USAFA is a sick institution tight now. It has been for awhile now. It has historically been the most “slack” of the academies and that permissiveness has gone haywire. The Superintendent, Lt. Gen Silveria is a PC general more intent on virtue signaling than setting a tone and developing leaders.
The root cause of all this madness is the 2003 sexual assault scandal at the academy. As usual, it was an overreaction to a serious issue by government types. This led to the development of the Center for Character Leadership which of course had the effect to encourage the reporting of anything remotely considered in the realm of sexual assault. Statustics skyrocketed while anything was fair game for anyone to accuse someone of. The proper response of course would have been to double down on admissions screenings backed up by a rigorous enforcement of cadet regulations and the UCMJ.
I just read the Commandant’s State of the Wing address last week where he was congratulating himself for saying only 4% of cadets had serious violations. That’s insanity. You’re talking close to 200 cadets being involved in significant violations. That’s an average of 5 per squadron, which is ridiculous for an institution built on a foundation of the Honor Code. Unfortunately, the place is rotting from the inside out right now. I don’t know if it can be stopped.
Wow. I want my son out of the Army asap. It’s leadership just not compatible with the bill of rights and our Constitution.
“USAFA is a sick institution...historically been the most “slack” of the academies and that permissiveness has gone haywire...The root cause of all this madness is the 2003 sexual assault scandal at the academy...” [usafa92, post 17]
Your timeline is in error.
The Center for Character & Leadership Development was established in the 1990s.
As a 1970s grad, I no longer recall a specific crisis that triggered its formation. While attending my 20th reunion, I intercepted a few hints, significantly cocked eyebrows, and whispered asides from older cadets (who were your underclassmen). Suspicion was widespread, that the entire project was no more than a concession to the Left-engendered forces that have been so energetic since 1960.
The long march of political correctness began much earlier; the three major federal service academies opposed the admission of women, but were unable to hold back the drift of the times. The 1960s and 1970s - marked by campus radicalism, militant feminism, and widespread dissatisfaction with the military establishment - interfered with attempts by the armed services to fend off radical egalitarianism. Congress ordered the service academies to admit women.
I did notice during my 10th year reunion that USAFA leadership (military and academic) had concluded that no service academy could continue to assume that the average appointee would enter knowing what the terms in the Honor Code meant, so an indoctrination program was launched to inform and each incoming class. Indications of the moral deterioration in the wider society? Possibly.
Anyway, the indoctrination program was accompanied by major reductions in penalties for Code violations. Honor-violation investigations became saddled with attorneys defending the accused, and took on all the histrionics and pose-striking that has rendered the country’s civilian legal system so dysfunctional.
Judging the relative permissiveness of the service academies in relation to each other is problematic. After putting in three years and 11 months as a cadet, followed by 24 years and seven months on active duty, I noticed that stuff changes all the time - “unchanging verities” and “timeless truths” have no meaning and no hold on service adacemy culture.
There are but two constants:
1. Each USAFA class is certain that every class that comes after has had an easier time of it.
2. The media, and the wider civil populace, are shocked and scandalized by each honor scandal and every allegation of sex assault at any service academy. Transgressions get huge play in the news. But the totals - in absolute numbers, and percentages - are almost nonexistent compared to civilian colleges & universities. No one ever stops to think of that.