Public Eye: One Woman's Fight to Fly

In the unfinished drama of women in the military, Admiral Stanley Arthur and Lieut. (j.g.) Rebecca Hansen were antagonists in the making. Arthur was the former commander of U.S. naval forces during the Persian Gulf War, holder of 11 Distinguished Flying Crosses; he was looking forward to being confirmed by the Senate as commander in chief of the Pacific forces in July. Hansen, an honors student in Aviation Officer Candidate School, wanted to fly. The problem: she had been dismissed from flight school with only eight weeks left in an 18-month training course. As Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Arthur had reviewed the expulsion and approved it. In June, however, Senator David Durenberger put a hold on Arthur's nomination. He wanted the Navy to respond to Hansen's charge that she was dismissed for having filed a sexual-harassment claim against an instructor. The Navy then abruptly withdrew Arthur's nomination, explaining that any delay in filling the post would be intolerable.

Had another admiral taken the fall over an incident that was actually the fault of those below him? Anyone who thinks that picking off admirals is an unfair tactic in the sexual-harassment wars should look at the 10-inch file in the Hansen case, and at the fact that it took the intervention of three members of Congress -- Senator Paul Wellstone and Representative Bruce Vento in addition to Durenberger -- to get the Navy brass to pay attention. Durenberger told TIME last week that the Navy still hasn't given him an unedited report on the Hansen case: "I'm not one to put a hold on anything, but I didn't have any choice but to use Arthur. The way the Navy has handled the Hansen case is absolutely incredible. They don't want to examine in the open how the Navy handles reprisals against women for filing sexual-harassment charges."

In primary training, Hansen, now 27, was assigned a flight instructor who routinely made remarks so inappropriate Roseanne would have a hard time brushing them off. Lieut. Larry Meyer called Hansen a "wench," advised her to wear a pink bikini and dye her hair, and turned required discussions, such as one on friction, into running sexual jokes. Hansen let it pass, she says, until one day when he grabbed her by the hair, forced her head down to his groin (a witness says he only saw her head go down as far as Meyer's chest) and said, "this is how I like to control my women." She filed a complaint. She had corroborating witnesses for most of the incidents, and there were two other women who were not in Meyer's class who had complained about him. Meyer's superior officer conceded that the instructor could on occasion be an "obnoxious loudmouth." The Navy claims it punished Meyer with a letter of reprimand that effectively ended his career. In fact, the case was handled as a personnel matter rather than a judicial one; he was found only to have used "indecent language." Meyer insisted he was just "trying to provide a relaxed atmosphere." He left the military on his own timetable, a year later.