1991 Las Vegas Tailhook convention scandal

The scandal of sexual assault and harassment at the 1991 Las Vegas Tailhook convention brought the United States Navy's problems to public attention. But rampant sexism and other abuses had gone on for some time and the Navy's response to the incidents was even more informative than the incident itself. Dismissing charges offhandedly, lying, failure to investigate, and cover-ups constituted the basis of the response. Overall the Navy's problems have clearly resolved themselves into a picture of failure of leadership. The ethical question of the greatest importance is not the responsibility of every individual member of the service who commits illegal acts, though they are serious in themselves. Instead the problem is that those who are mandated to lead are abusing their positions in acts that signal a desire for self-preservation but are, in the longer run, turning out to be self-destructive. Thus far many Navy leaders have perceived the preservation of the sexist "value system" and the Navy's isolationism as the keys to continued success. Clearly sexism renders relations between male and female colleagues extremely difficult (and undermines Naval preparedness) and, more importantly, it "brings negative reactions to male relations with women: disdain, disrespect, dislike, and a possessive regard for women as sex objects." But the arrogant refusal of the Navy leadership to conform to the demands of society and the needs of individuals is even more broad-based than th

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ut, as one researcher reported, where Hispanic Naval personnel's scores on indexes of job and life satisfaction are as high as white service members, and exceed those of blacks, Hispanics still face a certain degree of discrimination. Hispanic women personnel demonstrate the same levels of satisfaction as white women. Yet, as Rosenfeld notes, this level is already significantly lower than that of men. The Navy may have succeeded in finding ways to integrate minorities into the service -- it remains to be seen how they will accomplish the integration of the female majority. Byron has suggested that the Navy only need look back on the response of Admiral Zumwalt to the problem of fully integrating African Americans into the service in the 1970s. In that case the Admiral mounted an all-out offensive against racism and "demanded that each [officer] either stand against racism or leave the service (as some did)." As Byron says, this is the only way that a top-down-oriented organization such as the Navy can accomplish a goal such as the eradication of sexism. Military training necessitates the following of orders and members of the military follow the example of their leaders more rigorously than do workers who leave a job at

Category: Government - 1