July 3, 2013
th- Fortiani, ©hscruer CARREERS
Page 17
Special Edition
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Outrageous Military Conduct
c o n t i n u e d f r o m page 11
was supposed to report to a friend
of the assailant, whose personal
career incentives counseled against
pursuing the matter.
A woman who worked as an in
vestigator before she was assaulted
herself notes that most of the sexual
assault cases were assigned to men
for investigation because women
were viewed as too soft to accu
rately assess them.
All of these elements make for a
system that facilitates and supports
sex u al p re d a to rs.
T he film
deconstructs how this all works;
military ranks include a higher per
centage of sex offenders than in the
general population and, in fact, until
recently sex offenders could easily
obtain enlistment waivers. The in
sular nature of life inside the Armed
Forces enforces a culture of secrecy
in which speaking out or putting
pressure on the system exacts a
personal toll. Indeed, some of the
most moving footage is of male fam
ily members of two of the female
victims, who decided to speak on
camera at the risk of their own mili
tary careers.
The film notes that shortly after
its release in April 2012, Secretary of
Defense Leon Panetta issued a di
rective making a small but signifi
cant change to the handling of sexual
assault cases that effectively ended
the practice of commanders adjudi
cating those cases within their own
units.
But there is a hopeful postscript
that you won't see when you screen
the film. The New York Times re
ported in January that the film has
been credited with both persuading
more women to come forward to
report abuse and with forcing the
military to deal more openly with the
problem, and the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2013 included a number of improve
ments to the military's handling of
sexual assault cases, such as bar
ring recruits with felony sex offense
convictions from receiving enlist
ment waivers, improved record keep
ing in cases of military sexual as
sault, and the establishment of com
prehensive sexual victims units with
specifically trained personnel to
THE LAW OFFICES OF
C haucer
investigate and prosecute instances
of sexual assault.
The history depicted in the film
does not suggest that the systemic
corruption that has led to a culture
of sexual assault in the military is
likely to end quickly. But all in all,
this film is a brilliant expose' of insti
tutional oppression and a calcu
lated move to dismantle it.
Darleen Ortega is a judge on the
Oregon Court o f Appeals and the
first woman o f color to serve in that
capacity. Her movie review column
Opinionated Judge appears regu
larly in The Portland Observer. You
can f i n d h er m ovie blog at
opinionatedjudge.blogspot.com.
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