A recent report released by the United States Department of Defense found the estimated number of “unwanted sexual contact events,” or any form of sexual assault, has fallen at the nation’s top military academies.
The announcement may soothe some worries that have plagued the universities since multiple investigations revealed widespread assault and harassment.
Both the DOD and the academies, however, know the improved numbers don’t mean the work is done. During the 2023-2024 academic school year, the DOD received 126 total reports of sexual assault from those enrolled in the academies, a decrease from the 166 filed the previous year and the 206 filed during the 2021-2022 academic year.
"The U.S. Air Force Academy encourages greater reporting of sexual assault allegations to connect survivors with needed care and to hold alleged offenders appropriately accountable," a USAFA spokesperson said in an email to CPR News.
"This year’s reduction not only reflects the ongoing efforts by leaders across the Department of Defense to fostering a healthier environment but also serves as a reminder that more work remains to be done," the statement said.
The trend marks a change of course after years of increases in assault reports at the United States Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy and the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
The data, however, doesn’t paint a full picture year-to-year. According to a DOD spokesperson, the federal government only requires the academies to perform what it refers to as “prevalence surveys” every two years.
These anonymous surveys collect information from cadets and midshipmen asking if they experienced sexual assaults, year regardless of whether they reported their experience. This estimate is then compared to the number of reported assaults to get a reporting rate.
The pandemic interrupted prevalence survey consistency, but they were performed in the 2021-2022 academic year and the 2023-2024 academic year.
Those data sets show that the estimated number of students who experienced sexual assault fell between the two survey years from 1,136 to 783.
The numbers reflect a reduction from roughly 21 percent of the total female student population at all three academies to roughly 13 percent over the course of two years. For male students, it reflects a smaller reduction from roughly 4 percent to 3.5 percent.
“Despite this significant decrease, sexual assault continues to impact the Academy experience,” the 2023-2024 report said. “Observed reductions in harmful behaviors should serve as encouragement, but also a reminder of the ongoing work needed to foster a healthier environment for our Nation’s future warfighters and to ensure lasting change at the Military Service Academies.”
The estimated percentage of students who reported sexual assaults, however, also fell slightly between the two survey years, from 14 percent to 13 percent.
That benchmark is below the average percentage of reported sexual assaults among active duty military service members, which was estimated at 30 percent in 2018. It’s also below the nation as a whole, which is estimated to have a 21 percent reporting rate on average.
"Given that active duty members report sexual assault at nearly twice the rate of cadets and midshipmen, more work needs to be done to ensure our cadets and midshipmen see reporting as a pathway to recovery and restoring trust in our military,” said Timothy Hoyt, acting director for the Office of Force Resiliency. “The academies have taken steps in the right direction, and we must sustain these efforts to prepare our next generation of leaders to maneuver and win in our complex threat environment."
The DOD attributes the decrease in estimated sexual assaults to an overhaul in the academies’ training environment and efforts to help students avoid “risky behavior,” such as binge drinking. Both initiatives began in 2022 after a spike in reported sexual assaults across the academies during the post-pandemic return to campuses.
As part of those efforts, some academies moved away from traditional, hierarchical class-year systems and are instead weaving leadership development and character-building exercises throughout the entire curriculum. The DOD says this has allowed for a greater amount of trust between students and leadership.
"What this data tells us is that this is a difficult problem to solve, but it is not an impossible problem to solve," said Beth Foster, executive director for the Office of Force Resiliency in a press release. "If we continue to institutionalize the work underway and sustain our focus and commitment, we can continue to drive down the prevalence of sexual assault at our academies."
The 2023-2024 Annual Report on Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence at the Military Service Academies shows students did generally trust their leadership to protect them more than they did the previous year, but that female students remain much less trusting than their male counterparts.
Of the 126 students who did report their assaults last school year, just 10 chose to seek military justice against their alleged perpetrator. This may be due in part to persistent associations with retaliation across the academies. That’s something the DOD is trying to change.
“Continued efforts to improve trust in military leadership may aid in a larger proportion of cadets and midshipmen viewing sexual assault reporting as beneficial and helpful,” the 2023-2024 report reads.
Women continue to be more affected by sexual assault than men at the academies. Meanwhile, sexual minorities, or those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or marked “I use a different term” in the survey, were significantly more likely to experience unwanted sexual contact than their heterosexual peers.
The report does not include any specific information about transgender people, who generally face higher rates of sexual violence than others. In light of President Donald Trump’s efforts to ban trans people from serving in the military, that data may not be collected or made public anytime soon.
How the United States Air Force Academy is responding
In line with a larger effort initiated by the DOD to reduce sexual assaults at military Academies, the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs recently kicked off its Let’s Be Clear Campaign. It aims to support reporting of sexual assault and freedom from retaliation.
In the most recent DOD report, the Academy said the campaign boosted education among cadets of support services, saw the addition of victim advocates to cadet dormitories, increased peer-to-peer education through the USAF Teal Ropes Program and ensured access and knowledge to the United States Air Force CATCH program. It also helped to reduce the barriers to reporting sexual assault built into old policies.
Following those implementations, the USAF Academy did see a drop in sexual assaults, falling from 22.3 percent of women in the 2022-2023 school year to 13.4 percent in the 2023-2024 school year. The percentage of men fell from 4.3 percent to 2.9 percent.
The USAF Academy saw the largest decline in sexual assaults among its male students across all three Academies but was outpaced slightly by the Naval Academy in the reduction seen among female students.
Editor's Note: This story was updated to include a statement from USAFA.
