CNN
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A US Coast Guard Academy official says high leaders directed her to misinform sexual assault victims and Congress, making her an unwitting confederate in a coverup of many years of abuse.
Because of this, Shannon Norenberg says she’s resigning from her position because the academy’s head of sexual assault prevention and issuing a public apology to survivors, saying she is not prepared to remain silent.
“The Coast Guard lied to me,” she wrote in a public statement posted on-line Sunday. “I can not in good conscience be a part of a company that might betray me, betray victims of sexual assault, and betray the system I helped set as much as maintain perpetrators on the academy accountable.”
Norenberg’s explosive allegations had been made upfront of a congressional listening to this week at which the Coast Guard’s first feminine commandant, Adm. Linda Fagan, is slated to testify in regards to the company’s sexual misconduct scandal.
In an unique interview with CNN, Norenberg stated she had made it her mission to assist sexual assault survivors on the Coast Guard Academy for greater than a decade. She stated she was devastated when she just lately found previous information exhibiting how leaders had used her as a part of the cover-up of Operation Fouled Anchor, a secret inner probe into a historical past of sexual assault coverups that CNN exposed final summer season.
She wrote in her public posting that she was despatched on an “apology tour” in 2019 to temporary dozens of assault victims about their instances, which had beforehand been mishandled by academy management. The listing of speaking factors she was given on the time exhibits she was directed to inform victims that Congress was already totally conscious of the operation, which she now is aware of was not the case. She believes this was supposed to “dissuade the victims from contacting their Members of Congress.”
The Coast Guard stated it was a mistake – not a conspiracy – for the speaking level about Congress to be on the listing given to Norenberg. The company added that Coast Guard officers just lately interviewed a now-retired Coast Guard officer current throughout these sufferer conferences, and he or she stated the speaking level was by no means introduced up. Norenberg stated she didn’t have a exact recollection of all of the conferences, however famous she had one-on-one calls with a number of victims outdoors the presence of the now-retired officer. Norenberg additionally stated that if she had been instructed that Congress was unaware, she would have notified lawmakers instantly.
“Why would anybody belief something the Coast Guard has to say about Operation Fouled Anchor at this level?” she stated.
Norenberg was additionally instructed to not embody the historic assaults being investigated in information that Congress would see, she stated, and was prohibited from providing survivors key paperwork that might have helped them entry psychological well being providers and veteran’s advantages out there to sexual assault victims.
“We weren’t despatched on the market to assist these individuals, I noticed,” she wrote. “The entire thing was a merciless coverup on the expense of the victims, with all the function being to protect the picture of the Coast Guard and keep away from scandal. And the Coast Guard used me as a part of their plan.”
For practically a yr, Fagan has been coming beneath rising strain as she continues to grapple with the fallout from Operation Fouled Anchor. She has repeatedly stated she desires to study from the previous and transfer ahead, however a brand new string of controversies has proven that sexual misconduct stays pervasive throughout the Coast Guard and is a far larger problem than she has publicly acknowledged.
Among the many developments:
- Nameless Fb accounts devoted to exposing how sexual assault instances have been mishandled and lined up throughout the service, not simply on the academy, have drawn 1000’s of individuals in latest weeks. “They can not bury this… don’t allow them to scare you. The floodgates are open,” the nameless former Coast Guard member behind one of many Fb accounts, Whistler McGee, wrote in response to the numerous members sharing their very own tales of sexual assault and harassment. When the social media firestorm erupted, Fagan emailed the workforce and inspired victims to make formal experiences — a response some commenters mocked. “Are you even listening? Do you grasp the general problem which sparked all of those discussions?” one girl wrote. “Reporting incidents is your finest plan of action proper now? THE REPORT SYSTEM HAS FAILED far too a lot of our members.”
- Three Coast Guard survivors rehashed the small print of their sexual assaults on digital camera as a part of what they had been instructed by officers was an schooling marketing campaign that might be promoted throughout sexual assault consciousness month in April. However after taking pictures the movies, public affairs officers warned that publicly selling the testimonials “may proceed to exacerbate the narrative … that the Coast Guard is in a sexual assault disaster now,” in accordance with a replica of a memo reviewed by CNN. Officers in the end posted the videos in a again a part of the Coast Guard’s web site in late Could, however solely after the survivors posted them on-line themselves. The Coast Guard attributed the delay in posting the movies, partially, to an inner debate over current the testimonies, and preparation wanted for anticipated media and congressional consideration.
- The Coast Guard was pressured to request that President Joe Biden withdraw and resubmit the names of dozens of Coast Guard officers for promotions from the Senate affirmation course of in April. Records present that the 2 officers faraway from the listing had been beforehand accused of misconduct — one for making inappropriate sexual feedback, the opposite for “detrimental issues of file related to sexual assault.”
- One other Coast Guard officer who was additionally set to be promoted to a high-level place is at the moment beneath prison investigation for sexually harassing and groping a cadet who reported him to the academy twenty years earlier. The allegations surfaced throughout testimony from the previous cadet at a congressional listening to final yr, however Coast Guard officers didn’t provoke the prison investigation till months later, after the lady stated she flagged his title on a promotion listing to senators. Information reviewed by CNN present the officer was additionally reported for sexual harassment at a Florida bar final yr. The Coast Guard confirmed the previous cadet’s allegations are beneath investigation.
- A number of Coast Guard officers – together with two chaplains – have been faraway from their positions for “a lack of confidence.” This included the company’s high chaplain, who the Coast Guard stated did not take acceptable motion when he realized of one other chaplain’s sexual misconduct. In a press release after his elimination, the chaplain stated he thought he had made the correct report on the time, however now believes that the knowledge didn’t make it to all obligatory officers.
Including to the strain on Fagan, congressional lawmakers have expressed rising frustration with the Coast Guard’s dealing with of the controversy. When Senator Ted Cruz’s workplace found non-disclosure agreements that had been given to sexual assault victims as a part of Fouled Anchor to forestall them from talking out about their alleged assaults, he slammed the apply in a letter to Fagan. Quickly after, the company issued a directive to not execute these agreements for victims.
Senators have accused Fagan of evading congressional oversight throughout a number of ongoing authorities investigations and questioned why present or former leaders haven’t been held accountable for masking up misconduct. Most just lately, they demanded that she seem at a Senate listening to on Tuesday, saying the Coast Guard’s lack of cooperation with the continued congressional probe can “solely be defined by both its indifference or one other shameful try to cover-up the embarrassing truths of its mishandling of instances involving sexual assault and sexual harassment.”
Norenberg’s allegations have already been raised with senators and are anticipated to be a part of the dialogue on the listening to, her lawyer instructed CNN.
‘Perhaps that is the second’
Victims echoed Norenberg’s issues, saying they felt their lives had been turned the wrong way up once they had been requested to recount the trauma they endured as a part of the Fouled Anchor investigation, solely to be forgotten as soon as once more.
“They didn’t care in regards to the influence on us or why we wished to share this info,” stated one former Coast Guard Acadamy cadet who was visited by a Coast Guard prison investigator in 2018. She initially reported being raped by a classmate in 2005, however no prison fees had been filed regardless of the alleged rapist being discovered by academy officers to have had “non-consensual” sexual activity along with her. After giving her 2018 interview as a part of Fouled Anchor, she stated she by no means heard from the Coast Guard once more about her case.
Even Norenberg didn’t know the complete scope of the Fouled Anchor scandal till CNN’s reporting, which discovered that the operation had been quietly closed and hidden from Congress by company leaders regardless of substantiating dozens of sexual assaults that had beforehand been mishandled on the academy. Because of this, a number of the accused had ascended to high roles on the Coast Guard and different navy businesses, whereas some victims had left the academy after reporting their assaults and had spent many years dealing with extreme detrimental results to their careers and psychological and bodily well being.
Norenberg stated she started questioning her involvement with Fouled Anchor after CNN’s experiences and located in her recordsdata the five-page listing of speaking factors that, she stated, confirmed that what she had been a part of was really an organized effort to guard the Coast Guard’s repute – not an try to assist victims rebuild their lives. After discovering the doc, she knew she needed to resign.
Norenberg instructed CNN she is annoyed that most of the points uncovered by Fouled Anchor, resembling perpetrators going unpunished and victims going through retaliation for coming ahead, nonetheless exist in the present day regardless of messaging from Commandant Fagan claiming in any other case.
She had hoped that by her job main the Coast Guard Academy’s sexual assault prevention efforts and dealing with victims, she may enhance the tradition. She says she helped victims file official experiences to make sure their allegations had been investigated and labored to enhance entry to sufferer’s advocates, however {that a} lack of acceptable penalties for a lot of perpetrators remained troubling to her. Prison prosecutions had been uncommon, she stated, with solely three instances going to court-martial trials in her 11 years on the academy. And she or he stated she repeatedly raised issues to academy officers that accused sexual offenders who had been kicked out of the academy had been then allowed to enlist.
Norenberg stated she notified officers of her intent to resign in late Could. As she weighed her subsequent steps, she reached out to an lawyer named Ryan Melogy. She had realized of Melogy after he represented a US Service provider Marine Academy cadet whose rape allegations prompted a reckoning within the industrial delivery trade a number of years in the past. When Norenberg instructed Melogy she was contemplating going public along with her issues, he requested her if she had seen the latest rebellion on social media.
She had not. However later, after reviewing the litany of posts, the place many present and former members stated managers had seemed the opposite approach once they reported misconduct, she turned much more emboldened. A navy sexual assault survivor herself, she stated her personal reminiscences of being raped by a boot camp chief when she was 18 years previous had pushed her into this line of labor and now compelled her to come back ahead.
She stated seeing that so many others had been talking up about how they felt betrayed by the Coast Guard gave her hope that it could now be inconceivable for the Coast Guard to disregard them. She is planning to start out a YouTube channel the place she’s going to interview survivors — giving them a platform to talk out about their sexual assaults.
“Perhaps that is the second in time we will get individuals to hearken to us,” she stated.
What ought to we examine subsequent? E mail us at blake.ellis@cnn.com or melanie.hicken@cnn.com.