Seven more women filed sexual assault claims against the U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday, according to an attorney representing the women, as fallout from the assault scandal at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London continues to widen. A total of 29 such claims have been filed since September.
The claims, filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, allege that Coast Guard Academy officials did not take reasonable steps to protect cadets and prospective cadets from sexual assault, and that they knew about and concealed a pattern of sexual assault and harassment at the academy for decades.
“Many of them have been emotionally devastated,” said Christine Dunn, a partner at the law firm Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight who is representing the complainants. “To this day, they’re devastated. They’re in therapy and they suffer from PTSD. It’s something that they carry with them every day.”
Many of the claims stemmed from a policy that barred cadets at the academy from locking their room doors, Dunn told CT Insider. In several instances documented in the claims, women say they woke up to find male classmates on top of them.
“I told him I would scream if he did not get out of my room,” one former cadet said in her complaint. “He threatened me, ‘If you yell, we’ll both get in
trouble.’ I knew he was right. I had been drinking alcohol that night and knew the Academy had a strict zero-tolerance policy for underage drinking. I knew I would get in trouble for drinking, even though I had been assaulted, and likely nothing would happen to my assailant. The Academy created an environment that protected young men like him at the expense of young women like me.”
The complaints identify the women as Jane Does one through 29, rather than by name. Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight shared redacted copies of the complaints with CT Insider.
A total of 29 women have filed claims against the Coast Guard since September, all represented by Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight. The women say they were assaulted while they were cadets or prospective cadets at the academy between the mid-1980s and 2017 — decades of alleged abuse they say Coast Guard officials failed to take seriously or address in a meaningful way.
The Coast Guard operates under auspices of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It and its former parent agency, the U.S. Department of Transportation, are also named in the complaints.
In a statement Thursday evening, the Coast Guard Academy said it had not yet received the additional claims but cannot discuss individual cases.
“Sexual assault and sexual harassment have no place in our Service,” the statement read. “The Coast Guard is committed to protecting our workforce and ensuring a safe environment that eliminates sexual assault and sexual harassment, and has devoted significant resources to improving prevention, victim support and accountability.”
Allegations of widespread sexual assault and harassment at the Coast Guard Academy first came to light in June 2023, when CNN revealed a Coast Guard report, dubbed Operation Fouled Anchor, that found decades of sexual assault and harassment at the academy dating back to the 1980s, along with a culture of inaction and impunity by Coast Guard officials.
“This investigation made clear that the leadership was more concerned at that time about … reputation than about the victims of crimes who were members of our service,” a draft of the final report said, according to CNN.
The U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations — then chaired by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut — held hearings on the scandal in December 2023 and June 2024.
At the December 2023 hearing, four former cadets told lawmakers that their own experiences of sexual assault at the academy reflected a broader culture of impunity.
“This is insidious, this is pervasive and this continues to this day,” retired Lt. Melissa McCafferty said at the time.
President Donald Trump removed Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan from her post shortly after he took office in January. Former President Joe Biden had named Fagan, the first woman to lead a military service branch, to the post in April 2022, before Fouled Anchor became public.
Trump reportedly fired Fagan in part due to what one official told Politico was an “excessive” focus on diversity, equity and inclusion — something Trump has worked to eliminate from the federal government since he took office.
Fagan came under blistering criticism from lawmakers during the hearing in June, with Blumenthal saying the Coast Guard had “a deep moral rot” that “prioritizes cronyism over accountability, silence over survivors.”
Admiral Kevin Lunday has been acting commandant since Fagan left.
“I am hopeful that this new commandant will approach this issue with greater transparency and that we will get some answers and some accountability,” Dunn said.
A new authorization bill for the Coast Guard passed the U.S. Senate in March that includes measures aimed at preventing sexual assault and improving reporting when it does happen. That bill is awaiting action in the house.
