In a worldwide sweep to rid its workplaces of sexually charged materials, the Air Force found 32,216 inappropriate or offensive items, including 40 pornographic magazines at the Air Education and Training Command headquarters at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph.
In all, the Air Force found 631 pornographic items at more than 100 installations, including magazines, calendars, pictures, videos that intentionally displayed nudity or depicted acts of sexual activity.
More than half of those items were discovered at AETC installations. Eleven Air Force bases are in the training command, including Randolph and Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.
The service would not say what, if anything, was discovered at Lackland, which has been the focus of one the largest sex scandals in Air Force history. So far, 32 basic-training instructors have been accused of illicit contact with 56 women and three men at Lackland, home to all Air Force basic training.
Six instructors have been convicted of misconduct with airmen. One, Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, was sentenced to 20 years for rape and sexual assault last summer. The Lackland scandal will be the subject of a House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday.
"This is a shameful disgrace," said Greg Jacob, a former Marine infantry officer and policy director for Service Women's Action Network, a nonpartisan civil rights organization that focuses on the military.
"The presence of inappropriate, pornographic and degrading material in the work and living spaces is indicative of the climate of hostility and sexual harassment that exists in the military," he said.
The Air Force inspections were announced in advance and began last month after complaints of harassment and sexual assault were made by an advocacy group, Protect Our Defenders, and an enlisted airman, Tech. Sgt. Jennifer Smith, who was assigned to fighter squadrons South Korea, Germany and South Carolina.
The group, which asked for a congressional investigation, said one complaint contained exhibits detailing "a wide range of sexual harassment" that included spoken slurs and inferences to nonverbal gestures, pictures, notes and unwanted physical contact
The items at Randolph and elsewhere were documented, removed or destroyed, and in some cases prompted Air Force investigations. If the items weren't confiscated, people were told to take them home.
"The Air Force succeeds because of the professionalism and discipline of our airmen," Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh III said in a written statement. "We have a significant number of airmen who feel they have to 'go along to get along' by ignoring inappropriate images, workplace comments, or other material that makes them uncomfortable. That's simply not the Air Force we want to be."
The AETC said it uncovered 882 instances of "inappropriate or offensive items" defined as suggestive objects, magazines, posters, pictures, calendars, vulgarity and graffiti.
AETC spokeswoman Amy Bartholomew said 233 items deemed "unprofessional material" also were uncovered. Those items were linked to discrimination, professional appearance, and things specific to local military history such as unit patches.
No one in the training command lost their jobs or were disciplined over the findings.
"This inspection was intended to ensure professional work environments; it was not an attempt to catch people doing something wrong," Bartholomew said.
A spreadsheet identified a long list of inappropriate, offensive and pornographic images that were confiscated. One item at an Air Combat Command installation was a pornographic video on a shared computer drive, while another such video was in a common work area. A pornographic magazine at an ACC base was found in a work area.
At one unidentified AETC group office, 15 pornographic films and three sexual photos were found, as were 144 pornographic posters, pictures, comic strips or graphics containing nudity, hazing and profanity, and 53 beer mugs deemed sexual in nature.
In another case, 13 videos containing profanity, sexual images, killings and torture were found and deleted from a shared computer drive at an AETC group office.
A sexually explicit game was found in an AETC squadron, as were 62 slides on a shared computer drive containing sexual images and innuendoes, sexual images and vulgar language.
Gen. Edward Rice Jr., the AETC commander, said Friday that he directed commanders to do the inspections to "ensure our environment is consistent with Air Force values. We believe that we raised awareness of what is and isn't appropriate in the workplace, and that helps us continue to promote a climate of dignity and respect for all airmen."
sigc@express-news.net
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario