Word: citadel
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...zero tolerance" pronouncements--concerning political extremism, racism, sexual harassment and hazing--authorities are just as often forced to acknowledge a breakdown in the chain of command. Last week a sixth soldier at Maryland's Aberdeen training ground was brought up on charges of sexually harassing a trainee, while the Citadel, a military-training school, is in the midst of its own hazing scandal involving female cadets. Blood pinning cannot be written off as the overexcitement of young Marines: one video plainly shows a first lieutenant guzzling a beer and looking on as his men are being abused...
From the point of view of Mentavlos and Messer, though, this is too little, too late. The Citadel fought a long and bitter battle against coeducation, with cadets sending up a great cheer of victory when Shannon Faulkner, the first female entrant, left campus in 1995 after only six days. And this entrenched attachment to its all-male traditions may have helped foster a belief on campus that hostility toward the new female knobs--as Citadel freshmen are called--would be tolerated, or at least overlooked, by the administration. For coeducation to work, more than a written plan was needed...
Some at the Citadel insist they were monitoring the progress of the young women. Regimental Commander Bryant Butler says he takes what happened "very personally." The highest-ranking student, Butler spent hours working on the assimilation plan, which included a female-friendly chain of command to help with any concerns. According to Butler, Messer and Mentavlos did apparently use those channels--but then stopped. When a female supervisor checked in with them right before Thanksgiving and asked them if they had been experiencing any problems, they replied no, both Poole and Butler claim. "I don't understand...
...time; and of the 581 entering freshmen, 81 so far have dropped out. "Because it happened to others doesn't make it right," responds Mentavlos' lawyer, Timothy Kulp, who says his current bedside reading includes both The Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy's famous novel about hazing at the Citadel, and The Lord of the Flies...
...women have not decided whether to take legal action, though their lawyers are exploring a number of options, including civil-rights and breach-of-contract suits. But even without a lawsuit, their departure will undoubtedly force a sharp reexamination of the Citadel's "fourth class system," in which all knobs are subjected to a certain amount of hazing--a system Conroy, Citadel class of '67, described in his book as a "psychic rape." For one thing, even some important alumni are furious about the scandal. "Don't give us heritage and tradition and all that bull___," Hampton Walker, the head...