Conduct Unbecoming

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Sharon Fullilove plops down on the bed in her dorm room at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The walls, like those in college rooms everywhere, are plastered with pictures of friends and happy times, including a black-framed memorial to her hero, the Dell dude. It's a world away from the spare room she used to occupy at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. She never sat on the bed there; she didn't even sleep on it. Sheets had to be ironed perfectly for twice-weekly inspections, so like her fellow cadets, Fullilove simply slept on the floor. Yet she loved every moment of being there. "All I ever wanted to be was a bird and fly F-15s," she says. "Both my parents are Air Force. The Air Force Academy was the only place I even applied to for college. I wanted to show my patriotism and go to war."

Today all that's left of that dream is the bruising memory of a rape and the lingering anger over the academy's alleged failure to fully investigate her complaint, accusing her instead, she says, of being a "liar." Over the past month, at least 22 other women--13 former cadets and nine currently enrolled--have made similar charges, accusing academy officials not only of failing to investigate sexual assaults but of actively discouraging women from reporting them, and retaliating when they did. Yet in the past decade, only one academy cadet has been court-martialed on a rape charge; the cadet was acquitted. "It's the good-ole-boy society," says Fullilove. "The guy who did this to me knew nothing would happen to him."

Spurred by the rising number of women speaking out, Air Force Secretary John Roche made a rare visit to the school last week to address 2,000 cadets, warning that he would "not tolerate" rapists or a culture that accepted sexual harassment at the academy. "There are now many questions about the character of all Air Force Academy cadets and recent graduates due to reported sexual assaults--clearly criminal acts--by a dangerous minority." He promised that "these bums" would be investigated and prosecuted. His trip followed a meeting with Colorado Senator Wayne Allard in Washington, who presented Roche with a list of nine questions about assault cases reported to his office since last summer.

Meanwhile, the Air Force's top general, John Jumper, told reporters in Washington that the process for reporting abuse was not working and that "intimidation in the chain of command" may have kept women silent. The Senate Armed Services Committee, on which Allard sits, is likely to push for a full hearing.