Citadel Disavows Hazing, Sexual Harassment

ATLANTA — The day after two women announced that they were dropping out of The Citadel because of sexual harassment and hazing, officials of the South Carolina military college said they were taking steps to correct the breakdown in discipline.

At the same time, however, Interim President Clifton Poole insisted that the harsh treatment endured by students Kim Messer and Jeanie Mentavlos had nothing to do with their sex.

“There is no doubt in my mind that some cadets overstepped the bounds,” he said in a press conference Monday. He added, however: “So far, based on everything that we can determine through our investigation, the incidents of alleged hazing were not really gender-based. . . . When it was occurring to females it was occurring to males at exactly the same time in several of the cases.”

He declined to discuss the sexual harassment allegations.

The FBI and state police were called to the campus last month after Messer and Mentavlos alleged that their clothing had been set afire, that they had been shoved with rifles and that cleanser had been put into their mouths. Messer also alleged that she had been forced to “assume a degrading position” on a trash can in another cadet’s room and that a male cadet rubbed his body against hers as she stood in front of him in formation.

The law enforcement investigation of the school has not been completed.

Poole spoke to reporters after he addressed the 1,700-member corps of cadets to tell them that the school will not tolerate mistreatment of women.

“My message to the corps was that we must not, and we will not, let the actions of a few cadets--or even the inattention of many cadets--in any way place in peril the future of this institution,” he said. “We cannot have any misbehavior toward female cadets. . . . “

All future incidents of hazing will be reported to law enforcement for possible criminal prosecution, and any cadet accused of harassing female classmates will be thrown off campus while the charges are investigated, Poole said. He added that the departing women would be welcomed back.

But in statements issued Sunday the women said they do not feel welcome, and they held school officials responsible.

Poole, who said he took action as soon as he learned of the women’s complaints, defended the system the school had put in place to ensure the women’s safety. He said they had the option of circumventing the military chain of command to report complaints to, for instance, a female counselor, but the female cadets had not used it.

“We are studying it to see what else we can do,” he said. “At this point it seems like it was not a systemic failure as much as it was a failure on the part of human beings.”

He acknowledged, however, that enforcement of campus rules involving hazing has been lax. “We have made mistakes,” he said. “It appears as though we may have missed the mark many times. We will correct these errors and develop procedures and processes to decrease the likelihood of this happening again.”

After hearings were held in U.S. District Court last week on problems at the school, U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck met with the women and their families to assure them that he would provide “responsible measures” to protect their safety. They both decided, however, not to return for the second semesters of their freshman year.

Noting that the school will get a new president this summer, Mentavlos said, “If the new administration can make significant changes and chooses to offer me the chance to return to my studies when all of these concerns have been addressed, I would consider it. Until then, I intend to get on with my life and make my future great.”

Two other women who began classes at the same time as Messer and Mentavlos have made no public allegations of mistreatment. “They’re very comfortable with the environment of the barracks,” Poole said Monday.

He said the school had found enough evidence of hazing to suspend two cadets and file disciplinary charges against 11.

Hazing incidents occur at the school “each and every year, probably,” he said. “That does not make it right. As a matter of fact, institutionally it is not accepted. At any time there is a hazing event and it comes to the attention of the administration, we take the necessary steps to make the correction and punish the cadets involved.”

Houck ordered the formerly all-male school to accept women after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar all-male policy at Virginia Military Institute was unconstitutional. Shannon Faulkner became the first woman to enroll in 1995. She dropped out after less than a week, citing stress and her isolation as the only woman in the corps.

Messer, who has a brother at the school and whose father is a retired Army master sergeant, said a military career and military education has been her lifelong goal. To prepare for her studies there she said she’d enrolled in Air Force JROTC in high school and spent last summer attending Army ROTC Basic School at Fort Knox, Ky. But, she said, “What I found at The Citadel bore little resemblance to the real military.”

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Mentavlos, too, said she had been prepared for the rigors of the school because her brother has been a student there and had described the experience.

Her brother, Michael Mentavlos, also said he would not return to the school this semester. Because he is less than seven hours away from completing his degree requirements, Poole said, he would be allowed to take the remainder of his classes at another institution and to graduate with his class at The Citadel.

At least 26 women have applied for admission to The Citadel next semester, he said. After the allegations of mistreatment arose, he said, the school contacted female applicants. “All of them indicated they were still interested in pursuing the application,” he said.