recommendations, if enacted, would amount to an assault on military culture ''has no basis in reality."
A Pentagon spokesman this week declined to discuss the Wellesley contract or the study's findings, but said the military is ''currently focusing on how to increase the number of victim advocates out in the field who can assist service members and spouses."
Allegations of sexual harassment and assault have plagued the military in recent years -- most notably the Air Force Academy, which was rocked by allegations of rape and an administration indifferent to mistreatment of female cadets. A series of Defense Department task forces in recent years also found systematic problems in the Naval Academy and the US Military Academy at West Point.
It took the Navy's image years to recover from the ''Tailhook" scandal of 1991, when female sailors were assaulted by Navy pilots at a Las Vegas convention. An Army task force reported in May 2004 that incidents of sexual abuse rose every year from 1999 to 2003. The allegations have become so regular that the military was forced to set up an additional abuse hot line last year.
Despite a growing number of women in the ranks in recent decades -- 17 percent of the total force, according to the latest figures by the US Census Bureau -- the armed services remain male-dominated institutions where there are frequent allegations of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape.
''We recruit from the civilian population and there is plenty of family abuse and sexual assault going on in the civilian world," said Carol A. Mutter, retired lieutenant general of the Marine Corps. Mutter was formerly the highest ranking female in the Marine Corps and now head of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. ''As much as we would like to think we train our people better inside the military, it does continue to happen. It's not going to go away."
Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, first proposed establishing a Defense Department victim's advocate last year in a bill she introduced in the House of Representatives. Slaughter's legislation called for the Pentagon to create an office for victims of abuse and harassment to get counseling, a legal advocate and a support liaison, as well as set up victim sensitivity training within the Defense Department.
The bill went nowhere, but a separate provision in the 2005 defense spending bill set aside $1.8 million for a victim's advocate office. It did not specify its structure or powers, according to a congressional aide who asked not to be identified.
Slaughter's office claims that the Pentagon has been dragging its feet on the matter, and paid for the Wellesley study in part to delay establishing the office. Slaughter plans to reintroduce her bill early next year, according to her staff.
The idea of the Pentagon seeking advice from a prominent women's college, alma mater of New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, fanned a right-wing backlash.
Schlafly said the victim's advocate proposal ''would provide money to give additional one- sided help to the women to structure her complaints and have free legal advice," she said.
''The poor guy has to go down the road and find some lawyer who is brave enough to defend him and pay for it."
Critics also say the military already has offices where women can bring abuse complaints, including the Inspector General's office and the criminal investigative divisions of each service branch.
Mutter acknowledged that a new office could present ''room for abuse" and perhaps give undue influence to unscrupulous service members with an ax to grind against a colleague or a superior.
She believes the military's current system has been ''on the side of the alleged perpetrators for many years and it's time we paid more attention to the victim. You need victim's advocates to keep victims informed of what is happening."
Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com. 