Akron Beacon Journal
Trump’s pick for defense secretary bodes ill for military sexual assaults
Christopher Kilmartin and Ronald Levant – January 8, 2025
When it comes to preventing and responding to military sexual assaults, leadership matters a great deal. Thus, we are very concerned about the safety of our service women and men under President-elect Donald Trump and his nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth.
Both men have sexual assault allegations against them, and in both cases, there is reliable evidence that corroborates these reports. Trump seems to be an especially egregious offender who is named in more than 20 reports. This is not a case of he said, she said; it is a case of he said, they said.
The U.S. military publishes reliable estimates of sexual assaults every two years based on those both officially reported and recorded by survey. And this is not a problem only for women in the ranks — many of the assault victims are men.
Tracking the numbers tells us about the possible role that the president, as commander-in-chief, has in the increase or decrease in incidents in which a soldier experiences intentional harm from someone who wears the same uniform and took the same vow to serve and protect.
In 2006, the military estimated that there were about 34,000 assaults. That number dropped steadily the next 10 years by more than half (14,900), and the reporting rate nearly tripled between 2012 and 2016, from 11% to 32%. Although nearly 15,000 assaults are still 15,000 too many, we were going in the right direction: fewer assaults, more reports.
Experts believe that victim advocacy is the main factor in the rise of reporting rates. And several things happened to prevent the problem in the first place: more vigorous enforcement and removal of offenders from the ranks, leadership training, both for senior officers and on down the chain of command, bystander intervention training for all members, and environmental interventions.
But then in 2020, the number increased by more than a third to 20,600. (Reporting rates held fairly steady at 30%.) And then came the worst news of all: the 2022 number was 36,000, with the reporting rate dropping to 23.6%.
While the military changed how it collected data for the 2022 report, it still showed a shocking number of assaults and several steps back in progress.
The sharp increases in 2020 and 2022 were data collected during the first Trump administration.
The 2024 number, the first under President Joe Biden and the latest data available, once again indicated progress: 29,061 estimated assaults, more than 6,000 fewer than in 2022, though still higher than it had been 14 years earlier. We know Biden prioritized reducing this number: At his direction, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered an independent commission to develop solutions to the crisis, including changes to the military justice system.
But now, we have a man found liable for sexual abuse at the head of the armed services again, and he has made matters even worse by nominating another man accused of sexual assault as second in command.
A story about how much leadership matters: I (Kilmartin) was invited to San Antonio, Texas, in 2011 to do a training for Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month on three military bases.
At the first base, the general showed he was serious and passionate about reducing on-base violence by engaging in the training. At the second base, the “mandatory” training for 300 people resulted in only about 60 attendees. And at the third base, where attendance was voluntary, I presented to seven people.
The contrast in the leadership of these three bases could not have been sharper, and so I was appalled but not surprised that just a few months later, a scandal broke of frequent sexual assaults of recruits by their military training instructors.
Since leadership is so important, having a commander-in-chief from 2017-2021 who has been reported for sexual assault by more than 20 women could have been a critical factor in the 2022 increases. We fully expect that the 2024 numbers, the last under Biden, who has a long record of working to end gender-based violence, will again show a decrease.
The important lesson from the 2006-2016 progress is that we know what works, and so the task for the military is to redouble their efforts. Having two leaders with such callous disregard for others’ rights will surely make this work even more challenging than ever. Congressional pressure on Trump to nominate a defense secretary with a strong record on this critical issue would be a step in the right direction.
Christopher Kilmartin is a Fredericksburg, Virginia, author, trainer and activist in preventing violence in schools, the military, and the workplace internationally. His latest book is “The Fictions that Shape Men’s Lives” from Routledge.
Ronald Levant is a former president of the American Psychological Association and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Akron. His latest book is “The Problem with Men: Insights on Overcoming a Traumatic Childhood from a World-Renowned Psychologist” from Koehler Books Publishing.
