In June of 2023, CNN exposed a secret investigation into alleged sexual abuse at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy uncovering a history of rapes, assaults and other serious misconduct being ignored and, at times, covered up by high-ranking officials. The probe’s findings, “Operation Fouled Anchor,” completed in July 2019 had been kept confidential by Coast Guard senior leadership. Operation Fouled Anchor focused on reports of sexual assault at the Academy between 1992 to 2006.

Operation Fouled Anchor, named after a ship’s anchor entangled around itself, was launched in 2014 when an academy graduate claimed her allegations of rape from years earlier had never been investigated. While looking into the woman’s case, agents determined her allegations and more than two dozen other reports of misconduct had essentially been buried by academy leaders. And as they continued digging, they unearthed more than 90 potential assaults from the late 1980s to 2006. “There was a disturbing pattern of not treating reported sexual assaults as criminal matters,” the Coast Guard’s draft report reviewed by CNN stated. In some instances, school officials at the time recommended launching criminal inquiries into alleged assaults only to be overruled by top leadership at the academy, according to records reviewed by CNN (Blake Ellis).

Shortly after the initial CNN report, Admiral Linda Fagan emailed the entire Coast Guard workforce in which she said, “As your Commandant, I am personally committed to a culture of transparency and accountability regarding our efforts to prevent and address the scourge of sexual assault” and, “We own this failure, and on behalf of the United States Coast Guard, MCPOCG [Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard] and I apologize to each victim and your loved ones,” (Letter from Congressmen Jamie Raskin and Bennie G. Thompson).

A letter from Congress dated July 13, 2023 stated “In fact, it seems likely that absent a media inquiry or some other spurring event, the existence of the Fouled Anchor investigation would never have become known to Congress or the public, much less to the CGA community. The failure of the Coast Guard—which is itself a law enforcement entity—to properly handle allegations of sexual assault among students at its own Academy is stunning and inexcusable. The Coast Guard’s subsequent choice to withhold information about what it had uncovered regarding its institutional failures is also deeply disappointing and frankly calls into question its commitment as a whole to address the institutional failures that are revealed in the harrowing findings of the Fouled Anchor investigation,” (Ibid).

Of particular concern is the apparent lack of interest or desire in looking at any sexual assaults prior to 1992. The Leadership Team unequivocally knows sexual assault (once women entered the Academy in 1976) has been occurring at the Academy, yet no one in a leadership position is willing to acknowledge the historic significance of this. It also is possible that male survivors of harassment and assault live in the shadows from the shame long before 1976 and in the years since. Furthermore, no leaders have defined this as a systemic problem.