More Hearings on Tap Over Military Academies:

The Chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), has promised to hold additional hearings to hear from victims of sexual assault at the military academies after receiving testimony on June 27 from former US Air Force Academy cadet Beth Davis. Shays said, “We’re going to revise our hearing schedules. … We would have you and other victims make sure that what needs to be said is on the record. Shays turned off the 5-minute clock so Davis could tell her complete story, revealing repeated rapes and her subsequent dismissal from the academy. (Read her written testimony here.) He and other members of his subcommittee were aghast that Davis and other victims had never been called to testify following the 2003 revelation of scores of rape allegations at USAFA. The hearing ostensibly was to learn how the services were faring with recommendations made by a Congressional task force in its 2005 report, however Shays directed criticism at the report’s authors for failing to provide lawmakers with the sense of “outrage” the author’s must have felt upon hearing from the victims. Task force member Delilah Rumberg explained that the report focused on what should be done to “begin to address this issue.” However, Shays maintained, lawmakers and the military would have been better served “by just having some real reality in this document before the recommendations.” (Read our 2004 article “Upheaval at the Academy.”)