I Graduated from Cal Maritime, and Every Day I Live With the Regret that I Didn’t Do More to Help Change Things. These Are a Few of the Troubling Stories I Remember.

*This account was submitted to MLAA by the author, a graduate of the California Maritime Academy.*

I was a student at Cal Maritime in the late 2010’s, and after reading some of the stories from former students who have come forward, I would just like to share a few snippets of things that happened while I was there. As a man who was in student leadership, I was blissfully unaware of the extent of the problems, and every day I live with the regret that I did not do more to help change things.

The first incident happened during my sophomore year. There was a freshman who transferred to CMA who was found to have repeatedly gone to female dorms and tried to gain access by checking to see if the doors were unlocked and finding out what the girls’ schedules were. Because this student was a transfer, he ended up in classes with an older cohort who were aware of his activities.

After he had been at the school about 1.5 semesters, the student leadership were able to gather information that at least 10 different freshmen women had reported him to the Title-IX Coordinator. He gained the nickname “Title-IX Kid,” which is something I was also guilty of calling him. 

One of the victims who reported him was told by the Title-IX department that “until he sexually assaults someone, we can’t do more than issue him verbal warnings.” His attitude and behavior went unchecked until one day someone cut the brakes on his bicycle, which caused him to slam into the ship’s gate at full speed. 

His parents then pulled him out of school over fears for his safety at CMA. Title-IX complaints never went anywhere while that Title-IX Coordinator was there.

A second story occurred during my senior year. There was an ROTC student who made women uncomfortable. He would text them explicit messages at night, and he would show up to their dorm rooms drunk, knocking on their doors. After several complaints to the Title-IX department went nowhere, several students wrote a formal complaint to the Commandant's office because the student was a member of the student leadership. 

Several of my friends were on the Cadet Disciplinary Board for his hearing, and they were absolutely disgusted by what came forward. The Cadet Disciplinary Board voted to remove him from his leadership position and to bar him from holding any future leadership positions at CMA. All the members of this board were seniors, and due to the nature of the case, we kept it private amongst those who already knew because we did not want to “out” the victims. 

The following year (or maybe two years later, I don’t remember), I was told that despite being found guilty by the Cadet Disciplinary Board, the abuser had been given a leadership position. Following the verdict, he appealed to the head Commandant, who he had always been in a boys club with, and because he and the Commandant were friends, the Commandant signed the waiver that allowed this abuser to serve in a position of power again. That thought sickens me.

There are countless stories about things that happened on the Cal Maritime training ship. Many of these stories involve the licensed officers the school hired to man the ship. These officers who signed up for the cruise often dropped out at the last minute, which led to CMA hiring some questionable characters. For example, one officer they hired was a CMA grad from the 90’s who owned a brothel in the Philippines. 

The school also often hired recent graduates to go on the cruises, and I heard stories about these recent grads sexually harassing the cadets. I heard stories about graduates who had been hired to serve as watch officers on the cruise who would buy alcohol for students in hopes of getting them into bed. Before my senior CMA cruise, I attended the pre-cruise faculty meeting because of my position in student leadership. The speaker specifically mentioned “no sleeping with students” and everyone then turned around to look at a certain group of faculty in the back who were all mostly recent grads. 

My last story isn’t really a CMA story. It’s from my cadet commercial cruise aboard a Matson ship, the M/V Manoa. I have a name that could potentially belong to either a male or a female, and after the crew received my name as I was preparing to join the ship, they would make sexual jokes and talk about how they hoped I was a woman. I know this because I knew the deck cadets who were on the ship before me, and they told me about this.

The first Chief Mate on that ship was a relief who had been hired on a temporary one-month basis. He didn't like to wear shirts or shoes, and he often wore a sweater that was 1/2 zipped-up instead of a shirt—exposing his chest. Almost all of his conversations were about Thailand where he spent most of his time with sex workers and drugs.

Early in the trip he approached a deck cadet on watch and asked him, “Have you ever fucked a girl while on heroin? It's the best.” That pretty much set the tone for everything related to him. This Chief Mate often offered porn to the cadets, including porn that would be illegal in the United States. He once approached me and showed me a video of him having sex with what was clearly an underage girl from overseas.

During that cruise I was repeatedly told that, as a man, I “was lucky not to be sexually harassed every day,” because they had been sexually harassed when they were cadets. Fortunately, I wasn’t sexually harassed. At least not severely.

I could go on and on with these stories, but this is getting long, and I’ll wrap it up here. Again, I wish I had done more to change things when I was a student at CMA, and I’m glad people are finally coming forward with their stories.

I Was Sexually Assaulted By Four Different Men While a Student at Cal Maritime and the School Did Nothing to Help Me. I’m Speaking Up for the Cadets Who Don’t Have a Voice.

*This account was submitted to MLAA by the author, a graduate of the California Maritime Academy*

I wish to remain anonymous, as I have suffered enough.

The recently released screenshots of group chats between the Cal Maritime corps leadership that exposed their homophobic views may be surprising to some. But for myself and other LGBTQ+ cadets at Cal Maritime, those attitudes are something we have been aware of since Day 1.

When I arrived at Cal Maritime, I was fully out of the closet. When I decided to attend, I knew the school was not a bastion of progressivism, but I had always been secure with who I was, life had always been an uphill battle, and I figured Cal Maritime would just be another hill to climb.

But my journey through Cal Maritime was much more difficult than I ever imagined. And while I persevered and managed to graduate, I now realize that no one should ever have to struggle uphill because of their sexuality. 

During the four years I spent at Cal Maritime, I was sexually assaulted by four different men. After each of those assaults, I reported the perpetrator to the school and lodged a formal complaint. No action was ever taken against any of these students.

Three of the men who assaulted me were upperclassmen. The small community at Cal Maritime and the forced environment and forced interactions made living on the same campus with these men very difficult. But one of the men who assaulted me was my classmate, and he was in my division. That meant I had to attend classes with this person, had to work on group projects with him, and attend social functions and training cruises with him. The housing arrangements at Cal Maritime ensured that I had to live through the trauma of what he did to me every day.

I suffered from PTSD because of all these situations, and the symptoms almost prevented me from being able to graduate from the school. Many times I found myself questioning if following my dream of becoming a professional mariner was worth more to me than the cost of having to relive the memories of being sexually assaulted by four different men.

When the school did nothing to help me, I went to friends. Because Cal Maritime is a mostly heterosexual male school, most of my friends were straight men who accepted me, but they were uncomfortable with any “gay talk.” Those friends with whom I felt comfortable disclosing what had happened to me were also friends with the assailants, and they chose to not believe me. It was easier for them to just pretend like nothing had happened. After talking about being assaulted, I was shunned from groups and social events for trying to start “drama” or “separate groups”.

The one hope I did find through all of this was the faculty at Cal Maritime. We have some really great professors at Cal, and if anyone reading this is in a similar situation, there is so much support for you from certain members of the faculty.

There were also a few faculty members who weren’t so great. I had teachers who made gay jokes, racist jokes, and sexist jokes. And all in front of their students with no regard to our back stories or who we were.

I’m so happy people are finally coming forward with their stories, because I truly hope that future generations of students at Cal Maritime will live under better circumstances than I did. 

The lack of basic human decency at the school and in the maritime industry goes beyond sex, race, religion, or sexual identity. We need to be better. We need to create a better environment for the next generation of seafarers.

I am telling my story so that others may find the support they need—the support that wasn’t there for me. And I’m speaking up for all the cadets who don’t have a voice.

Cadets like me.

I Was Raped on a Cal Maritime Training Cruise. I’m Shaking as I Write This.

*This account was submitted to MLAA through our website’s anonymous contact form by the author, who claims to be a former student at the California Maritime Academy. MLAA does not know the author’s identity.*

I was raped on a Cal Maritime training cruise. I’m shaking as I write this, because I’ve never told anyone about what happened to me.

Out of fear of people connecting the dots and figuring out who I am, I’m not going to share detailed information about the assault or when it occurred. But we were on liberty in port on a training cruise, I got drunk, and I trusted that this person would take care of me. Instead, they got me alone and choked me as I tried to say “no.” 

I’m not the first person from Cal Maritime with a similar story from liberty in port, or from the training ship. Unfortunately, after this incident I decided to never sail again. I decided I wanted to work in a place where I could protect myself, and I wanted to get out of an industry that has such a toxic drinking culture. Since my assault, I have never touched alcohol again for fear of not being able to protect myself.

I never reported my assault to Cal Maritime for a number of reasons. Prior to the incident, and all throughout my time at CMA, I heard women and men whisper about what had happened to them, or to others, at the Rugby House. I heard them whisper about inappropriate things a professor said to them, and about terrible things that had happened to them in the dorms or on the training ship. 

But what was worse than these whispers was the talk of how they would be victim-blamed by CMA’s Title-IX coordinator when they came forward. They would be told by the school that what happened to them was probably their own fault, and that if they hadn’t been drinking it probably wouldn’t have happened. Or they would confide in a corps staff member about what happened to them, and instead of being helped, they would receive demerits because they admitted they were drinking or admitted they came back to campus drunk. This is why I never reported it. I knew the school wouldn’t help me if I came forward. I knew coming forward would only hurt me.

I feel very guilty that the person who assaulted me will never face consequences for what they did to me. I feel guilty that there will be one more bad person still walking around the industry, and no one will have any idea that they did anything wrong.  I’ve kept tabs on this person to make sure I never see them again, and I’m doing my best to move on.

I’ve blamed myself for what happened to me for a long time. But recently, after reading countless stories on this website, I’ve started to forgive myself for what happened to me, and for how I treated myself all these years. I am able to write this now because Midshipman-X came forward, and because, most recently, a favorite professor of mine from CMA came forward.

To all the brave humans who have come forward: I applaud you, I hear you, I respect you, and I thank you for giving me the courage to write about what happened to me.

I’m very sorry I’m not brave enough to do more.

California Maritime Professor: I was sexually assaulted aboard a fishing boat in Alaska, then again as a cadet on commercial cruise. I’ve remained silent all these years, but now I’m speaking out.

*This account was submitted to MLAA by Elizabeth C. McNie, Ph.D., an Associate Professor at the California Maritime Academy. It was first published on gcaptain.com*

I don’t know Midshipman X, but I am floored by the courage it took for her to come forward, tell her story, and seek justice. Too few of us come forward. I was one who didn’t.  

Saying publicly that you were raped, assaulted, or harassed is fraught with risk. Midshipman X is already being blamed for the loss of the sea year at Kings Point and for affecting the professional preparation of soon-to-be officers. To be clear, loss of the sea year, and possible suspension of cadet shipping at the state academies, is the fault of both the industry and academies, who failed to adequately address these problems earlier. 

When women, and men too, come forward with allegations of harassment, assault, or rape, they can have their integrity, professionalism, competence, body, and previous romantic experiences scrutinized as if someone has to be perfect in every way before qualifying for the right to seek justice. Many women don’t trust that the system designed to manage complaints – or worse – has their best interest in mind. Additionally, women are often not taken seriously. We’re told ‘it’ was our own fault because we were too flirty, too drunk, too weak, or that the clothes on our back were too suggestive. We had it coming. You know the adage: A ship is no place for a woman. 

I was working in the Alaskan fishing industry in the 1980s when I was raped aboard a boat. Then, several years later, when I was a cadet on commercial cruise, I was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a ‘trusted’ ship vendor. I blamed myself for what happened rather than acknowledge the grit I had for being able to return to work later that day.

Working at sea appealed to me because I wanted to be a vital member of a dynamic, high functioning crew – to be a shipmate. I know these values resonate with many. On some level, I believed that if I was ‘one of the guys’ I could inoculate myself from potential harm. I now know that I will never be one of the guys, that I never was. Now I understand that being a woman means that I bring unique assets to every job, and that those assets should be leveraged and appreciated and not be hidden. But that’s what I know today, and I’m an older and wiser woman. I’m not a young seafarer about to embark on commercial cruise. 

After I was attacked so many years ago, I kept my traumas secret, hoping that through hard work, and increasing numbers of women in the industry, conditions would get better. I truly believed they would. And in some ways, they have. For every ‘toxic’ shipmate, there are dozens of fantastic shipmates – allies, mentors, and leaders – who are part of the solution, not part of the problem. I value those professional relationships. 

But before we can make changes to shipboard culture, academies, and industry, we need to acknowledge that sexual harassment, assault, and rape is a problem more widespread than it appears. For every Midshipman X, there may be dozens of seafarers who remain silent, as I did, in the face of such trauma. We need to recognize that cases such as hers are not isolated incidents but problems endemic to the industry. 

I work at an academy and I love teaching passionate, committed, and focused young adults who love the sea as much as I do. They deserve to have a safe and professional experience during their sea year or commercial cruise. Everyone deserves it, regardless of gender or age, seasoned mariner or cadet. 

This means allocating resources to recruit more women, and other underrepresented students. It means putting money behind better training. It means filling more boardrooms with women – women who’ve sailed – and hiring more female professors at academies. It means developing more robust mentoring programs for young seafarers, both women and men. It means taking actions and not just studying the problem to death. It means listening to many young women who are frustrated, and angry, and tired of being marginalized at best, and assaulted at worst. And it means acknowledging that every time we try to address these problems, countless women seafarers are re-traumatized and still unable to speak their truth. 

I try to instill in my students a belief in doing the right thing, a knowledge that integrity is about what you do when people are not looking. A belief in kindness and in being a good shipmate. And truly, I believe our students are cut from a different cloth and capable of great things. We owe it to the next generation of seafarers to get it right this time, because so far, our efforts to protect our women seafarers from unimaginable trauma is falling short.

As a Female Cadet I Worked on Ro-Ro’s, Cruise Ships and Container Ships. The Cargo Ships Were Fine, But the Cruise Ships Were a Nightmare. Eventually, I Quit Sailing.

I’m from Europe. Going to sea runs in my family, and I ended up going to a maritime academy to become a licensed deck officer. My first ship was a Ro-Ro, and it was fine. I was the only woman aboard the ship, but the crew were for the most part respectful and I didn’t have any problems.

After a few months aboard the Ro-Ro I was able to get a spot aboard a cruise ship through some family connections, and I was very excited about the opportunity. It was a big international cruise line, and it seemed like a dream job. But the experience turned out to be much different than what I expected.

As soon as I joined the first cruise ship, a European Chief Officer (a man) began harassing me and subjecting me to mental abuse. He was incredibly rude, and would say terrible things to me all the time. From the first day, he began trying to ostracize me from everyone else on the crew and make me feel isolated. He would make up rules for me, like telling me that I was not allowed to speak that day, or telling me that I was not allowed to eat lunch on another day. He tried to isolate me from everyone except the bridge officers, and when he would allow me to eat, he would only allow me to eat my meals with the other bridge officers. He also tried to prevent me from speaking with anyone else on the ship. 

He often sat in his office monitoring security cameras for no reason other than to stalk me and others, and when he couldn’t figure out exactly where I was at any given time, he would send people to find me. This man wanted to control my entire life. We had electronic ID cards that we had to use to leave the ship and then use to re-board the vessel, and these comings and goings were all kept in an electronic log that he could access.

This Chief Officer would always check the log to learn who I was leaving the ship with, and who I was hanging out with. I was given a company cell phone, but he had access to my call log and would check all of my calls to see who I was speaking with. He also wanted to know everything about my romantic life aboard the ship and whether or not I was having sex with anyone. He wanted to know about everyone’s sex life. 

He was an extremely creepy guy, and he would sometimes get angry and throw things at me. I put up with his insanity and abuse for as long as I could, but eventually it became too much to deal with. Even though I was afraid that reporting him would negatively impact my career with the company, I decided to report him to the ship’s Human Relations officer by writing a letter. I explained all of the things he was doing to me, and after I wrote the letter to HR, I went to speak to the Captain about the situation. The Captain told me that he did not believe me, and he told me that I should keep quiet about it.

The next day I received a call on my cell phone from a personnel director in the company’s main office. This man was the personnel director for all deck and engine officers, and someone every officer in the company was afraid of. On the phone he was extremely rude, and he told me point-blank to “shut up” about the situation. He also told me that if I continued to talk about the harassment and abuse I was receiving from the Chief Officer, I would be fired. Of course this terrified me. I was only 20 years old and it seemed like my entire career was threatened. 

Two days later someone from the office arrived at the ship and came aboard. The pretext for his visit was an “inspection,” but the real reason he came to the ship was to tell me in person to shut up about what the Chief Officer was doing and to further terrify me, which he did. This man was a former cruise ship Captain and about 60 years old. Everyone knew who he was, and knew that he had been charged with using and smuggling cocaine while working for a different company earlier in his career. He was so threatening that while he was talking to me I could feel my body going from hot to cold, hot to cold, and I was so scared that I actually felt like I was passing out. 

The next day I suddenly received orders that I was being sent to a different cruise ship, and they flew me out that night. I’d spent about 3 months on that ship before being sent to the next one. Nothing happened to the Chief Officer I reported, and a few weeks later I learned from some of my former shipmates that he actually received a promotion.

The 2nd cruise ship was fine, and I didn’t have any problems. I actually had a good time on that ship, and after a couple months I was flown home to Europe to spend about 2 months with my family. While I was home I didn’t tell anyone about what had happened, not even my family. I just didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to scare anyone, I guess.

After two months at home, the cruise ship line flew me to meet my 3rd cruise ship on a four-month contract as a deck cadet. I met the ship in Mexico and almost immediately began having problems. This time the problem was a male Staff Captain—another European. The man had no life, and he spent all day watching security cameras and sending security guards around the ship to see what we were doing. He had a peep hole in his door and he would stand in his office just watching the hallway to see who was coming and going, because he had nothing better to do. It was like we were under constant surveillance. He would constantly check our bank cards to see when we were buying alcohol or internet access on the ship, and he would tell us he was watching everything we were doing.

This psychotic Staff Captain was harassing most of the junior deck and engine officers, including a male engine cadet who was 20 years old and even an electrician who was about 30 years old. There was an awful culture of harassment on the ship, and it seemed like everyone was harassing everyone else who was junior to them.

This Staff Captain would not even allow me to go ashore, and I was on the ship two months before I first got off that ship. That’s when he told me to go to the grocery store with a list of things to buy him, and then I had to immediately return to the vessel. I was ashore for about one hour. He just wanted to make my life miserable. 

On that ship I stood watch with a 2nd Officer and a 3rd Officer who was on his first contract. The 2nd Officer was in charge of the watch, but he would sleep 2 to 3 hours of almost every 4-hour watch, and he was not doing well psychologically. He would close himself into his cabin for long periods of time, and he would cut himself. The cuts weren’t easily visible, but I saw them under his uniform on several occasions. Everyone who works for that company is required to take a psychological exam every two years, but nobody really does it. They just pay a doctor to sign off on it. 

The 2nd Officer had me doing all of his logbook entries, even though he was supposed to do them, and one day the 2nd Officer didn’t sign out of the logbook and the Captain became angry. The 2nd Officer then made up a bizarre story about how the situation was all my fault because I was violent and disorganized, and that led to me getting a “warning” from the Staff Captain. Because I made a report of abuse and harassment on the first ship, the Staff Captain told me that I now had two warnings with the company, and that if I received a third warning I would be fired. It was ridiculous, but the point was to make me live even further in fear. And it worked. 

The culture of that company was completely toxic and I saw and heard about truly horrifying things. There were all kinds of fights on the ships, people getting stabbed, hit in the head—all different kinds of violence. On my 2nd cruise ship, I became friends with one of the nurses. She told me all kinds of awful stories. She told me that a few years earlier, she was onboard another one of the company’s cruise ships when a dancer was found dead in the cabin of one of the ship’s engineers. The dancer and engineer had been in a romantic relationship. Earlier that night people heard them yelling in his room, and then later the engineer reported that he found her dead by suicide inside his cabin.

The nurse went to the cabin with the ship’s doctor and saw the body. She said the dancer was sitting on the floor with a kind of noose around her neck that was hanging from the door handle. She said it was obvious that it would have been impossible for her to hang herself from that position, sitting on the floor. But the doctor was told by the company to call it a suicide, and he wrote out an official report of suicide, even though everyone knew the engineer had killed her by choking her to death. She said she asked the doctor if that had bothered him, and he said he didn’t care. The doctor said that was just the way things were done. That engineer is still working for the company. 

That nurse told me about crewmembers who would have psychotic breaks from all the stress they were under, or possibly from being drugged. Once, she was called to the cabin of a 2nd Officer. She found the man completely naked, and he had no idea where he was or what had happened to him. She told me about a similar incident where a deck officer was found wandering the hallway of the ship completely naked with some kind of unexplained amnesia.

Several people told me about a situation where a Captain was married, but was dating one of the crewmembers. When the Captain’s wife came to visit the ship, he had his girlfriend locked in the ship’s jail for almost a week until his wife departed. I heard countless stories like these. And from talking to a lot of young people who have worked for that company, I would estimate that 80% of people experience things similar to what I experienced.

After three brutal months on that ship, I returned home to Europe for a break. When they sent me an email to return for my fourth trip to finish my cadet sea time, I told them I wasn’t coming back. They just said, “ok.” Nothing else. 

I finished out my cadet sea time on a big containership that sailed all over the world. I was the only woman, but the people were completely normal and I didn’t have any problems. But one of my shipmates told me he had recently been on a ship where a Filipino seaman killed two other Filipino seamen and threw their bodies overboard wrapped in shower curtains.

After that ship I took my license exams and came back to work for that company as a 3rd Mate. The contracts were long: 6 to 8 months at a time, and I grew weary of such long stretches away from home. When the pandemic started I decided to quit sailing and find other ways to make money.

I don’t miss it. 

Statement from Midshipman-X: “Suspending Sea Year will not fix the maritime industry’s toxic culture, and we should not surrender the ships of the U.S. Merchant Marine to sexual predators.”

To: The Kings Point Community

From: Midshipman-X

Re: Opposition to Sea Year Suspension

03 November 2021

Kings Point Community,

A little more than a month ago I wrote and published an account of the sexual assault that I experienced aboard a commercial vessel during Sea Year. I was only 19 years old when I was assaulted by a man who held tremendous power over my life, and I’m not much older now. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I always try to hold my head high and not allow things to get to me, but what happened to me on that ship BROKE ME. I experienced so much shame for such a long time after that happened to me, and because I got drunk, I almost felt like I deserved to have it happen.

I didn’t report the assault because I was too embarrassed and afraid to report it, and because I didn’t think anyone would believe me, because “nobody ever believes the drunk girl.” Being taken advantage of like that made me completely feel weak and hopeless, and I spent years trying to recover from the trauma. Eventually I realized that what happened to me wasn’t my fault, and that I have nothing to be embarrassed about. Now, I will always continue to hold my head high.

When I returned to the Academy and became a Victim’s Advocate, I was shocked to learn how many other women at the Academy had endured similar experiences during their time at sea. Two years after my assault, I was finally ready to tell my story, and I shared my story publicly in order to show others that they weren't alone, and to hopefully create some positive change.

But the huge amount of attention my story has received was not something I ever anticipated. While it has been rewarding to hear the conversations around real change that have been happening in the wake of my story, the past month has been a very difficult experience for me. And the pressure and scrutiny I have been experiencing was dramatically increased by the recent announcement that Sea Year will be suspended for the foreseeable future. 

It was never my goal to see Sea Year suspended, and I want to make it clear to the entire Kings Point Community that I strongly disagree with the decision to suspend the Sea Year program. Shipping out on commercial vessels as a cadet is an invaluable experience, and Sea Year is essential to the Academy’s mission of producing the next generation of leaders for our vital industry. While I strongly believe that major changes are needed to make the maritime industry safe for cadets and other mariners, I do not believe that shutting down the Sea Year program will do anything to fix the toxic culture of unpunished sexual harassment and sexual assault that plagues the U.S. maritime industry.

I also do not believe that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD), and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, with their powers combined, have the ability to fix the problems that make the maritime industry unsafe for cadets and other mariners. And so it does not make sense to me that we would shut down the Sea Year program while we wait for a public plan from the DOT that we know will not solve the problems. We have already gone down that road, and if anything were accomplished by the first Sea Year suspension, it was only that the problems grew worse.

In my opinion, we must face this issue squarely and honestly. With respect to the experience of cadets at sea, the only things that the Academy can do are take reports of harassment and assault seriously, make serious efforts to help students hold perpetrators accountable through the criminal justice system, and provide support for victims. And the Academy must make major changes to its reporting policies so that cadets are empowered to report any and all incidents that occur at sea without any fear of retribution, and without any fear of not being believed.

But the Academy (and DOT/MARAD), and have zero control over what happens at sea. These entities have no control over who is allowed to work on these vessels, or over whether or not perpetrators are ultimately held accountable for their actions and removed from the industry. We all know there are people in this industry who have been reported for very serious forms of sexual harassment and sexual assault, and who were kicked off their ships or fired by their companies, but then allowed to remain members of their labor unions and to simply join another ship. We know there are people in this industry who have been credibly accused of rape, only to suffer zero consequences, or even serious investigation of their actions.

This lack of real legal accountability for sexual predators in the maritime industry, and the almost total absence of regulatory oversight on this issue, has perpetuated an endless cycle of harassment and abuse in this industry, and has further fueled the maritime industry’s toxic culture. But again, it’s not a problem the DOT/MARAD/USMMA can do anything to solve. What we need is for the U.S. Coast Guard to become deeply involved in this issue. 

Sexual misconduct in the maritime industry, specifically the issue of sexual assault, must be treated as a major safety issue by the Coast Guard. If the Coast Guard were to treat sexual assault as seriously as it treats the issue of oil pollution, I believe we would see an overnight change in the culture of the maritime industry and a dramatic reduction in sexual harassment and sexual assault at sea. The U.S. Coast Guard, not DOT/MARAD/USMMA, is the only agency that can solve these problems, and so I call on the Kings Point Community to use their collective power to push for the Coast Guard to take dramatic and immediate action on this critical safety issue.

When we ship out as cadets for the first time, we enter the maritime industry. It's the same industry that is waiting for us a few years later when we graduate from the Academy, and it is filled with the exact same problems and the same problematic people. If every cadet is removed from the industry, then yes, cadets won't be assaulted on ships. But other mariners will still be assaulted, recent graduates of the Academy will still be assaulted, and nothing will have changed. 

As Kings Pointers, we should not surrender the ships of the U.S. merchant marine to sexual predators. We should instead be focused on ruthlessly eliminating these predators, and the people and groups who enable and defend them, from the maritime industry forever. We don’t need to shut down the Sea Year program to embark upon that mission.

I ask you all to deeply consider what I have written here, and know that I am not only speaking for myself, but for the young generation of mariners at the Academy and in our industry. 

Very Respectfully,

Midshipman-X

USMMA Class of 2022

I’m a Current USMMA Student & I was Raped During Sea Year. My Message To My Fellow Cadets Is This: We Must Report These Predators, Remove Them From The Industry, & Make Them Fear The Victims

*This account was submitted to MLAA through our website’s anonymous contact form by the author, who claims to be a current student at the U.S. Merchant Merchant Marine Academy. MLAA does not know the author’s identity.*

I am a female engineering student currently enrolled at the United States Merchant Marine Academy, and I wish to remain anonymous. 

During the time I spent at sea as an engine cadet, I had widely varying experiences on the ships I sailed aboard. During my first sailing I went out as a solo engine cadet, meaning I was shipping without a sea partner. For the most part my crew was very respectful and they kept their distance. I never once faced sexual assault on that ship, and I actually remain in contact with many of my former crewmembers, who seem to have a positive view on my potential as an engineer in the industry. The worst thing that happened on that ship was when a 3rd Engineer told me he thought I “was better fit to work in the porn industry than the maritime industry,” which was devastating to hear as he told me this on his last day and I did not know that he really viewed me that way. 

I thought I had done good work, and I had been told many times by my 1st Engineer, who was a hawsepiper and has been sailing for longer than I’ve been alive, that I was performing better than any first-sailing engine cadets he had ever worked with. Later, that 3rd Engineer told me he had simply been joking when he basically told me that I was not meant to sail. I don’t know if he made that comment because I was a female, or because he really thought I’d make a bad engineer, or because he found me to have the “qualities” of a porn star. But that comment has stuck with me as motivation to prove him wrong. 

And while I’ve used his porn star comment to motivate me to stick with my goal of becoming a professional marine engineer, his comment has also pushed me to avoid ever being viewed that way by my coworkers again. Afterwards, I questioned whether it had something to do with the way I dressed. 

On that ship I worked in women’s boot cut utility jeans and old t-shirts that were a little oversized for my small frame. During a coffee break early in my first sailing, someone commented that they had never seen an engineer wear such tight pants (I can’t remember who said it). I brushed off that comment and simply told them that the pants were comfortable to work in and that they got the job done. But looking back, I wondered if my tight work pants were the reason the 3rd Engineer told me I should be a porn star.

I am very average overall, and quite frankly below average in my chest area, so I never thought that wearing pants that I didn’t need to zip tie to my waist to keep from falling down and size medium Gildan t-shirts on my size small frame would be too much of the female form to keep these grown men from making comments about my body.

I felt like one of the guys almost the entire time I was on that first ship. I was respected as a crew member and a coworker and, aside from the comment from the 3rd Engineer, I knew by the end of the trip that I definitely wanted to pursue a sailing career when I graduated from Kings Point.  

I loved the work, and loved getting dirty while solving the puzzles that the engine room has to offer and the feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day. While I had been warned before going out to sea for the first time that I needed to be cautious working with so many “sexually deprived” men, when I came back to the Academy after my first sailing I honestly felt that I had been misled into believing that male sailors were going to be attacking me and that I would struggle to exist as a female out there.

But then I went out on my second sailing as an engine cadet. Before meeting the next ship, I bought all new work clothes. I bought men’s utility pants with the smallest waist size I could find, but the pants were still so big on me that I looked like one of those before/after weight-loss ads where they put on their old pants to show how much weight they’ve lost.

The pants were uncomfortable, and even with a belt I had to constantly pull them up because the lower crotch in the pants would literally restrict my ability to walk. But the “porn star” comment and the “tight pants” comment from my first ship had affected me to the point that I was willing to sacrifice comfort in an effort to cover up any semblance of my female shape. 

I got on the 2nd ship roughly a week before my sea partner (a female deck cadet), and right off the bat I could tell things were very different from my first ship. The members of the engine department were all slightly older than the men on the first ship, and they all seemed to know each other very well. This was an American Maritime Officers (AMO)-crewed ship, so all of the engine officers that I worked with were permanent employees and had been sailing together for quite some time. 

At that time I had a lot of issues going on at home, and some pretty extreme things happened in my life leading up to me going out to sea, so I tried to keep mostly to myself because I did not want to talk about my life with strangers. But the engineers asked me all kinds of questions about myself and my life, and I answered the ones I felt comfortable with. We had many interesting coffee breaks discussing politics and world issues and the places we had been. On that ship I worked directly with the 3rd Engineer. He joined the ship the same day I did, but was on his second rotation on the ship. 

He was very smart and we worked together well when it came to maintenance and large jobs. He taught me a lot. I learned a lot about his life, and found out he had gotten engaged right before getting on the ship. And he told me he would be getting off early to get married. I genuinely thought he was a cool guy. He’d done a lot before going to a maritime school and quite frankly his fiancé was gorgeous. 

We completed an ocean crossing and the very first port we tied up in I went out with my Sea Partner, a young A.B. that she had befriended, and the 3rd Engineer. The four of us went out and started the night at a bar. As I mentioned, I had been going through a lot (“more material for my future therapy sessions,” as I referred to it) and I had been not-so-healthily dealing with those issues by way of drinking alcohol. At the bar I drank a few beers with my shipmates, and then the A.B. left to go sober-up before returning to the ship for watch. 

That left me, my Sea Partner, and my 3rd Engineer. We all probably had one or two more rounds of beer before we decided to go find a new bar. While paying for the last round (my Sea Partner and I had paid for a few of the rounds), the 3rd ordered a round of tequila shots. I was tipsy enough at this point that I forgot my personal rule of not mixing beer and liquor and gladly took the shot. We then made our way to the next bar suggested by the bartender. 

This bar was awesome, with a fake grass ceiling, carved rock walls, blasting music, and loads of people. While we pushed our way to the bar to order drinks, I started chatting with a woman who looked about my age, and she made drink suggestions. She told me she loved my American accent, and then added me on social media. When the bartender finally made his way to us, we decided on melon vodka shots—something I will never drink again. 

The woman I was chatting with ordered right next to us and she ordered 2 rounds of shots for her group of friends, me and my sea partner, and the 3rd Engineer. We all took these shots together, back-to-back, and then we joined them at their table outside. That is the point I can put my finger on and say I started to blackout. From that point on, I have only small and very blurry blips of memory from that night. One of the things I remember is being woken up at that table outside, because apparently I had passed-out, and they had woken me up to take another shot of whatever they had ordered. Then, blank. 

The next thing I can remember I was at a pizza parlor with my head on the table. Blank. In a bathroom puking. Blank. In the port surrounded by the warehouses on the walk back to the ship rubbing my sea partner’s back as she puked. Blank. Laying on the floor of the cargo deck with my sea partner curled up beside me and everyone laughing (we had been bunkering when I left and still were bunkering, and I remember seeing the surveyor laughing at me on the ground). Blank. 

Then I remember standing in the adjoining bathroom that my Sea Partner and I shared and asking her if she had been rubbing my thigh in the cab. Blank. Hearing my phone ping while I was asleep in bed and reading a text from the 3rd Engineer to which I responded I was dying of thirst (my naïve self forgot to fill my water bottle and leave it beside my bed before I left). Blank. Then seeing the 3rd standing in front of me handing me an open Gatorade bottle. Everything I remember is like a very foggy dream with a strobe light—it’s all choppy and there are lots of blanks. 

In my room I can remember sitting up against the wall so I could drink the Gatorade and telling myself not to gulp it or I might puke again while spilling some on myself. I remember my 3rd looking out of my window and standing there for what felt like forever just staring out through the glass. Looking back, I feel like I can guess what he was thinking, especially since blocking the view outside my window was a fan house wall painted white. It wasn’t a view to stand there and take in. I don’t remember laying back down but, I do remember feeling him lay down in my bed behind me. Then I remember his arm around me, but I don’t remember how it got there. From there the only memory I have is of the overbearing smell of cigarettes. He had been chain-smoking while we drank at the bars. 

The next morning, I woke up late for work and was still drunk. I saw the nearly empty Gatorade bottle on the back of my bed, but couldn’t figure out where it came from. I just simply stumbled around as I got dressed and made my way down to the engine room to clean scav air boxes. It was hell. I was so hungover and felt like absolute shit. I didn’t see my 3rd Engineer until I was done cleaning the scav boxes, and he avoided me, but I wasn’t sure why. After I finished cleaning up from the scav boxes I was knocked off from work and went back to my room. While I was showering, the Gatorade bottle popped back up in my mind. I checked my phone for the first time that day and my messages were open to the texts with the 3rd. I didn’t remember much of the night before, and to be completely honest I still don’t remember much at all, but I remembered even less at that point. 

Reading the texts, I figured out that the 3rd brought me the Gatorade, and then the memory of him in my bed behind me hit me like a smack in the face. I told myself there was no way. It had to have been a weird dream. He was engaged. I was in a serious relationship for two years at that point.  There was no way I would ever cheat on my boyfriend, and no way I would ever sleep with an engaged man. And I didn’t think there was any way that he would want to sleep with me. I’m nowhere near as attractive as his fiancé. Absolutely no way, I told myself. It all had to have been a drunk dream. 

It wasn’t until two days later that the reality of what happened was forced on me. After the 15:00 coffee break, I got told to go assist the 3rd Engineer with prepping the slops manifold. We were both working in total silence, unbolting the manifold cover, and putting anti-seize on the bolts. It was so uncomfortably quiet until he asked me a question: “Are you on birth control?” he asked. 

That was the first thing he had said to me since that night, and the weight of what that question meant hit me hard. I stood there with my mouth open while the thoughts raced through my mind. Birth control? Why would he want to know that? Does that mean it wasn’t a snippet from a dream? It was real? Birth control...he would only ask that if he had sex with me.

I told him I was. Thank God, I was. And then we went back to working in silence. 

I wanted to cry. I wanted to curl up in my bed and cry. I kept running through what I did remember and trying to piece together anything that would tell me it wasn’t true. But with his question, I knew what had happened. A man roughly ten years my senior, a mentor in my work, an engaged man, a drinking buddy, someone I hadn’t felt the need to be cautious with, came into my room bearing a Gatorade and left my room with the knowledge that he had sex with me.

I say “had sex with me” because I am still trying to distance myself from labeling it rape. But by definition, it was rape. I was so intoxicated I didn’t remember to set my alarm for the morning, let alone remember half of the night. I was in no way capable of consenting, and had I been capable, I know I would not have consented to have sex with him. I would never cheat on someone that I love, and I would never have sex with someone who I knew was in a relationship, let alone someone who was engaged and practically married at that point. 

I didn’t have sex with him. He had sex with me. He used my body for sex. If any of the numerous videos I have seen of myself drunk from that night are any indication, I can only imagine that I was simply a limp body on the bed, which just makes what he did even more disgusting to me. Who would want to have sex with a limp body? I’m not sure why I felt the need to keep his secret, but when he asked me if I had told anyone, I could tell he was terrified that I would. 

After he asked me if I was on birth control, I started to reason with myself as I tried to process what had happened, and I tried to tell myself I had not been raped. He was an attractive man, I told myself. I had been away from my boyfriend for 5 months due to Sea Year, and I must have been lonely, craving attention and physical touch. That’s why I LET him have sex with me, I told myself. But that was my biggest mistake right there. 

I took something traumatizing and tried to reason it into something that I could better handle. I couldn’t handle being raped, but I could handle hating myself for “cheating” on my boyfriend of two years. So that’s what I told my boyfriend, and we broke up over it. I could handle the idea that I was overly-needy for attention and touch, and I even made a pass at my 3rd later on, which he turned down by telling me that I was just a “drunken mistake” to him. 

When I broke up with my boyfriend, I told my sea partner what I remembered from that night. She was the only person I had told. My Sea Partner was the first person to say it out loud to me. “He raped you,” she said. I immediately started to reason with her that it wasn’t rape. I told her that if I wasn’t blackout drunk, in a relationship, and he was single, I would have consented. But the flaw in my mental Band-Aid of reasoning was that none of those qualifications were met. But my Sea Partner allowed me to keep that mindset. I don’t know if it was because she believed me, or if she thought it was better for me, but it at least allowed me to remain capable of working alongside him. 

After completing the crossing back to the United States, my Sea Partner and I met up with the 2nd and 3rd Engineer out in port, and it was clear they had already been drinking for a few hours. The 2nd Engineer had signed off the ship that day, and he was staying in a hotel for the night. 

The 4 of us went to a nearby bar/club and drank and danced. That night the 2nd Engineer began trying to get me alone with him, and he kept grabbing me by the waist where my shirt didn’t cover my stomach, pulling my hair, putting his hand on my ass, and touching me whenever he could. There was a pool at his hotel, and he tried to throw me in it. 

My Sea Partner and I went back to our hotel (we had permission to stay ashore for the night) to get some more appropriate clothes as it had gotten colder, and the 3rd and 2nd came with us. On the ride back to the 2nd’s hotel, I was sitting in the back seat in between the 2nd and the 3rd. I tried to sit by a window, but they both slid in at the same time on both sides of me. During the cab ride, my 3rd started to rub my thigh and I tried to get him to stop without making it obvious to the 2nd what was going on. With everything that happened I was sitting there protecting my rapist from getting caught by another man who had been assaulting me throughout the night. 

We got back to the 2nd’s hotel, and despite me doing my best to stay far enough away from him to keep him from touching me, the 2nd was persistent and continued to put his hands on me. Here was this man who was almost 20 years my senior, who gave me six feet of space in the engine room and excessively apologized if he ever accidentally even touched my arm for a second during a job in a tight space, but now he wouldn’t stop touching me and trying to get me alone. And he was doing it all shamelessly. He made me extremely uncomfortable with his unexpected change from very respectful, almost overly respectful at times, to touching/grabbing/poking me. It got to be too much, and I wanted away from him completely. I went to my Sea Partner and told her that it was time to go. She agreed, and we left.

He texted me the next day and asked me if I wanted to come swim in the pool at his hotel. I never answered him. My Sea Partner and I went back to the ship, and after a few more ports the 1st Engineer was relieved by the other permanent 1st Engineer. The new 1st asked me my opinion of the 2nd Engineer who had signed off, and I told him that I “thought very highly of the 2nd Engineer up until last night he was with us.” I included no details and said nothing else, but he didn’t need any additional information to get an idea of what happened. Then the 1st Engineer apologized to me and told me that there are too many men like the 2nd Engineer in this industry. 

Then the 1st told me that the skeezy 2nd Engineer had a reputation for trying to sleep with all of his female cadets on his last day. “Great,” I thought. “A serial predator. Someone that his coworkers are aware of and yet have done nothing about. Someone that waits until he is signed off from the ship so he cannot be held accountable by the company and their policies because he’s just a civilian at that point. No policy to protect the cadets applies to him at that point. Just great.”

During my time on that ship a few more things happened that were all reported directly to the Captain, but these two things, my accounts of rape and of assault, I never reported during my time on that ship. Despite being constantly surrounded by memories of what had happened during my days on that ship, like having to leave the room every time my 3rd brought up his wedding, constantly hearing both of the Engineers’ names brought up even after they had signed off the ship—despite all of that and more—I stayed on the ship and said nothing. I stayed and said nothing because I needed to get my sea days to graduate, and I needed to get my sea projects completed (an excruciating task when all I wanted to do was sleep away the wandering thoughts and hide from my traumas).

But most of all I needed to be okay. If I was working and eating and going to the gym then I had to be okay, right? If no one knew what had happened to me, then I must be just fine, right? I was so very wrong. While I kept working and learning and joking with my crew and holding myself together, I was nowhere near okay then, and I’m still not there yet. My final breaking moment when I was sailing on that ship came during my last time out in port. I went out with my Sea Partner, the second rotation 2nd Engineer, and my Chief Engineer. I had no plans to go out, but we wanted to celebrate because it was my Chief’s last night. 

The Chief was a great guy. He had a lot of great qualities as a Chief Engineer, even though it was his first trip sailing as one. The 4 of us went out and I was having a blast. I had been slipping further and further into a dark place for a while leading up to that night, but finally I was having genuine fun. I was drinking, but not excessively and we decided that we wanted to bar hop the length of the street we were on. There were a lot of bars, so we picked one and started there. I danced with my Sea Partner and laughed with my Engineers. We hit a few more bars, played pool, and listened to live bands as we went along. It was probably the happiest I had been in a long time. 

When we got to the final bar of the night, there was another live band and the energy in that place was electric. The singer was amazing and was getting the crowd involved and the next thing I knew we were up there dancing and I didn’t think it could get much better. Then I felt someone put their hand on my waist from behind, and then another hand on the other side. I didn’t want anyone touching me. I didn’t look behind me to see who it was, because I didn’t need to. It was someone taking yet another thing from me without my permission. 

It’s one thing to be touched in a packed area where everyone is dancing (mind you the kind of dancing going on here was not grinding and shaking ass—the singer was singing “Rolling on the River” and most of the bar goers looked to be early thirties), but it is a whole other thing for someone to put their hands on my waist and hold me without my permission. The singer then pulled a group of us into the space where she was performing, and we all danced with her. The hands on my waist disappeared, and I peeked behind me to see my 2nd Engineer standing there. 

When the song ended I took my Sea Partner to the bathroom and it felt like glass shattering inside me. I tried to get the words out to explain how I felt when he put his hands on my waist, and she tried to console me, but I was too close to breaking down. I tried to explain that it wasn’t him that upset me. We had become pretty close, and still are, and if everything else hadn’t been affecting me I would have actually liked it. A part of me did like it, but that was overshadowed by an oncoming panic attack. My Sea Partner told me we were going back to the ship in an Uber, and that we were going to say goodbye to the engineers so they didn’t think we got kidnapped. She said bye to them, and we headed out to the curb to wait for our ride. 

I had been holding back tears and they finally fell. I sobbed while sitting on the curb outside of a bar because someone had put their hands on my waist. I sobbed in the Uber. I sobbed in the back of the security car that took us through the port to the ship. I sobbed on the way to my room, and once the door to my room was shut my sobbing only got worse. I told my Sea Partner that I was exhausted from holding myself together all this time, exhausted from lying to myself, and exhausted from people who think they can touch me without my permission. It was at this point that I first said it out loud, that I started to accept reality. 

I said to her, “He raped me.” 

And then I started to ramble about how he raped me, but that wasn’t enough for him. He had to call me a “drunken mistake,” and then beg me to not tell anyone because of how much money he had already spent on his wedding. That’s the kind of man he is. 

The thing that keeps coming up when I think about the night I was raped is the blurry image of my 3rd Engineer standing at my window. He texted me, then came to my room with a Gatorade, then stared out that window with nothing to look at. The only thing that makes sense to me is that his mind was made up before he even texted me, before he came into my room— that he had a goal and was on a mission. 

As he stared out that window, I wonder if he was thinking about his fiancé. I wonder if he was thinking about how drunk I was, about how I was struggling to drink the Gatorade without spilling it, about how I was going in and out of consciousness right before his eyes. All I wanted was hydration and sleep, and that must have been so obvious. When he raped me, I wasn’t even conscious, and I didn’t get a choice. But he did. He was fully capable of choosing not to rape me. He was fully capable of walking out the door of my room and leaving me in my bed unviolated. But that’s not what he decided to do. And then to call me a “drunken mistake” was more of a slap in the face than anything else. 

This is my message to my fellow Kings Pointers and cadets from all other maritime academies: We cannot solve the problem of sexual assault by sticking yet another Band-Aid on it. I think the only solution is to remove these predators from the industry. And the only way we as students can do that and protect future cadets is to report these people. We have to report these creeps, these rapists, and these monsters who terrorize young adults and violate our rights as human beings so that the next cadet doesn’t have to experience it.

The Kings Point administration has put some good reporting protocols in place, and it is our job to use them. My Sea Partner and I signed off of that ship not long after my breakdown, and after that I began to consider my options moving forward. 

When we got back to the Academy, the Sea Year liaison from the SAPR office reached out to both of us and offered her services (as I said, we had made other reports on that ship to the Captain that I will not divulge here, but they were handled well by the Captain and company). When she offered her services, I took her up on it and had a meeting with her. I didn’t intend to tell her what happened, but only intended to find out what my options were and what resources I had available to me. 

Unfortunately, this was not the first nor second time I had been raped or assaulted. I never sought help for the previous attacks, and I ended up in very dark places. After the first time I was raped, I was suicidal for two years, and this time I wanted to do it differently. This time, I chose to take care of myself mentally and physically along my journey to becoming okay. 

In my meeting with the SAPR Sea Year liaison, I alluded to one aspect of what had happened, and then it all just spilled out. She heard the entire story. She is a confidential reporting source, and cannot share what I have told her with anyone. That is something I can congratulate the Academy on with their process for reporting and responding to assault, harassment, and rape. Confidential reporting sources are vital to a victim’s recovery. 

In that meeting we discussed the reporting process and the different kinds of reports I could choose from if I decided to report my rapist. We discussed different resources available to me—options on campus and private options off campus, but near the Academy. Then she asked me to think about what I wanted to do for a few days, and she informed me that I did not have to make a report if I didn’t want to.

From her, I learned that one of my options was to file a “Restricted Report.” If I filed a Restricted Report, it would be filled out by me and the SAPR liaison, and no one else would be able to read it. After filing the Report, it would be placed into a locked filing cabinet with all of the other restricted reports. But if I included the perpetrator’s name, that vital piece of information would be collected from the Report and tracked by the SAPR office.

The SAPR office keeps track of the names of people being reported (all classified), and if someone becomes a repeat offender then they can take action. For example, if the man who raped me is ever reported by another Kings Point cadet (and God I hope he never gets the opportunity to do that to anyone else ever again) then the SAPR office can see that he has been reported before. 

I also had the option of making an “Unrestricted Report,” at which point I can choose a criminal (police) investigation or an internal (company) investigation into the events. No one pays attention during the SAPR lectures we have every year. Some of us don’t pay attention because we think we will never need it, some of us don’t pay attention because the discussion of rape and assault and consent is a hard topic to sit through. And some of us don’t pay attention because we just simply don’t view it as being important. 

But I wish I understood this process better before I went out to sea, and I wish I really believed that I could have sent a message on my SAT phone and been removed from the ship without any probing from the ATRs. I wish I believed my ATR would get me out of a bad situation. And now here I am. The way out was messy, and emotionally—it sucked the life out of me. But now that I have seen the reality of how the process is supposed to work, I wish I could do it all over again. 

We have to report these predators. Whether it is Restricted Reporting, Unrestricted Reporting, or reporting to the Captain or to the DPA, we need to take our power back by showing these predators what happens when they are held accountable for their actions. I’m not supporting rushing anyone through the process of recovery by opening a police investigation right away if a victim is not ready for that. To traumatize a victim all over again when they are in an unhealthy mental state with probing questions, demanding a detailed account of everything that happened, lawyers and everything else is never okay. 

But I do encourage others to at least utilize the Restricted Reporting system. Leave a paper trail. You don’t have to divulge a single detail other than the basic facts like “What” (rape, assault, harassment, etc.), “when,” and “who?” There are a few more items that go into the report, but knowing that I can file one without reliving the entire experience gives me more confidence in the process. By leaving that paper trail, you give the school (and in turn the USCG and the DOT) a more accurate statistic to look at, because I know with every fiber of my being that the sexual assault/harassment statistics that I’ve been seeing put out by the school are absolute bullshit. 

You also give the SAPR office data to track and a means to protect future cadets. Ultimately, you also give yourself the right to choose how it is handled. The paper trail exists once you report and if you choose to do anything with it (100% up to you) having that report is a vital foundation to any investigation. I understand that we all handle these situations differently, but I am encouraging you to report. If it was something that happened your plebe year on campus and now you’re a junior, if it happened out at sea, if it was a staff member, REPORT. 

You can sign that restricted report and never think about it again, or choose an unrestricted report and seek justice. But regardless of how you choose to report, that is what we can do as students. That is the power we have, and that is how we can best contribute to breaking this perpetual system of assault we have been indoctrinated into. I understand this was a very long read, but I hope that I have been able to inform and encourage others in situations similar to mine, or even completely different situations, to take these important steps required for us to change this industry. 

Let’s make them fear the victims.

“There is no timestamp on trauma. There isn’t a formula that you can insert yourself into to get from horror to healed. Be patient. Take up space. Let your journey be the balm.”

—Dawn Serra

My Cadet Experience With a Sleazy Military Sealift Command Captain Convinced Me I Should Work on Tugs After I Graduated From Kings Point.

*This account was submitted to MLAA by a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy*

My story may not be that bad compared to others I’ve heard and read, but I think every girl who goes out to sea as a cadet has to deal with things that are completely ridiculous and unacceptable, and that was also true for me. My first sailing wasn’t bad. The Captain was an ass at first, but he lightened up over time and at the end of the trip he gave me one of the blue bound books we get at KP and he signed the inside cover saying, “You’ll go far in the industry.”

I went back to KP, then went out on my second sailing of Sea Year in the midst of the infamous “Sea Year Stand Down.” I was assigned to a certain Military Sealift Command ship because the MSC Captain specifically requested to have two female cadets added to his crew.  My female Sea Partner and I were flown to the Middle East to join the vessel. 

The day before we took the flight, my credit card was stolen, and so I had limited access to money until my card could be mailed to the Navy base in Bahrain. Luckily, my sea partner spotted me extra cash until we joined the ship. On one of the first nights aboard the ship I was talking about my credit card and money problems to my Sea Partner when the Captain overheard us, and told me to come to his office after dinner. 

When I entered his office he handed me $500 cash, and said, “just pay me back when you get your credit card, but don't tell anyone I gave you this.” Something about it just didn’t feel right, and I was on edge about taking the money. But I was literally out of money until my credit card arrived, so I took it. 

The Captain always gave off weird vibes to me and my Sea Partner, but we just ignored it and tried to get through our days. One night the deck crew went out for ice cream and the Captain tagged along. While we were eating, he mentioned that he was passionate about classic cars, which was a hobby that my dad was also into. I told the Captain that, and the Captain asked me if I wanted to see pictures of his car collection.

“Sure,” I said.

So he pulled his phone out and began swiping through pictures of his old cars, but then suddenly the car pictures ended and he began swiping through pictures of naked women posing with bongs and other smoking devices. I chuckled and told him that his camera roll had changed. He just laughed and said “this is where it gets good.”

The other crew couldn’t see this, and no one noticed. But that night I told my Sea Partner. Then, fast forward a few weeks and some officials came aboard to do an audit of the ship, and during the audit the Chief Mate noticed there was cash missing from the safe. $500 in cash, to be exact. I KNEW this was the money he had given me and told me not to tell anyone about, and I had no idea what to do and was freaking out. 

My mom then Venmoed $500 to my Sea Partner, and we took $500 out of her bank account on base, and I then immediately returned the money to the Captain. He just accepted it casually and never mentioned it again. 

After that he became even more of a creep. He began to make compliments about our bodies to me and my Sea Partner, and he would say things like “I sure wish my daughters looked like you do.” Why? It got so bad that we decided to confront the Chief Mate about the sexual harassment, which then caused an uproar on the ship, and led to an active duty Navy Captain from Bahrain conducting an investigation. 

That was not what we had expected to happen, and we were both terrified of being removed from the ship, because we needed to get our sea days.  So when confronted by the Navy Captain, we both denied that anything had happened in order to be able to stay on the ship. The Navy Captain then came back later and told me that the Navy had been investigating the Captain of our ship for other matters, and he was already on thin ice, and that sexual harassment charges would definitely get him fired.  

I was terrified of retaliation from the Captain, but figured that since we denied it to the investigator, the Captain would treat us well after that. Wrong. Even after we saved him by denying anything had happened, the Captain began to make our lives hell from then on out. When our hitch aboard the ship was almost over, we had a party at the base bar with our crew. The Captain showed up and got drunk and blatantly talked shit about us the entire time, and bragged to everyone that he was going to give us terrible performance evaluations that we would have to take back to Kings Point. 

On the day we were signing off, we went to his office to get our sea time discharge letters, but he told us that he was not going to give them to us and that our Kings Point ATR would have to call him and ask him for the letters if we wanted them to be signed. 

I went to call my ATR and was in tears talking to him. Fortunately, he had my back and we got them signed before we left. On the performance evaluation the Captain gave me terrible scores and told my ATR “she needs to smile more if she wants better scores.” When we returned to KP we both ended up telling our ATR how horrible the Captain was and I wrote out an official complaint.  But of course nothing came of it.

Later, I found out that the awful Captain was fired from Military Sealift Command for ordering parts for his personal helicopter that he kept at his house.  I don't believe in much, but I do believe he finally got his karma.

That Sea Year experience confirmed for me that I didn’t want to be underway for long periods of time on a ship. Something happens to people when they are at sea for a long time. Things tend to get sleazy. When I graduated from KP I decided to work on tugs, because the crew go home at least every month, and that seems to keep people more normal.

Things get dark on big ships, in my experience. On my first ship as a cadet, one of the only crew members that I really got along great with was a 60’ish year-old A.B. He was really nice to me. A few days after I left that ship and returned to KP with my first Sea Partner, he committed suicide in the shower inside his stateroom.

When the Chief Mate Called Me His New Cabin Boy I Thought He Was Joking. When I Woke Up To Him Masturbating Beside My Bed I Realized He Wasn’t. I’m a USMMA ‘01 Grad & I’ve Never Told This Story

* This account was submitted to MLAA anonymously through our website by the author, who claims to be a member of the USMMA class of 2001. MLAA does not know the author’s identity*

I am a man who graduated from USMMA in 2001, and I wish to remain anonymous.

My first Sea Year during my sophomore year went smoothly and I truly thought the job was a dream come true. I was 19 years old, sailing around the world, and I could really see myself sailing as a licensed 3rd Mate upon graduation.

My second sea year was different. My first assignment was on the west coast sailing on an oil tanker. I was really excited to work my way towards a tankerman PIC endorsement, because I thought it would better enable me to find a sailing job when I graduated.

But almost immediately after boarding the ship, I knew this experience was going to be different than my first sailing. Within five minutes of reaching the top of the gangway, I found myself standing in a group of crewmembers who were being addressed by the Chief Mate.

When the Chief Mate saw me he said, “Hey guys, look, here’s my new cabin boy.” I understood what he meant, but I assumed it was said in jest. 

I was assigned to work with the Chief Mate and ordered to shadow him. The harassment and assaults began immediately. It started with him coming up and slapping me from the behind, completely inappropriate greetings, and continuous sexually-driven comments. 

Some of the things I remember him saying to me were: 

“I love it when Kings Point brings me boys.”

“What happens at sea, stays at sea.”

“Your success depends on me. How hard are you willing to work for it?”

“You are the cutest one yet.” 

The harassment was endless, relentless, and it never stopped. I cannot even begin to describe what it felt like waking up and every day knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it. I think what aggravated me the most was that these comments were made in public around other crewmembers, and yet nobody cared. I felt, and was, completely alone.

On our second trip of 2 week cycles, the Chief Mate told me I could take time off after a long oil transfer. I was exhausted and needed the sleep, so I gladly went to my room. Late in the evening, I was woken by someone touching my shoulder. Startled, I turned around to see the CM pleasuring himself right next to my bed. I was in complete shock and didn’t know what to do. He then told me I should help pleasure him. I got up and ran out my room.

Outside, I didn’t know what to do, so I just decided to sleep in a common area of the ship for unlicensed crew members. So many thoughts came through my head that night. I was in the middle of the sea, the 2nd highest ranking officer on the ship was using his power against me, and I had nobody I could turn to. As I sat there, I decided I would do nothing until I got back ashore.

The next day, the Chief Mate acted like nothing had happened. But he stopped the name calling for a few days, which made me think I was going to make it through the ordeal. When we made it to the next port, I was ready to call the school for help. But to my dismay, the Chief Mate would not let me leave the ship. This was before everyone had a cell phone. 

I was completely trapped, but I had to do something, so I asked the Captain if I could switch my watch rotation off of the Chief Mate’s watch to another mate’s. I told the Captain I wanted to change watches because it would help me learn what other mates of different ranks do on the ship. I never told the Captain the real reason, because I was too ashamed. 

The Captain told me the current rotation worked best for me, and that I was to stay on watch with the Chief Mate. At this time, it had been two weeks since the Chief Mate had come into my room while I was sleeping and begun masturbating right by my face. 

For those two weeks I had been using a chair to keep my room locked and a rope for extra security measures. The anxiety and fear I was experiencing was unbearable. It is a feeling I will never forget. 

At the next port I was asked to go ashore and pick up some things for the ship. I knew that it was finally my chance to get out of that situation. When I got to the nearest pay phone, I called the academy representative at Kings Point. I didn’t tell him I was being sexually harassed, because I didn’t want others to know. Instead, I just told him I was getting badly harassed on the ship, and asked if I could be moved to another ship. He said he would work on it, but I didn’t hear anything back from him.

We went back out to sea, and within a few days of being back at sea I began to notice that nobody on the ship would talk to me. They wouldn’t speak to me at all, including the Chief Mate. That’s when I realized my complaint to my representative at the Academy must have gotten back to the ship. 

With a sigh of relief, I assumed I would be getting off at the next port.  As we approached the next port, I had all my bags packed and was ready to go. I went to the captain’s office and asked if he had heard from the Academy representative. “I have,” he replied coldly. “And you will be staying on this ship.” 

The Captain then went on to ridicule me for what it meant to be a real sailor, and he told me that I was not suited for this line of work. I felt so broken inside. 

At the next port I called my representative up again and asked him why I was not getting off the ship. His response was also cold. “Listen,” he said, “we don’t have time to deal with whiny midshipmen who don’t appreciate the opportunities given to them.”

I tried to stand up for myself with the representative, and told him the harassment I was experiencing was real and that it was very unhealthy. His response to me was “You are the problem, not the ship.”

The discussion was over. At that point I felt like I had no choice but to endure it all. It required every ounce of my inner being to get through the next 75+ days on that ship. I was treated like a complete outcast. There was no communication, no teaching, no training. The only thing that made it bearable was that the Chief Mate did stop the harassment.

But I will never forget the way he stared at me. In my mind, I felt he would have killed me if he could have gotten away with it. Through his silence and his looks looks I understood what he was saying to me: “You didn’t fall into your place. You don’t belong here.”

About 45 days later I found freedom with a new Captain and crew, and I had no issues with them. Unfortunately, at that point I was already broken down to my soul. I finished off my Sea Year like a zombie and received low evaluation scores, did poorly on my sea projects, and lost all ambition. 

I went from being a student with excellent grades, outstanding achievement in my first year and first sailing to low scores on my second year and academics that followed. At no point did the USMMA do an assessment or ask me what had occurred on the ship. The Academy did nothing and asked nothing. They didn’t want to know, and told me I was the problem. 

I take responsibility for the fact that I wasn’t forthright to the ship’s captain, USMMA representative, or anyone else. They can only help if they know what is going on, and I censored what I told them, because I was just so scared and ashamed. In my mind, it felt like I must have done something wrong.

But I wish the academy representative could have understood how desperate I was when I called him. He just never seemed to care. 

This story is so hidden in my own thoughts. There isn’t a single person I have ever told it to. And I never will. But that doesn’t change the fact that it happened.

I Had to Quit the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy After I Was Subjected to Months of Horrific Sexual Harassment and Abuse During Sea Year. I’m a Man, and I Will No Longer Stay Silent.

*This account was submitted to MLAA by Craig Failla, a former student at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.*

Hello, I recently found your organization after reading a story online about a young female cadet who was sexually harassed at sea. Honestly, I really thought I was alone for all these years until I found your website. I too have a similar story dating back to the summer/fall of 1991. What is unique about my story is that I was not a female cadet, but a male, and I have stayed silent for over 30 years about my experience due to embarrassment and shame. 

In the summer of 1991 I boarded the M/V Galveston Bay which was a P&O flagged vessel operated by Sea Land. My 1st month at sea was obviously hectic and overwhelming for a 19 year old with absolutely no maritime experience outside of what I was taught at the Academy. I was a quick learner and earned top evaluation scores from my Captain and Chief Mate. I was also an excellent cadet during my 1st year at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and received no demerits outside of any company demerits we may have earned. Additionally my GPA was a 2.64 while the freshman class average was a 1.6. I loved the academy, classmates and the experience I received during that 1st year. Academically and physically it was challenging but I was up to the challenge and was determined to succeed and eventually be a Naval Officer like my older brother.

My ship was on a 28 day rotation from Elizabeth NJ to England, France, Germany & Rotterdam. At the end of my 1st trip is when my experience turned into a nightmare. The Chief Mate was relieved by a new chief mate. He was a Kings Pointer with about 20 years sailing experience. His name was Barry. Starting on day one, I was awoken at about 03:00 to my phone ringing and the Chief Mate telling me to come to the bridge to “take stars.” I immediately got dressed, grabbed my sextant and made my way to the bridge to get a fix on our position as he requested. This became a nightly routine which would last until sunrise and then my day would begin doing various duties on the ship. 

Most days I would only get 1-2 hours of sleep, but I can recall multiple times where I was up for more than 48 hours straight and barely able to function. Sleep deprivation was certainly a safety concern but I didn’t complain and my work ethic would not allow me to quit. What I was unaware of was this was a strategy to wear me down physically to allow him to make deals with me to get some breaks or allow me a full night sleep. 

Initially it wasn’t transparent. First he invited me to his room to show me his rowing machine and told me if I wanted to use it just let him know. While we were in his room he showed me how the machine worked and then asked if I could rub his shoulder. I politely told him, “no sir”. He then told me he would rub my back if I wanted, which again I said, “no, thank you sir.” I told him I had to get back to work and then exited his room. 

The sexual advances and touching continued for the next two months. He would come up behind me when I was sitting in a chair and touch my shoulders and frequently make comments about how perfect my body was, which I found very disturbing. My roommate was an engine cadet and frequently was gone at night. One evening while I was sleeping alone in my room I had an uneasy feeling, and when I opened my eyes the Chief Mate was standing over me. I jumped out of my bunk and asked what’s going on. He said it was a room inspection. 

Day by day it got worse, and the more I pushed back, the worse he would make my life. It became so bad that I started to make a plan to kill him and throw his body overboard without getting caught. I had the entire thing worked out other than having the guts to actually see it through. I was a 19 year old kid with his whole life ahead of him, and planning a murder was not what I signed up for. In letters I pleaded with my parents that I wanted to quit, but I was embarrassed to discuss the details and I knew no one would believe me. Sexual harassment of a man is hardly spoken of today, and certainly not in 1991. 

My parents, being proud parents of a son at a military academy, refused to listen to me and told me quitting would not be an option. They kept blaming this on me being homesick and wanting to see my girlfriend and the only people I counted on for support were not there when I needed them. So, I put up with this until the end of my time on that ship, which included nearly 2 full months of daily harassment.

Ultimately, after my 3rd rotation I was scheduled to get off and join a new ship. But after that experience I could no longer endure another day at sea and decided I would be quitting, no matter what the consequences would be with my family. I met Captain Finley and my parents aboard the vessel and told everyone at that point I would be quitting. They were all extremely shocked and encouraged me to stay due to my high scores and recommendation from the Captain. At no time did anyone ever ask about my safety or mental health. 

For nearly two years after that my parents barely spoke a word to me and I had to work and pay my way to college on my own. Despite not being able to continue my education at Kings Point, I’ve had a very successful career and a wonderful family. But the experience still haunts me and I feel that I missed out on so many things that I wanted to do if I had been able to stay at the academy.

I know 99% of the cadets probably have wonderful experiences during Sea Year and go on to graduate and have great careers. I’ve kept in touch with several of my classmates and ponder what would have been different if I had done a different split or had a roommate that I knew better to help me. There are so many “what if’s.” 

But for those 1% that have experiences like mine or worse, what recourse do we have? Our whole lives have forever been changed and the school we counted on keeping us safe only cared about kickbacks from the shipping companies and keeping things quiet.

I would love to help in any way I can to change the system and to permanently eliminate the Sea Year program from Kings Point. There are plenty of maritime academies that don’t send their best and brightest across the world by themselves to get properly trained. I believe this archaic and unsafe method should be eliminated once and for all.

I give full consent to share my story and you can use my name if you see fit as I no longer choose to stay quiet. It feels like a giant weight has been lifted now that I’ve put some of my experience on paper. Thank you.

—Craig Failla

I Was a 19-Year-Old Virgin When I Was Raped by a 60+ Year-Old 1st Engineer Aboard a Maersk Ship During Sea Year. I Know Several Other Current USMMA Students Who Were Also Raped During Sea Year.

*This account was submitted to MLAA by the victim. She is a member of the class of 2022 at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy*

There are more than 50 young, strong, amazing women in my class at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy where I am currently in my Senior/1st Class year. I have not spoken to a single one of those women who has told me that she has not been sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, or degraded at some point during the last 3 years at the Academy or during Sea Year. Most people, and even the leaders of our school, do not seem to understand how serious this problem is, especially at sea.

In our class of approximately 50 women, I know of at least 5 women who were forcibly raped during Sea Year. And I am one of them. When I returned to the Academy after completing my Sea Year, I became a Victim’s Advocate (VA), and the number of girls who have come to me to report a case of sexual assault is absolutely sickening. Since returning from sea I have learned of additional women in lower classes who were also forcibly raped during Sea Year, and I know that in total there are at least 10 young women currently enrolled at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy who were raped during their Sea Year. And there are definitely cases I don’t know about.

This is completely unacceptable. I want to tell the story of my own rape to bring attention to this issue, and to show other women who have been through something like I went through that they are not alone.

My story begins after plebe year when I was sent to a Maersk ship to start my Sea Year. I was 19 years old, and I was excited to finally leave the Academy and go out to work on a real ship. As an engine cadet, I worked in the engine room, and I quickly began noticing a difference in the way men were treated versus how I was treated. My Sea Partner was a male engine cadet and a good friend of mine, and it was obvious that the engineers treated him differently than me. 

The 1st Assistant Engineer, a man in his 60’s, often made derogatory comments about women and told me early in the trip that “you should know your place, and it ain’t out here. A woman’s place is in the home.” The 1st was my supervisor and the 2nd in command of the engine department, and I was afraid of him. He was creepy, made romantic passes at me and made crude and demeaning comments about me in front of other members of the engine department. It was a difficult work environment, to say the least, and not what I had expected Sea Year to be like.

After I had been on the ship for around 50 days, we pulled into a port in the Middle East where the officers bought a lot of alcohol and brought it back to the ship. It was going to be a 2-week passage at sea until we reached the next port, and I guess they didn’t want to run out of booze while at sea.  

On the first day back at sea after leaving that port, the engineering officers began drinking heavily. In the afternoon/early evening they were all hanging around the pool, which was outside, drinking for at least an hour. My Sea Partner was drinking with them. I did not want anything to do with them or the drinking, but they sent my Sea Partner to my room to bring me down to the pool.

When he arrived at my door, I could tell he was already drunk, so drunk I was actually worried for his safety. I told him I would come down, but I never went to meet them at the pool. Eventually they all came inside and went to the 1st Engineer’s room to continue their party. My Sea Partner and I went to the 1st’s room around 20:00. 

When we entered the 1st’s large stateroom I saw the Chief Engineer, the 1st, and the 2nd Engineer (A little later, the 3rd engineer also arrived). Everyone was drunk and being loud, they had loud music playing and the room was filled with cigarette smoke. They immediately began trying to get us drunk.

Until I arrived at Kings Point, I had never drank alcohol in my life. And while I did drink a few times during Plebe year, I was not good at drinking, and I knew that. I’m a smaller girl and these men were all much bigger than me, and could consume more alcohol than me. But my Sea Partner enjoyed drinking, and he was a man, and I felt pressure to fit in, to prove myself, and to be one of the guys—or whatever.  

They had all kinds of hard liquor and a lot of very strong beer. I remember there was Maker’s Mark and Bacardi. As soon as I arrived the engineers began forcing shots of liquor on me and my sea partner. They were like animals, drinking straight out of the bottles of liquor, doing shot after shot, being extremely annoying, yelling and laughing and making a lot of noise, and practically shoving shots down our throats. I remember repeatedly wondering if they were being so loud that the Captain would come down to find out what was going on. But I don’t think he would have even cared. Everyone knew the Captain was a big drinker himself and that he tolerated the engineers’ drinking.

My Sea Partner became sick, and went into the 1st’s bathroom where he threw up into the toilet, and I remember the 1st became very angry about the puking and remember him yelling at my Sea Partner. Everything was becoming hazy for me and one of the last things I remember from that room was my Sea Partner throwing up and the 1st saying, “we gotta put this one to bed.” 

I don’t remember my Sea Partner actually leaving the room, but later, as I was trying to piece things together, the 2nd and 3rd Engineers told me that they took my Sea Partner to his room after he got sick. Around that time, I blacked out. My best estimate is that within an hour of arriving in the 1st’s room I drank the equivalent of 8-10 shots of hard liquor. My Sea Partner had much more than that to drink as he had been drinking with them for hours.

Around 6 or 7 AM I woke up in my bed completely naked, and began freaking out. My clothes were all over the floor and they were soaking wet, I had a massive hangover, there was blood on my sheets, and I knew immediately that I had been raped. I was a virgin and had been saving myself, and as soon as I woke up I could feel that I was very sore and knew exactly what had happened.

I was in a state of total shock. For at least 20 minutes I sat there on my bed just looking at everything, looking at the scene, looking at my wet clothes, trying to piece together a timeline, and trying to process the fact that I had actually been raped. I was completely terrified. I was the only girl on the ship, and we had about two weeks until we even reached the next port. As I sat there on my bed panicking and trying to piece together what had happened, I only had a few memories from the time I was blacked out.

They were like glimpses through the blackout. The first powerful memory was being in the shower in my bathroom. I was lying on the floor of the shower completely naked, with water falling on me, and the 1st Engineer was standing above me, fully clothed.

The second memory was being in my bed and the 1st Engineer was on top of me and forcing me to kiss him, and I could still almost smell the gross scent of smoke on his breath and I remembered thinking about how gross the smell of the cigarette smoke on his breath was. And then I remember watching him take his clothes off beside my bed, and I remember him standing over me and forcing his penis into my mouth.  

I don’t remember being raped, but I know it happened, and I know the 1st Engineer did it.

Sometime after 7AM, while I was still sitting on my bed in shock, my phone rang. It was the 2nd Engineer calling to tell me not to worry about coming to work that day and to take the day off. He made a joke about how much I’d had to drink the night before. They also told my Sea Partner to take the day off. That same day I went to my Sea Partner’s room and I told him the 1st Engineer had raped me.

I was saying “this guy raped me, this guy raped me,” over and over again and telling him that I didn’t want to be on the ship any more. 

“Do you want to report it?” he asked me.  He was sincere that he would help me report it if I wanted to.

But I told him that I didn’t think anyone would believe me. I was 19 years old and had been drinking and the 1st Engineer was one of the top 4 officers on the ship. All of the top 4 officers were like best friends and had been sailing together for years. I didn’t trust or really even know the Captain, and he was a big drinker and I thought he would probably stand up for the 1st. If it came down to the word of a 19-year-old cadet versus the word of one of his best friends who was he going to believe?

And I was also experiencing an overwhelming amount of shame and guilt, and I worried about getting both myself and my sea partner sent back home and messing up his Sea Year and getting him involved in an investigation. I didn’t know what to do.

Later that day while I was sitting in my room with the door locked, I received a phone call from my rapist. 

“I think we really need to talk,” the 1st kept saying. “Please, we really need to talk.” I told him I didn’t want to talk to him, and he kept telling me to come to his room to talk. But I was terrified of him. Finally, I put my knife in my pocket and went to my Sea Partner’s room. 

“The 1st is making me come to his room to talk to him,” I told him. “If I’m not back here in 10 minutes, come get me.”

My Sea Partner agreed that he would.

As soon as I arrived in the 1st’s room he told me to close the door and take a seat. 

“I think we need to go over some stuff that happened last night,” he said.

“You forced yourself on me last night,” I said. 

“No, that’s not what happened,” he said. 

Then he began trying to turn everything against me.

“I just helped you back to your room, that’s all,” he said. “And whatever you believed happened, you wouldn’t tell the captain would you?”

It was clear that he was threatening me, and I was very afraid. I didn’t say anything to him in response.

Then he scooted his chair closer to mine until he was right up next to me, placed his hand on my thigh, and leaned in to my face.

“Ok, well you just know that we mariners get lonely out here at sea, ok? Let me know if you ever want to do anything. If you ever want to make something work, I won’t tell anyone.”

It was unbelievable. I just stood up and began quickly walking towards the door.

“Ok, whatever. No one is ever going to believe you,” he said to me as I was leaving his room.

After I left the 1st’s room I immediately went to my Sea Partner’s room. We locked his door and I broke down in tears telling him what had just happened in the 1st’s room.

Neither of us knew what to do. It was awful. I did not feel safe on that ship, but we had two more weeks until we even reached the next port, and I had 50 more days I was supposed to stay aboard. There weren’t many options. 

Back in my room I decided that the only thing I could do was to tough it out. No one was going to believe me, and toughing it out was the only option I felt like I had. I was trapped. 

But I told myself that I would never allow myself to be alone with the 1st or to work alone with him again. The next 50 days were horrible. I had to continue working for the gross man who raped me, had to see him all the time, every day. And every man who had been in that room drinking that night knew that something had happened to me. I know they all knew, even if they didn’t want to admit it to themselves.

The 2nd Engineer, who was about 35, told me later that he had helped the 1st Engineer bring me to my room and that it was the 2nd’s idea to put me under running water. He said it was something he had learned in the Navy and that he thought it would be funny. But he said that I was fully clothed when in the shower and that he left me with the 1st. 

But what did he think was going to happen when he left me nearly unconscious in my stateroom in soaking wet clothes, alone with the 1st Engineer?

After I was raped, everything became different in the engine room. There was a tension and an awkwardness that was very apparent. My Sea Partner began standing up to the 1st when the 1st would say things about me or try to get me to work alone with him. When the 1st tried to get me to work on some project alone with him, my Sea Partner would say, “No, I’d be more comfortable if I was working with you instead of her.” For a cadet to stand up to the 1st like that and for the 1st to back down was an unmistakable sign that the 1st had done something to me. Everyone knew. 

And the 1st may have even bragged about what he had done to me to the other officers. One day I was standing in the passageway outside of the officer’s mess where the officers were eating and I heard the Chief Mate say, “how many people do you think [my name] has slept with on this ship!?” They all began laughing. 

That ship was hell. But eventually I finished Sea Year and came back to the Academy where I became a Certified Victim’s Advocate (VA). I wanted to help other victims. But that’s when I began to realize how big this problem is, and how difficult it is to advocate for victims at Kings Point and in the maritime industry. 

This year I put together a resume to apply for jobs after graduation, and I put “Victim’s Advocate” on my resume. When I went to a resume workshop at Kings Point I was told by two USMMA employees that I should take “Victim’s Advocate” off of my resume because, “It makes people in our line of work uncomfortable, and you wouldn’t want to do that.” That’s the mindset of this school and this industry.

I left it on my resume. 

In order to even become a VA I had to interview with Jack Buono, the Superintendent of the USMMA. I was sitting in his office in Wiley Hall when the Admiral said to me, “I know victim’s advocacy is a big thing at this school, and it’s important, but I don't think any sexual misconduct problem is happening while I’ve been in charge.”

I was stunned, and I replied, “Well, how big of a problem do you think it is? How many people do you think are affected by this issue?”

Buono replied, “maybe 5% of students.”

“Sir,” I said, “I cannot tell you a single girl at this school who has not experienced one of those things.”

His face began to turn red, and he changed the subject.

It has taken what feels like a long time to get over what happened to me and to move past it. My Sea Partner, a few friends, and my family are the only ones I’ve told about being raped.  It took me a long time to move past the shame and the guilt, but I’ve realized that what happened to me was not my fault.

On the morning before I was raped, I didn’t wake up with any desire to drink alcohol or any desire to get completely wasted. I didn’t wake up wanting to lose my virginity to a gross old man who was more than 40 years older than me and who had been sexually harassing me. He did those things to me against my will. And I was too young and too powerless to stop him, and too afraid to report him.

But something has to change. It's terrifying to share my story, even anonymously. But I think that the only way we are going to make change happen is to get our stories out there so that people can understand how serious and widespread these problems are.

I sincerely hope this helps someone.

—Midshipman-X

U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Class of 1956 Graduate Recounts Being Assigned to a Ship with a Sexually Predatory Captain During Sea Year in 1954

This account was submitted to MLAA by Don Burnham, USMMA Class of 1956.

I graduated from Kings Point in 1956. When I was Engine Cadet on the SS Mormacyork in 1954, my sea partner was Deck Cadet Jim Gilman.  One day Jim reluctantly came to me and asked me a question.

“Don,” he asked, “what would you think if a guy was leaning on the chart table talking to someone and the other guy he was talking to was swinging his arms and often hitting him in the crotch with his swinging arm?”

I asked Jim who he was talking about, and he very reluctantly admitted it was the Captain. 

“Preposterous!” I said.

The man looked like a merchant ship captain right out of central casting. I couldn’t believe it. 

But later the Captain knocked on my door as I was getting out of the shower. I grabbed something to cover myself, which turned out to be a bath mat. When I admitted the Captain into my room, he said “you should not have to use a bath mat to dry off,” and he gestured and touched me in my crotch. 

I told the son of a bitch that if he touched me or Jim again I would go to the U.S. Coast Guard in the first American port and report him.

His response to that was to restrict Jim and me to the ship in the next port for having untidy quarters.  The next port was Santos, Brazil—a real seaman's port.  As the Chief Engineer was preparing to go ashore, he saw me and asked why I wasn’t ashore. I told him what had happened. He then ordered me to go ashore and gave me some money, because since I’d been restricted to the ship the Captain hadn’t given me a draw.

Then the Chief Engineer saw Jim and gave him the same order to go ashore.  The Chief said he would handle the Captain for us.  So Jim and I went ashore together and had a ball.  

Later, the Chief confided in me that the Captain had been run off the `Mormac west coast ships for the same kind of predatory behavior. So the company sent him to the east coast, sort of like moving Roman Catholic priests around.

Jim, who was a great guy, got set back to the class of 57 and passed away while he was a Panama Canal Pilot. I became the Delta Lines last Superintendent Engineer. 

Thankfully, no permanent damage was done.

Thank you for doing this important work you’re doing at MLAA.  The expression “What goes around, comes around” is utter B.S.  These kinds of folks go on forever, if not stopped.

If my brief recollection from Sea Year would help your efforts, I would be honored if you used it. And you may use any names. Jim has passed over the final bar, MorMac and Delta Line are also gone and are but a fond memory.

Acta non Verba.

Don Burnham, KP '56B

I was Sexually Assaulted During Sea Year: Afterwards, My ATR Threatened to “Stick” Me, Never Asked Me Questions, Reported It, or Investigated. Then He Sent Another Cadet to the Same Ship Days Later

*This firsthand account was submitted to MLAA by a graduate of the United States Merchant Marine Academy.

During Sea Year I was sailing as an Engine Cadet aboard a ship operated by Central Gulf Lines.

While I was sailing aboard the vessel, I was sexually assaulted by one of the crew members.  My Academy Training Representative (ATR), who is now the Head of the Department of Shipboard Training.

I immediately contacted my Academy Training Representative via email, told him I had an emergency, had been sexually assaulted, and needed to get off of the ship immediately.  My ATR arranged for me to get off at the next port and I was then flown back to Kings Point.

When I got back to school, My ATR did not ask me any questions about the sexual assault or about what happened.  He also never directed me to report the assault to anyone at Kings Point, and never offered me any kind of support services.

Instead, he threatened to “stick me” (discipline me by giving me restriction and demerits) because I did not return to school with my cadet eval form, which is called the “Ship's Officer Review of Midshipman Performance.”  This is an evaluation form that is supposed to be completed by your supervisor on the ship.

My ATR acted as if it would make sense for me to have an evaluation from a ship where I was sexually assaulted and then suddenly removed from the ship.  It was ridiculous. He turned the situation around on me as if I had done something wrong. I think part of it was that he wanted to make me afraid of being disciplined if I did report what happened to someone else at the school.  

During my time at KP I’ve heard some other bad stories about the way ATRs treat cadets, and I don’t think my experience is in any way unique.

But that’s not even the worst part.  

Soon after I was removed from the ship, I received a text from one of my classmates.  My classmate knew that I had recently sailed on that ship, and this classmate wanted to ask me what the ship was like, because my classmate had just been assigned to the ship by the same ATR and was about to fly out to join the ship.  The classmate was also an Engine Cadet and would be working with the exact same people I was working with, including the person who sexually assaulted me.

This was only days after I was removed from the ship.

I just told my classmate that the ship was “dangerous,” and to be very careful.  But I was afraid to be too explicit about what had happened to me.  

This classmate was the same sex as me, and I don’t know if anything happened to this person aboard the ship or not.  We never spoke about it again.

But I think it is totally ridiculous that Kings Point removed a cadet from a ship because of a serious allegation of sexual assault and then sent another cadet right back into the exact same environment at his earliest opportunity without even doing any kind of investigation, without even asking me any questions about what had happened, without reporting it to anyone, and without warning the other cadet about what had just happened to me.

I think there are serious problems with the way the Sea Year program is run.  The ATRs don’t seem to care about cadets getting sexually harassed or sexually assaulted.  They only seem to care about making sure people are getting their sea days and keeping the shipping companies and the ships’ officers happy.  

Something needs to change.

A USMMA Cadet Said She Was “Sexually Assaulted” by the Chief Mate of M/V APL Korea & “Subjected to Pervasive Sexual Harassment.” The USCG “Safety” Office Never Even Opened an Investigation.

According to documents released to MLAA by the USCG pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, in 2017 a former USMMA student accused the Chief Mate of the APL Korea of sexually assaulting (“groping”) her and subjecting her to a pattern of pervasive sexual harassment, which included, among other things, offering her wine and money to do work for him outside of her normal work hours, frequently placing the palm of his hand on her elbow and back to ‘guide’ her through passageways, frequently whispering close to her ear when directing her at work, and on one occasion telling her “if it were up to me, women would be walking around on this ship wearing fishnet stockings and red lipstick.”

The Chief Mate was a member of the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots labor union (IOMMP).

The student recorded the disturbing pattern of behavior in her Sea Year Journal and told her parents, the USMMA Sexual Assault Response Coordinator (SARC), and a USMMA Victim Advocate about the shipboard assault and harassment she had endured aboard the M/V APL Korea.

The USMMA SARC reported the disturbing behavior to the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS), which offered to review the student’s Sea Year Journal and to interview the student.  The student gave the CGIS her Sea Year Journal which documented the sexual harassment and sexual assault, and then submitted to a video taped interview with the CGIS in which she discussed what she had endured aboard the APL Korea.  

After consulting with legal advisors, the CGIS ultimately determined that there was not sufficient evidence for a criminal referral of the sexual assault allegations.

That outcome is not shocking or even surprising.  Shipboard sexual assault allegations are notoriously difficult to prove in a criminal context.  In federal criminal cases, the burden of proving the defendant's guilt is on the prosecution, and the prosecution must establish the facts beyond a reasonable doubt.

What is shocking is that following the CGIS investigation, the U.S. Coast Guard Office of Investigations & Casualty Analysis (CG-INV), which was and is led by Captain Jason Neubauer, an infamous coverup artist and protector of sexual predators, did not even open a Suspension & Revocation investigation against a USCG credentialed Chief Mate who was credibly accused of shipboard sexual assault and harassment.

In the S&R process, the burden of proof is on the USCG to establish the allegations in a complaint by only a preponderance of the evidence, which means the USCG must establish that the allegations “are more likely than not to have occurred.”  This burden of proof is radically lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of criminal proceedings.    

The alleged actions of the Chief Mate of the APL Korea, if true, clearly constituted official misconduct and would have warranted the suspension or revocation of his USCG issued merchant mariner credentials and license via the USCG’s S&R process.

But Captain Jason Neubauer decided that the allegations did not even warrant the opening of a S&R investigation, which is in keeping with his policy of protecting sexual predators in the U.S. maritime industry in order to avoid entangling the CG-INV in resource intensive sexual misconduct investigations.

This policy of denying that sexual misconduct is a plague upon the U.S. maritime industry frees Neubauer to focus all his attention on issues he considers much more important than shipboard sexual misconduct, such as his bizarre obsession with drug testing and the recreational and medical use of marijuana by mariners.  

The newly released documents prove once again that Captain Neubauer protects sexual predators in the U.S. Maritime Industry and solve a mystery surrounding a disturbing shipboard sexual assault allegation listed in the USMMA’s 2017-2018 SASH report which MLAA has previously written about.

The sexual assault allegation was listed at Table 6, Row 7 in the USMMA’s SASH report as follows:

"A midshipman was sexually assaulted by a crew member of a ship during sea year and reported it to the Academy.  The report was Unrestricted – occurred at sea; referred to U.S. Coast Guard for investigation.  No criminal prosecution. Referred to shipping company for administrative handling."

In September 2020 MLAA filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, led by Howard “Skip” Elliot, regarding the SASH allegation listed in the USMMA SASH Report, and asked the DOT OIG to investigate why a potential felony sex crime was referred to a private shipping company for “Administrative Handling.”

In its DOT OIG complaint, MLAA explained that criminal prosecution was not the only option available to the U.S. Coast Guard in the matter.  MLAA told the DOT OIG and the USMMA that the U.S. Coast Guard also has available the "Suspension & Revocation" process for investigating and punishing mariners accused of official shipboard misconduct, and asked the DOT OIG to investigate whether or not the CG-INV, led by sex predator protecting Captain Jason Neubauer, had opened an S&R investigation following the CGIS criminal investigation.

We now know that Captain Neubauer never opened an investigation.

We also know that neither the USMMA, MARAD, or the DOT ever pressed the USCG on the matter, and never sought to have a S&R investigation opened by the USCG.

Unfortunately, none of this is surprising. It’s just business as usual.

MLAA Interview: Trans Activist Sophie Scopazzi Wants to Redeem the California Maritime Academy.

New York, NY

By: MLAA

Sophie Scopazzi is the United States’ only known openly trans-feminine maritime academy student. After joining California Maritime Academy’s (CMA) newly formed “Gender Equity Committee” as a sophomore, Scopazzi became active in campus gender issues. Her work on the Committee eventually turned into a highly controversial push to change the Academy’s grooming standards and to create one standard for all students, regardless of gender.

In the lead-up to a high profile campus vote on the proposed changes to the grooming standards, Scopazzi launched a website (CSUM Student Voice) and a related Instagram account. Scopazzi’s website was designed to anonymously document Cal Maritime students’ experiences with discrimination and harassment on campus. Soon after launching the website, Scopazzi was flooded with accounts of campus discrimination, abuse, and harassment. She was also flooded with hate, some of it launched publicly by campus leaders who weren’t afraid to attach their names.

For four months from November 2021 to February 2022, CMA was consumed by what became a very bitter public war over a variety of issues affecting CMA students. Sophie’s fight was written about in gCaptain (twice), the Santa Cruz Sentinel, and the Vallejo Times Herald. On January 24, 2022 CMA announced that the grooming standards changes Scopazzi had been seeking had been adopted. We caught up with Scopazzi on April 1, 2022 to talk about her journey and about what’s next for her.

MLAA: How did you end up at Cal Maritime (CMA)?

Sophie: My family has operated a private charter yacht in the San Francisco Bay area since 2001. I grew up working on the boat, doing a little bit of everything–from cooking to serving as 1st Mate. I always loved working on the water. But even though I grew up 45 minutes away from Cal Maritime, I didn’t know the school even existed. After high school I took a gap year, which eventually turned into 3 gap years. While I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, someone told me about Cal Maritime. In late 2017 or early 2018 I drove up and visited the campus. I went on a one-on-one tour with a student and immediately fell in love with the place. Something told me that this was the place for me, and I started classes in the Fall of 2018.

MLAA: Sorry if this isn’t the right way to phrase this, but what was your gender identity at that time?

Sophie: That’s fine. I would say that I was still in denial about myself throughout high school and even when I first started at Cal Maritime. In high school I realized I was bisexual, but I also knew that I liked women more. I would go shopping with female friends in San Fran and buy women’s clothes, and I cross-dressed in private and at home. But I tried to hide that part of myself from myself and nearly everyone else. I was worried about how people would perceive me and worried that people wouldn’t want to hire me if I embraced that part of myself.

MLAA: How did the transition happen?

Sophie: People around me recognized what was going on before I did. Prior to my freshman year at CMA I met a trans woman playing video games online, and strangely enough, she ended up living near the Cal Maritime campus. Once I moved to CMA and was closer ewe met up, hung out and ended up fooling around. Through her I got to know that trans women exist in a very real way. That was the first time I realized that being a trans woman was actually a reality I could do. I then sailed on my freshman cruise on the training ship in the Summer of 2019. That was the last time I made a concerted effort to be masculine, and to ignore, bury, and hide my femininity. I grew out a big mustache during the cruise, but when I came back to school in the Fall of 2019 I simply could not continue living two personalities – two lives. Starting sophomore year at Cal Maritime I began dressing the way I wanted to dress more, but frankly, it was scary.

Early sophomore year, I began dating a girl who went to Saint Mary’s, a nearby college. She strongly supported me for who I am. I test-piloted “Sophie” with her first, then her and her friends. They embraced it, made me feel welcome, and most importantly, made me feel absolutely normal. She definitely knew before I did. But it was a real struggle. Around this time, it began to feel like I was living two separate lives.

When in my dorm, on the weekends, and off campus I could dress how I wanted and feel like Sophie. On the weekends I would hang out with her and her friends, and I would dress more feminine and they would call me Sophie. Then I would come back to school and I would have to use my DeadName and act masculine again. Driving back to the school from these times away I would have panic attacks. I would somehow make it back to my dorm and cry in the shower.

MLAA: Were you going by Sophie then?

Sophie: Not officially. I was only with my girlfriend and her friends, since they were not Cal Maritime students. I had not changed my name with the school or come out as trans.

MLAA: And what was your name at that time?

Sophie: You don’t ask a trans person that. There is a reason it’s called a DeadName.

MLAA: Oh, sorry about that.

Sophie: It’s alright. But that name is dead.

MLAA: 10-4. So it sounds like by Sophomore year you were no longer in denial about who you were, but you had not gone fully public about identifying a woman?

Sophie: Yeah, that’s right. I also knew that after Sophomore year I would be going on commercial cruise, sailing as a deck cadet on an actual commercialship. And that thought terrified me. It kept me up many nights. I couldn’t imagine and did not want to sail as a trans woman on a ship with a bunch of sailors who I didn’t know.

One of the first people at CMA I opened up to about being trans was Captain Burback, one of our great faculty members. I told her how terrified I was about going on commercial cruise. She was immeasurably supportive of me. Of me just being me and how I actually could be myself in my chosen profession.

MLAA: What was your commercial cruise like?

Sophie: I joined a tanker with another CMA cadet, one of my classmates, in July 2020. So right after COVID really got going. I ended up being on that ship for 128 days, and I never got the entire time. I felt like I was lying to everyone onboard. We got sent to Qingdao, China, and went to anchor. We sat at anchor for about 30 days,but when we finally went to heave the anchor, it was badly fouled. We ended up sitting at anchor for another 10 days.

MLAA: So you sat at anchor for 40 days during COVID?

Sophie: Yeah.

MLAA: That’s intense.

Sophie: Yeah. I had a lot of time to think. But in general, my shipmates were amazing, and it was a great learning experience. I went into ballast tanks, bunker tanks, and cargo tanks. One day we were sitting at anchor off Qingdao, and I was working with my fellow CMA deck cadet on deck. We were inspecting Wagner vents and it was sweltering. I opened up to him about being Sophie and about how I was really scared to sail, and really scared to just be doing what we were doing because I felt like I was living a lie and I was worried about what everyone would think if they found out who I really was. He was not someone I would normally jibe with, but he was supportive of me and very protective of my ability to just be me in the world.

The 2nd Mate was a guy born in Greece who moved to Berkely in the Bay Area when he was in his teens. And on the way back across the Pacific closing in on the end of my time on that ship I was standing watch on the bridge with him 16-20. We were way out in the middle of the ocean, stars out. I started to tell him about Sophie. And he gave me a warm response. He basically said, “Who gives a shit? You’re still a fine person.” And that meant a lot to me. When I finally got off the ship in California in November 2020, I was ready to be Sophie. I changed my name literally as soon as I walked down the gangway in California. As soon as my feet left the gangway, I pulled out my phone and changed my name on Instagram.

MLAA: Instagram official.

Sophie: Exactly.

MLAA: If you didn’t get back until November how did you complete your classes for that semester?

Sophie: Because of COVID, everything was online. The tanker had an internet connection, so I was doing 15 units of online classes during my commercial cruise. In January 2021 I returned to CMA and I returned as “Sophie.”

MLAA: What was that like?

Sophie: I spent a lot of time changing my preferred name, as they call it. It turned out there were 26 different places where my name needed to be updated. For example, I had to change my name on my email address, on PeopleSoft, on Brightspace. The head of the IT department was super helpful with me in doing all of that. But a lot of people were confused. People would ask if my sister had started at CMA, because they knew my last name but they didn’t know who Sophie was. I had to explain that over and over again.

MLAA: That’s January 2021. You’ve since become known for your successful fight to change the grooming standards at Cal Maritime. We first heard about you at the beginning of November 2021 after you started the Cal Maritime Student Voice website and Instagram. That fight over the grooming standards seemed to almost immediately explode. We want to quote a story from the Vallejo Times Herald and then ask you about your reaction:

November 23, 2021: “A new resolved proclamation written earlier this month from the Associated Students of CSU Maritime informed campus leaders…of revised grooming standards to ensure the privacy of cadets and the removal of gender basis for hair length, earrings, as well as a skin tone basis for nail polish colors. Meanwhile, a cadet’s mass letter to Cal Maritime students and faculty called on the need to “recognize the difference between things that are of good quality and those that are not.” The author writes that he “finds it’s sad that people these days are questioning themselves about who and what they are. As an example, a male castrated dog does not suddenly become a female dog because his reproductive organs were removed. A dog cannot even decide if they want to become something else.” Scopazzi, who identifies as she/her and says she is one of the few transgender students on campus, is appalled at the response by leadership’s response to the letter. Scopazzi said that as a result, she feels “uncomfortable” spending time on campus.

MLAA: The CMA “castrated dog” mass email is now pretty infamous in the maritime industry. How did you first hear about that email and what was your reaction?

Sophie: I was in the Oceanography Lab on campus when my good friend forwarded the email to me. She was like, “Hey, have you seen this yet?” I had not seen it yet, and I stopped working, read it and became very emotional and then began crying. Then I spent the next few hours writing a rebuttal. As the only openly trans women on campus I know about, when a student is openly comparing trans women specifically to castrated dogs he’s talking about me. It feels like he was specifically talking about me. CMA is a small community. It was scary. And it wasn’t only that email. Group chats were leaked that afternoon that showed the Corps Commander of CMA in a group chat where students were talking about how they wanted to see trans people used as ‘cannon fodder’ in a war with China. I took all of that seriously and I took it personally. Trans ppl are killed just for being trans, let alone for being activists. When I walk to my car through a dark parking lot after night classes, I think about that hate. I rarely came to campus during November and then I spent all of Christmas break debating whether or not I was going to come back to school or not. I was afraid. But I also realize that I am the person to fight this fight at this moment in time, and that I am an activist. That’s who I am. And I can’t just stop because the school is discriminatory. I can’t just stop who I am because it sucks, is painful, and deeply hurts sometimes. Also, I didn’t want to let down the people who prepared me for this moment. So many teachers have helped me throughout my life and helped prepare me to be who I am today. And I don’t want to let those people down. I also don’t want to let the bastards win, as it’s said.

MLAA: You did go back after break, and you did win. In late January CMA announced that they were implementing the grooming standards that you had been fighting for. How did you feel after that announcement? Did you feel a sense of accomplishment?

Sophie: Absolutely, I felt a sense of accomplishment. Recently I overheard a male freshman at CMA talking about his hair. He is wearing his hair long, much longer than would have been allowed under the old grooming standards, and he was talking about how he liked having long hair. But I could tell he didn’t know the full backstory, or how much effort it took to change those rules, not just on my part, but on the part of many people. And he was just taking it for granted. And that felt really rewarding. It felt rewarding to see someone taking the new grooming standards for granted.

MLAA: Are you still afraid on campus?

Sophie: I am, but it’s kind of like exposure therapy. You can only be scared for so long, until after a while you just get numb to it. But I certainly don’t spend any more time on campus than I absolutely have to.

MLAA: Would you recommend CMA to high school students?

Sophie: I would only recommend CMA to people who know what's really going on at the school and know what they are getting into. I haven’t felt right recommending CMA to women or minorities, at least without explaining the entire situation. The teachers at CMA are absolutely phenomenal. They are the reasons students stay. The students are also the reason the faculty stay, although sadly many do leave. It’s the administration that sucks. Cal Maritime has such potential, but it’s let down by the decision makers. It could be the best maritime academy if only it leaned in harder. It is now the only State Maritime Academy that doesn’t discriminate. That is an asset. If someone wants to go to a state maritime academy that doesn’t discriminate they now have one choice, instead of none like before. Cal Maritime is the only state maritime academy in the United States that doesn’t actively discriminate. That is something to be proud of, yes, but is also only a bare minimum start.

MLAA: What are your plans for after you graduate? Do you plan to sail on your license?

Sophie: Sailing is scary because you never know who’s going to be on a ship. The company I sailed with as a cadet recently emailed me about working for them when I get my 3rd Mate’s license. They used my DeadName, so I feel like whoever sent that email doesn’t know anything about what I’ve been up to a CMA recently. But I’ll be graduating in January 2023 and I’ll reach out to them. I’d like to go to work for them, and I’d like to sail. It’s just scary. Sailing is amazing, especially because of the time off, but it also sucks because you’re away from everyone you love. I know I want to have kids, and it’s a difficult job for people with kids. Someone on my commercial cruise told me he felt like he was watching his kids grow up in “stop-motion” and I don’t want to watch my kids grow up that way. What I think I’d really like to do is sail for a while until I want a family and children, and then come back to CMA and apply for a tenure track professor position.

MLAA: You want to be a professor at Cal Maritime?

Sophie: Yes. That’s my dream job. Recently, since the last hellish semester, I’ve made a conscious pivot to seek out mentorship and teaching roles at CMA. I’m an Oceanography Directed Research tutor. I’m a unofficial Teaching Assistant for Small Craft classes, where we drive small boats. And I organize and teach in the Cadet Boat Program. I chose to engage and seize the opportunities I have to lean into teaching roles. I love being on the water, love teaching—especially teaching people how to drive boats. Captain Burback and Captain McNie are two of my many faculty role models. I can’t change the world, but I can help change where I am. From there, hopefully the world changes slowly. But I know I have to start where I am. As terrible as my experience at CMA has been at times, I still believe in the school, what it can do, and what it could become.

-The End

————————————————————

As part of the interview process, Sophie shared personal journal entries she wrote during her journey through CMA. She has allowed MLAA to reprint a few of those entries here:

[Sophie’s Journal entry from July 2, 2019]

“Sometimes I question why I even go to this school when I could be somewhere else, in a more supportive atmosphere dressing how I want every day and being more who I am inside every day. Not feeling like I have to put on the khaki persona. My girlfriend has been calling me Sophie which feels more right when I feel like Sophie. But at school here I don’t feel like me. I feel like I gotta be someone else.”

[Sophie’s Journal entry from January 28, 2020]

“I am scared enough to be myself on campus that commercial cruise and beyond feels even more so. I've been so sure doing all this until more recently the past semester to now when I've begun to be myself and work on myself more. My motivation to study has gone downhill because I've begun to realize how who I am doesn't jibe well with my chosen profession. Not just this job, but what feels like many many places. I'm curious how many trans people are in the industry, on board vessels. It feels a little weird to write that i feel scared, but I can't think of another word to describe what keeps me up at night.”

“It feels as if being trans is contradictory to what I want to do for work and enjoy doing, and like I have to choose one, not both. Like feeling safe and unhappy with myself or happy with myself and unsafe. I don't want to take my time in being who I am. I want to be me right now. It's scary and feels like I have to choose one or the other. I don't know what I can do to get through it though, if that makes sense, since it's not a me problem. If I'm unable to do something cuz I don't know or am lacking you can study it, learn, and figure it out. This isn't something I feel like I can control, feeling safe or not. Like feeling safe and unhappy with myself or happy with myself and unsafe. If I'm thinking in terms of deadlines that was like last week, year, childhood. Being myself can't come soon enough”

[Sophie’s Journal entry from February 16, 2020]

I've begun to talk to a psychiatrist about transitioning, so I am moving in that direction of becoming who I want to be. That being said, it's scary and uncomfortable being myself on campus, and I can't even be myself most of the time. I feel like I have to put on the Anthony khaki persona and play that part, but it's not who I am. I guess where I'm going with this is working in this industry feels at odds with who I want to be in the world as if I feel this way in campus, with supportive people around, how will I feel by myself in a ship this summer. It's scary for me to think about how I don't see myself feeling safe and comfortable and able to be who I am this summer. I want to be Sophie, I don't want to have to put up a fake persona just to exist and feel comfortable and safe. I just hate having to think about picking between feeling safe and being myself. I end up on the question of why am I even bothering which I also hate because I love doing this.

Maine Maritime Academy Makes Victims Feel So Alone

*This story was submitted to MLAA by the victim who is a graduate of Maine Maritime Academy.

I haven’t talked much about this out loud, and when I did it was with a therapist.  But after reading a recent account about a woman at Maine Maritime Academy who was raped and then screwed over by the school, I felt like I needed to tell my own story.  

I know there are many women who have gone through similar things at MMA, and I want them to know that they are not alone, even if that’s how the school makes you feel. 

I chose to attend MMA because I knew that I wanted to study marine biology and I knew I wanted to play softball at the college level.  I also knew that I wanted to go to a smaller college and to go somewhere that would prepare me to get a good job when I graduated.  From everything I’d read about MMA they had great job placement rates after graduation, which was a big factor in taking the risk to go to a school so far away from home.

I was not in the regiment, but I still had to live in the dorms.  There is one dorm for all students whether they are in the regiment or not, and the females are all grouped together away from the boys.  When I was there you had to live on campus for your first three years, even if you weren’t in the regiment, and there were almost no exceptions to this rule.  When I first got to MMA I was surprised by the environment in the dorms, because even though I was not in the regiment, I was living amidst what seemed like a bootcamp at times, and I had no idea that it was going to be like that.

I played on the softball team, and most of the women on the softball team were not in the regiment.  I don’t know why this was, but it seemed like the demands of the regiment made it difficult for women to play sports and also fulfill all of their other regimental duties.  

We started softball practice in the fall, and I was befriended by a senior on the softball team that I will call “X.” She was not in the regiment, either.  Because X was a senior, she was able to move out of the female dorm and live off campus.  She lived in a rented house that was right behind the dorms, but just off campus.  It was probably within 100 yards of the dorms, but because it was off campus she could have parties there and pretty much do what she wanted.  X lived in the house with one roommate who was also on the softball team.  

X threw a lot of small parties at her house where there was always alcohol.  She had taken me under her wing and had invited me to several parties at her house during my first weeks at the school.  The parties were pretty small, maybe 10 or 12 people total, and she was always inviting male students over to her parties.  But before this night I had never really interacted with any of the boys she invited.

In mid October X invited me to another party.  That night I was drinking like everyone else, but I was not drunk. There were about 10 people at her house that night.  I think there were 4 girls and 6 guys.  One guy who I thought would never take interest in me began showing interest in me that night.  I will call him “B.” I had never met B before and didn’t know anything about him other than that he was a senior at MMA and was friends with X.

At this point in my life I had only been intimate with one person, and that was my high school boyfriend.  But we had broken up right before I went away to college.  I was pretty naive and sheltered and had not had a lot of experiences.  At the party I noticed that B kept talking to X about me, and asking her questions like “how old is she?” and “is she willing to do things?” which I could tell meant sexual things, but I was still pretty clueless as to what was going on.

Eventually X came to me and told me that B liked me and that I should go downstairs with him.  At first I didn’t understand why she wanted me to go downstairs with him, so I asked her why.

When you walked in the front door of X’s house there was a living room to the left, and then her room was upstairs.  Her room was almost the entire 2nd floor and was maybe 200-300 square feet, and that’s where the parties were held.  There was no one downstairs in the living room, and that’s where she wanted me to go with B.  

This made me feel very uncomfortable and I said that I didn’t want to do it.  Then she began guilt tripping me.  She said, “I brought him here for a good time and it’s my fault if he’s not happy” and other things like that.  She also told me that I should do whatever he wanted to do with me.  I kept resisting but she continued making me feel guilty and manipulating me.  She was persistent and kept saying these things over and over in different ways, until eventually I felt like I didn’t have any option.  

Once I relented she told B and he led me down the stairs with him to the living room where we were alone.  We sat down on the couch and were talking, and then I heard people going down the stairs and then out the back door.  I could still hear the music coming from upstairs, but I no longer heard any voices.  At the time it did not occur to me that this was part of X’s plan, but now I think that it was.

After I heard people going outside B began kissing me.  Once he initiated physical contact, I repeatedly told him that I was uncomfortable and didn’t want to do this.  He became more aggressive and I began telling him very forcefully to stop.  He kept saying things like, “it’s ok, it won’t hurt, no one will know, everything is fine.” 

He then forced himself on me and began taking off  my clothes and holding me down against my will and I started crying.  I thought I said things loud enough for people upstairs to hear me, but no one came to check on me, and that’s when I realized that there wasn’t anyone up there.  I was saying, “No, I don't want to do this. Stop,” but he just ignored me and kept saying that everything is ok, everything is fine, don’t worry, etc.  

I was shaking and crying and fighting him, but he was so much stronger than me and I could not get him off of me.  Then my pants were off and he was on top of me and then he said, “oh shit, I don’t have a condom.”  

Right after he said he didn’t have a condom he said “Fuck it,” then flipped me over on my stomach on the couch. Because he didn’t have a condom, he decided to rape me anally. I cried and cried and tried to move away from him or make it stop.  I was still fighting him, but eventually I just gave up and laid there crying.  He didn’t stop until he had finished himself off.

It felt like it lasted forever, but it was only a couple minutes.  When he finished he turned me back over and said "was that as good for you as it was for me?" I was crying, but he had a huge smile on his face.  He thought it was funny.

That statement and his smile haunted me for years.  He knew what he had done.  He knew that this was not mutual.  Then he told me to put my pants back on and he went to the bathroom to clean himself up.  I put my pants on and stayed on the couch crying, and when he came out of the bathroom he went right past me out the front door without saying a word to me.

When I went to the bathroom I realized that I was bleeding pretty bad.  I continued bleeding for another day and was in pain for days.

Later X came back into her house and found me on the couch crying.  I told her that I wanted to go back to my dorm room and when I tried to tell her what happened she cut me off and told me that we would talk about it later.  

The next day at lunch in the mess hall she found me and we went for a walk.  I told her that B had raped me on her couch and she completely blew it off and then she said that it was my fault and that I could have said “No.”  Then I told her that he had anally raped me and she said, “you let someone do that to you?”  She told me that if I told anyone about what had happened I would be ridiculed and no one would believe me.  

I really didn’t want to be singled out, especially because I was already battling the depression of having no friends and being far out of state and being away from home for the first time.  So I decided I would try to bury the hurt.  But the next day at practice X began telling our teammates that I had hooked up with a guy at her house and that I had let him do anal and that I liked it.  Everyone on the softball team heard her story.  

Then in the locker room X played the song “What What (In the Butt)” by Samwell, and they all laughed their asses off and that became like my theme song.  X and at least 3 other upperclass softball players would sing “What What in the Butt” almost every time they saw me.  

It was unbelievably humiliating.  And that told me that I was never going to have anyone believe me or help me, so I knew I would just have to pretend like it never happened.  

They played and sang the song to me all year.  It wasn't hazing, but I guess they thought it was like an initiation or something.  X is the only one who knew that it had not been consensual.  Towards the end of the season once we were winning and they saw that I was a really good softball player they stopped playing the song.  It died off.  But from October through March they played it and sang it.

I think being cruel and manipulating people was X’s way of coping with the trauma that she had been through at MMA, which is an insight I gained through intensive therapy years after I had graduated from MMA.  Manipulating other people and tormenting them gave her a sense of control.

X told me that she had been sexually assaulted at MMA when she was a sophomore by a football player who was in the regiment, and that she got a restraining order against him.  That restraining order allowed her to get permission to move out of the female dorm and into her own place off campus before she was a senior.  I heard a bit of this story from X, and then her roommate told me the full story of what had happened.  

And then right around this time a man that X had been dating died in a car crash.  He had been a staff member at MMA and they were secretly dating, and I guess she probably didn’t know how to handle that either.

After that X would sometimes be nice to me.  She would be my friend and ally and ask me how I was doing, and then she would be cruel to me again.  It was an endless circle that didn't make sense and it was such a confusing and abusive relationship.  She had allowed this horrible thing to happen to me and then ridiculed me about it, but then she would sometimes be really nice to me.  I honestly still don't know how to process that.

Even after I was raped I would go to X’s parties sometimes because there wasn’t much else to do.  I was terrified I would see B again at her house, and I would ask X about him and ask her if I would see him again.  She just said don't worry about him, that he wasn’t going to be around and that he wouldn’t be at her parties.  He became like a ghost, and I never saw him again for the rest of that year.

X was such a manipulator, and I know of multiple girls that she coerced into having sex with her male friends.  There was one girl who was a class above me who would do anything X asked her to do.  There was another girl who was in the same class as me who would also go to X’s parties, and she eventually left the school, although no one knew exactly why.  I think something similar may have happened to her, but we never talked about it.  But after she left the school there became an awkward, tense vibe about the parties and I stopped going.

After my assault I went straight into a downward spiral.  I felt completely isolated and alone, and I decided that I was going to kill myself.  I bought a huge amount of Tylenol as well as other over the counter painkillers and had them sitting on my desk.  One day a female staff member (“Y”) walked by the open door to my room and saw the bottles and stepped in to speak with me.  Y was in charge of the RA’s, and it was her job to monitor the RA’s to make sure they were doing their jobs.

Y asked me what all the bottles were for and I just kept telling her that I wanted to go home.  Then she told me that if I was thinking about suicide that Tylenol was one of the most painful and horrible ways to kill yourself because you are in agony for days before you actually die.  I told her that I didn’t care how bad the death was because it couldn’t be as bad as what I was feeling, and I did admit to her that I was contemplating suicide.

She called an emergency meeting with the MMA psychologist, and she accompanied me to the first session.  We never talked about suicide or my assault in that session.  I just talked about why I missed home.  After that session the psychologist set up a weekly meeting for us.

At the next session I was sitting across from him giving a long answer to a question he had asked me when he fell asleep.  While I was talking his eyes began fluttering and then they closed and then he began this very low quiet snoring.  I stopped speaking, got up out of my chair and went over to the couch where I just sat down to wait for him to wake up.  About 5 minutes later he woke up with a jolt, like he had heard a loud noise, but there hadn’t been any loud noise.

He said, “I'm sorry, I’m sorry.  You can continue.  Would you like to continue?"  I told him that I thought it was best if we just ended the session and reconvened the next week.

The next week he fell asleep in the middle of me speaking again.  It happened exactly like the first time, and I went over and sat down on the couch and 5-10 minutes later he jolted awake again.  I went to him a total of 5 times, and except for the first meeting where Y was present, he fell asleep in every one of our sessions, and each time for 5-10 minutes.  Finally I just lied to him and told him I’d gotten better and didn’t need to see him any more, although the truth was that he had made me feel worse.  Inside my head I told myself that I must be very boring for someone to fall asleep on me every time I went for therapy.  But now I see how absurd it was.  He was a licensed therapist paid by the school to help students and he couldn't even stay awake or stay conscious enough to help me.

I never ended up telling him about my assault because I never got comfortable enough with him.  But Y continued to check on me regularly.  I never told her about the assault either.  I just couldn’t talk about it.  But she saved my life.

The first person I told about my assault other than X was my younger sister.  I told her when she was first starting high school, because she asked me how it was possible that I had failed 2 classes at MMA during my first semester when I had been a straight A student in high school.  This was during my junior year at MMA.  She was much younger, so she didn't fully understand.

People wonder why women don’t come forward to report sexual assaults at MMA.  There are so many reasons.  One of the biggest factors is that I was terrified of having the whole thing turned around on me because I had been drinking underage when I was assaulted.  I saw myself potentially getting kicked off the softball team and getting kicked out of school.  My education was my future and I did not want to jeopardize it.  I’d already heard too many stories of women getting completely screwed over by the school.

I also knew that by reporting the assault I would probably get other innocent people who had been at the party in trouble as well, because we had all been drinking.  And then they would be angry with me.  I hope MMA puts in place a rule that says that if you are assaulted and come forward to report it that it doesn't matter if you were drinking or drinking underage.

But even when women try to play their assault off like it wasn’t a big deal, that doesn’t work.  There are so many effects that stay with you throughout the years.  Years later after lots of therapy I still find myself sometimes thinking that I deserve to have bad things happen to me.  But because of therapy I've learned that trying to hide trauma and trying to hide my depression doesn't help anyone.

My current partner is the first person I’ve been in a relationship with who knows about my assault and the bullying and ridicule that I endured afterwards.  I was shaking when I told him the details and about how mean everyone was to me.  He told me that I never had to see those people again and never had to live through that again.

He's been a rock for me and a great support system.  In all of my other relationships I always felt like I was hiding why I was so depressed, and I felt like I never accepted happy things or accepted love because I felt like I didn't deserve it. 

Recently I became a mother and it’s so amazing to have someone who looks at me with unconditional love.  I want to be a great mother.  It’s taken me years to recover from being assaulted at MMA, and I know it’s something I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life.  But things are pretty good for me now.

I hope sharing this story can help other women who have been through something like this.  

You are not alone.

Sexual Assault Coverup at Maine Maritime Academy

*This account was submitted to MLAA by the victim.

I am a woman.  After I graduated high school I enrolled at Maine Maritime Academy. My own experiences at MMA have made me realize that there are huge problems with the way the school’s administration handles reports of sexual harassment and sexual assault (SASH) on campus and at sea, and I know that many Maine Maritime Academy women have been negatively impacted by SASH and by the way the school dealt with their harassment and assaults.  I am sharing my story to bring some light to the issue and I hope it can lead to change.

My Story:

One night during my freshman year, my roommate (a female) came back to our room very late and very drunk.  She was having trouble walking and was completely wasted.  I was in bed asleep when she came into the room.  Shortly after she came back, a male I will call “X” came into our room with a friend of his.  X was a sophomore, but he was also a Company Rep, which gave him some power within the regimental system.  

My roommate and X had been sort of dating for only a few weeks, and their relationship was not at all serious.  X came into our room with a male friend of his, and they were trying to get my roommate to come with them to one of their rooms.  I was extremely annoyed to be woken up by three drunks, and I also did not want to take care of my roommate who was completely intoxicated and unable to take care of herself.  

I told X and his friend in the strongest terms that he needed to take care of her because he had gotten her so drunk, and that he should absolutely not touch her or attempt to have sex with her, because she was too drunk to consent to sex.  I told this to him several times.

My roommate then left our room with X and his friend and went to X’s room.

The next morning shortly after I woke up, my roommate came back to our room and I could immediately tell that something was wrong.  She was totally distraught, and she immediately went into our shower with all of her clothes on, turned the water on and sat down in the shower with the water running over her not saying anything—fully clothed.

I went in and asked her what happened.  She said, “he raped me.”

I asked her for more details and she told me that she repeatedly told him she didn’t want to have sex with him, but he held her down on his bed and raped her in his room.  

I was furious, and told her that we were going to report the rape.  This was on a Sunday.  A few hours later I called the school psychologist who is on call at all times and told him what happened.  I went with my roommate to his office on the first deck of the dorms on Sunday afternoon and we made a report to him.

The rape had happened around 12 hours before we met with him, but he said nothing about going to a clinic or hospital and doing a rape kit.  All he said was that he would have to notify Campus Safety on Monday—the following day.  Why not notify Campus Safety that same day?  You can draw your own conclusions.

Later I was told that according to the school’s policies, the psychologist doesn’t have to report the sexual assault if the victim is not in immediate danger.  And from talking to other women I learned that as far as having a rape kit performed, the school would never take you to get one done at either of the two local hospitals.  

And if you are a victim of sexual assault on the MMA campus and you independently went to either of the two local hospitals for a rape kit, the school would still find out about it.  Because women are terrified of the way the school handles reports of sexual assault, if we had wanted a rape kit done in a way that allowed us to stay anonymous and to have any chance at justice, we would have had to drive to an out of state hospital to get it done safely.  

After that meeting with the psychologist my roommate and I went back to our doom room.  Approximately 30 minutes after we left the psychologist’s office, X, the rapist, came into our room.  He was furious.  He had already prepared “Green Slips,” which are the lowest level regimental infraction, and he gave us each a Green Slip.  The infraction was for “disrespecting an upperclassmen.”

After we reported the rape, the psychologist (or from someone the school psychologist told about the report) had immediately notified X that we had accused him of raping my roommate.  X had then come to the room of the woman he had raped the night before and given her a Green Slip for disrespecting him (presumably the disrespect was the reporting of the rape), and also given a Green Slip to the woman who had helped her report the rape (me).

Now the pressure was on us, not on X.  Soon we were both called into the Assistant Commandant's office about the Green Slips that X had given us for a “hearing.”  The Assistant Commandant is someone I’ll call “S.”  S is an ex Maine State Trooper and the general opinion of people on campus is that because of his law enforcement background he thinks that he’s above the law.  

Nothing had been done about the rape report, but we were now being called to S’s office to defend ourselves against charges that we had disrespected an upperclassmen—a rapist.  But instead of facing a low level infraction (Green Slip), S had increased the punishment to a midlevel infraction, clearly to put more pressure on us to drop the rape allegations.

The hearing was extremely aggressive, and S was a complete asshole to both of us.  We told S the whole story, and explained to him that X, who had issued the infractions, had raped my roommate. Of course he already knew this.

But when we told him this, S said, “I don’t believe you. He’s one of my son’s friends, and I haven’t heard about him sexually assaulting anyone before.”

S was the interrogator, judge, and jury.  He repeatedly attempted to get us to admit to anything that could have gotten us in trouble.  He blamed us for not coming forward early enough, as if it was our fault and we could have prevented the “potential” assault, as he called it.  And as if coming forward the morning after a rape is not soon enough.  The whole thing was a sick joke. 

We should not have been alone in that room with him.  We should have had a lawyer or at least some kind of representative on our side.  Almost all of the students at the school thought the hearing was total bullshit, and a lot of students in high regimental positions tried to get them to drop our hearing.  But since X was a friend of S’s son, and because it is S’s job to make sexual assaults disappear, of course S did not drop it.

The result of the hearing was that our mid level offenses got dropped back down to low level offenses, and I think we both had to do 3 hours of community service.  The rapist never had a hearing and did not get in any trouble.

And that’s how they handled the rape.  They punished the victim and the woman who helped her report the rape, never did a rape kit, never called the police, and intimidated us both into silence.  

We then had to see that rapist almost every day around campus.  It was horrible and we both felt powerless and deeply afraid.

After our freshman year we went on the freshman cruise.  In the male berthing the “boys” had a poster titled, “The Bravo Bang List.” 

The poster included a list of all of the fourth class female cadets, and by each of their names was a compromising picture, or a date and name of someone who had sex with the woman. 

Not every girl had a name or picture, but what I do know is that S was very aware of this poster.  I know for a fact that he found it during an inspection, laughed about it, allowed it to continue hanging, and then he continued to check it throughout the entire cruise.

The school has a good system in place for doing the coverups.  S was so good at it, that they’ve now made him the head of Campus Safety at Maine Maritime Academy. He’s the chief of police.

That’s scary.

But he’s not the only person involved, of course.  The entire administration is complicit.  One of the most powerful tools they use to suppress the reporting of sexual assaults is the issue of alcohol use.  

Our Title 9 coordinator would ask girls who reported anything to her if they were drinking. And if they had been drinking, she would say that there was nothing she could do.  If you were drinking when you got raped, well too bad.  It’s your fault.  And if you try to pursue the issue, we will punish you for the drinking offense.  That’s how it works.

In a righteous world where she actually did her job, the Title 9 coordinator would have defended us at our hearing, or taken steps to ensure the campus was safe so that the assault had never even happened in the first place.  But that’s not how Title 9 at MMA works.  

I don’t know of a single person who has even reported sexual harassment or sexual assault who ever got their day of justice. 

And now that S is the head of campus safety, I never would report a single thing to anyone at that school.

If you check the Clery Act reports from the year we reported the rape, you won’t find that rape on what the school reported to the federal government.  The Clery report is a total fucking lie. 

And it makes me wonder how many other rapes have been covered up at Maine Maritime. 

I want to see change at MMA.  One of the biggest changes I want to see is a rule that says if you report a sexual assault you cannot get in trouble if you were drinking underage.  

The current rule which allows women who are sexually assaulted to be punished for drinking before their assault keeps so many women from even reporting sexual assaults.  That seems to be the purpose of the rule.  

MMA also needs a new Title 9 coordinator and a new head of Campus “Safety.”  These people are not making the campus safer.  

They are doing the opposite, and I hope change comes soon.

*Note: After receiving the initial account via email, we interviewed the victim twice via telephone. Extensive fact checking was conducted and the victim approved the final version of this account and stands by everything she has written. We believe her.

If you have experienced sexual harassment or sexual assault at Maine Maritime Academy and are interested in telling your story anonymously, please contact us through our contact page. You may call, text, or submit via the contact form and we will follow up with you. Thanks, MLAA.

I’m a Recent Mass Maritime Graduate & I’ve Been Harassed Out of the Industry by Predatory “A.MO.” Officers. That Union Has A Serious Sexual Predator Problem & These Companies Are Gross.

* This account was submitted to MLAA by the Victim, a graduate of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy *

I'm a recent graduate of Mass Maritime, and being sort of naive I really didn't start to pick up on the sexism at Mass Maritime until my junior year, although the racism was always very present.

The school is filled with racist people who have no problem throwing around the N-word, flying a confederate flag on the back of their pickup truck, and throwing out a KKK joke every once in a while.

As someone who didn't grow up like that, it was truly shocking to be slapped in the face with that type of racism right away. I graduated in 2017 and started working in the industry as an engineer. I will be the first to say there are some great guys out there, but there are also the old salty guys, the ones who think it is ok to tell you you're “a ten,” or tell you they'd love to put a baby in you.

There were plenty of late night drunken Facebook messages, and although I've never been physically violated, I have friends who have been, and it pains me to hear their stories. It pains me that many of these women do not see being sexually assaulted as a big deal and they wonder it could've been their fault because of what they were wearing or because they had been drinking, etc.

There is NOTHING at all that gives these men the right to violate a woman like that. I've had old men thinking they were looking out for me and come up to me and tell me to put longer shorts on, or to wear less tight clothes.

On a ship I've had someone try to get me written up for walking down to get a snack in shorts and a tank top and I've never had an issue telling them to fuck off, because it’s my body and I can dress however I'd like.

I'm not here for you to look at, and if I'm a "distraction" (as I was told) that's not my fucking problem—it’s yours. Grow up. You're an adult.

But it's sad because a lot of women out there don't have the confidence to stand up for themselves and they end up getting taken advantage of in all sorts of disgusting ways and then they blame themselves and it just further perpetuates this victim blaming.

I hate this disgusting “she was asking for it,” “she didn't say no, so I assumed yes,” disgusting misogynistic attitude.

At first I would delete all the creepy late night messages from the old men from old ships I worked on, because I felt dirty having those types of things on my phone. I felt violated, even if it wasn't physically, and it's awful, because I wish I had proof of these people and could expose them.

I think American Maritime Officers (AMO) needs a huge wake up call, and I think some of their contracted companies are so desperate for officers that they bring back people they've had sexual misconduct complaints filed against in the past and it's sick, and it's gross how these company's can get away with these type of things.

There is truly no other industry out there like it. I'm planning on leaving the maritime industry soon due to the crude nature of it, but I love what you are doing with MLAA.

This issue is something I’m really passionate about and it's amazing ya’ll are shedding a light on these important issues that have been swept under the rug for so long.

Kings Point ATRs Tell Female Cadets that Getting Sexually Assaulted During Sea Year is Their Own Fault.

*Submitted by a Kings Point 2022 Female

Before I went to sea for the first time, Captain Eugene Albert, who is the head of shipboard training, had a pizza party where all the Class of 2022 females went and ate pizza together.

He had a female alumni come and talk to us about sea. She is a Sandy Hook Pilot in training, and she told us that the girls who have problems at sea are the girls who “wear short shorts to the gym” and who won't stand up for themselves, and all we have to do is dress like a guy and we won't have any issues with sexual harassment or sexual assault.

The message was that if you have these kinds of problems at sea it’s your fault and you’re the problem, and clearly this was Captain Albert’s messages, which he delivered through this woman over pizza.

My jaw was on the floor while she was talking, but I looked around the room and realized that most of the girls believed her.

All of My Female Friends from Kings Point were Sexually Assaulted at Some Point.

* This Account Was Submitted to MLAA by the victim, a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. *

I’ve read many of the accounts posted on your page, and I want to say that all of my female friends from Kings Point were sexually assaulted at some point. 100% of them.

They wouldn't have been captured by a statistic either, because at the time of reporting these crimes we were met with, “toughen up” and “I don't see the problem” or worse, a label that plagues your career as a woman to stay away from because she'll harass you with false claims of sexual harassment or that her morals are loose and she gets what she's asking for.

Most of my harassment happened at the academy by midshipmen and faculty, but also at sea.

It was systemic and left me with little recourse to do anything about it.

—-Female USMMA Graduate