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- NATION, Page 27Ameican NotesNAVAL ACADEMYA Probe that Snowballed
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- It started last December with a snowball fight; by last week
- it had blown into multiple investigations into how women and
- plebes are treated at the U.S. Naval Academy. After Midshipman
- Gwen Dreyer hit a male student in the face with a well-aimed
- snowball, he and some buddies retaliated by handcuffing her to
- a urinal and photographing her in that humiliating situation.
- No one, including Dreyer, reported the incident, but when her
- father complained, Dreyer, who had previously talked of
- enrolling at Caltech, quit the academy.
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- In the resulting furor, other abuses came to light: a
- midshipman had been bound and taped to a chair by classmates
- who thought he had lied; another had been forced to eat and
- drink until he vomited. Last week Rear Admiral Virgil Hill, the
- academy superintendent, announced stricter punishments,
- including dismissal, for physical "horseplay" involving
- unwilling participants.
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- Hill must still contend with investigations by the General
- Accounting Office, two House Armed Services subcommittees and
- the Pentagon's Inspector General. The academy has also
- reconvened the Women Midshipmen Study Group to report on
- attitudes toward women at Annapolis. It will be the group's
- third investigation in four years.
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