The Tailhook scandals - how the Navy's sexual harassment investigation case was mishandled

National Review, March 7, 1994 by Elaine Donnelly

Kelso should have gone--if for different reasons than Dalton's. Vest implicates him as one of the chief forces sending the Tailhook investigation out of control. Vest charges that Kelso had not only been "in error" in denying that he had not witnessed indecent conduct at Tailhook, but "had manipulated the initial investigative process .. in a manner designed to shield his personal involvement in Tailhook '91."

Admiral Kelso's disgrace is shared by political appointees serving in the Bush and Clinton Administrations who have condoned a new policy of discrimination that is both demoralizing to men and demeaning to women: in future incidents of sexual misconduct, men will be disciplined, but women may not. Surveys already show that the problem of sexual harassment is aggravated by the men's resentment over double standards favoring women, such as the gender-norming of test scores. It is hard to imagine a better prescription for future conflict between military men and women.

In reality, there were two Tailhook scandals. One took place in the halls of Las Vegas; the other, more serious and far reaching, under the watchful eye of Pat Schroeder. The same rotten procedures that prompted Judge Vest to throw out the final courts martial applied in dozens of cases we'll never hear about that went to the mast. Where do those men go to get their careers back? And, more importantly, where does the Navy go to get its honor back? Not only did it betray men who had served it for decades, it capitulated on issues that will affect its combat readiness for decades to come. A scandal indeed.