The Two Men Blocking Military Sexual Assault Reform

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June 19, 2021
By The Editorial Board
The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

These days, it is tough to get a supermajority of U.S. senators to agree on the color of the sky, much less a politically delicate piece of legislation. Yet this is precisely what is happening with the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act, a bill championed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Democrat, that would overhaul how the armed services handle accusations of rape, sexual assault and other serious crimes. In addition to beefing up training and prevention, the proposal would shift the decision to prosecute many felonies “from the chain of command to independent, trained, professional military prosecutors.”

The military’s current handling of sexual assault cases ill serves everyone involved. For example, an independent 2020 review found that more than 30 percent of charges of penetrative sexual offense shouldn’t have been brought to trial because of insufficient evidence. That has the effect of undermining confidence in the military justice system and being unfair to both the accused and the victims. Independent prosecutors could help remedy this problem. If there’s more confidence in the justice system, it’s more likely that victims will come forward and crimes will be successfully adjudicated.

This is the dysfunctional system that Ms. Gillibrand has been fighting to change for years — a mission repeatedly endorsed by this board. She first introduced legislation to this end in 2013. It ultimately fell to a filibuster. Since then, she has been steadily collecting additional votes from colleagues in both parties. Her bill’s latest iteration, introduced in April, currently has 66 co-sponsors and more than 70 total supporters, including senators who opposed her earlier efforts.

Looking beyond Congress, earlier this year, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III ordered the establishment of an independent commission to conduct a 90-day review of the sexual assault and harassment problem. Among its early recommendations, the panel endorsed removing investigations of such crimes from the chain of command. President Biden has previously expressed support for doing so for an array of felonies. This is a proposal that has clearly met its moment.

Except. The bill may not receive a proper vote. It is currently sitting in the Senate Armed Services Committee, whose chairman, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, is impeding its progress — with an assist from the ranking Republican, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma. For years, these two old bulls, both Army veterans, opposed disrupting the chain of command in such cases, in alignment with the military’s objections. Mr. Inhofe still does. Mr. Reed now says that he supports shaking up the way sexual assault is handled — but that he nonetheless opposes Ms. Gillibrand’s bill because it applies to other felonies as well. Insisting the proposal needs more debate, the chairman says he will fold it into negotiations over the giant military authorization bill that lawmakers must tackle later this year.


In the Senate, process is often the murder weapon of choice. Reform advocates are accusing Mr. Reed and Mr. Inhofe of being too deferential to the military and trying to delay and dilute the bill, if not derail it altogether.

“They are both against my bill, and they would like to kill it in committee,” Ms. Gillibrand told The Times recently.

If this happens, it will be a disservice to the country.

No one seriously disputes that the U.S. military has a sexual assault problem. According to the Defense Department’s 2018 report on the subject, in fiscal year 2018, an estimated 20,500 service members were sexually assaulted or raped, including 13,000 women and 7,500 men. Only a tiny fraction of reported cases result in a conviction. That leads to lower confidence in the military justice system for the all-volunteer force. Many incidents go unreported altogether, which is unsurprising considering that “64 percent of women who reported a sexual assault face retaliation,” according to the advocacy group Protect Our Defenders.

The military has long argued that removing prosecutorial decisions from the chain of command would undermine commanders’ authority and harm the services. But that claim doesn’t withstand much serious scrutiny. Moreover, defense officials have repeatedly pledged to deal with the problem, but their efforts thus far have not curbed it.

The Defense Department’s 2018 report on sexual assault said that the estimated number of service members who experienced sexual assault within the year before being surveyed rose to 20,500 in that fiscal year from around 14,900 in fiscal year 2016. The number of reported incidents of sexual assault that occurred during military service rose in that period as well, to 6,053 from 4,794. The percentage of victimized service members who chose to report an incident, though, declined slightly, to 30 percent from 32 percent.

The case for reform received tragic support last year following the April murder of Specialist Vanessa Guillén by another soldier at the Army’s Fort Hood. Investigators learned that, unrelated to her death, Ms. Guillén had endured harassment by her supervisor, which unit leaders had failed to address despite the problem being repeatedly reported. The base in general was found to have a command climate “permissive of sexual harassment and sexual assault.” The national attention spotlighted how the existing system had failed Ms. Guillén.

While sexual assault is the focus of the reform push, supporters of Ms. Gillibrand’s proposal say that reforming the military justice system more broadly will make it fairer and less prone to bias — and help address existing racial disparities in prosecutions and convictions. They warn that singling out sexual assault would establish a “pink court,” effectively creating a two-tiered justice system and further stigmatizing victims.

Advocates also point out that many U.S. allies, including Israel, Britain and Canada, have already made similar changes to their military justice systems.

Ms. Gillibrand is happy to have a floor debate over the merits of the bill, maybe even fights over amendments. But she is determined not to let the plan get delayed and then chewed up in the fight over the sprawling National Defense Authorization Act — as has happened in the past.

In recent days, she has been trying to use a maneuver that would bring the bill directly to the Senate floor. Each day the chamber is in session, she asks for unanimous consent to open debate. Each day that she asks, Mr. Reed, backed by Mr. Inhofe, objects. Ms. Gillibrand plans to continue her daily requests indefinitely.

Supporters of the bill are hoping that the issue will get a new wind when a bipartisan coalition in the House introduces a related bill, which is expected in the coming week. Reform-minded lawmakers and staff members have been working to woo members of the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses, which could give the issue even more kick.

There has been much debate of late over whether the filibuster makes it too hard to enact meaningful legislation. Ms. Gillibrand’s bill has more than enough support to clear that hurdle and take a much needed step forward to address an urgent, longstanding crisis. If only it is given a fighting chance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/19/opin ... e=Homepage