两名众议院委员会主席周一要求两名美国海岸警卫队官员参加采访，解释“海岸警卫队学院对骚扰和报复投诉的处理”
周一，众议院监督和改革委员会主席伊莱贾·卡明斯(民主党议员)和众议院国土安全委员会主席本尼·汤普森(民主党议员)。)要求海岸警卫队的卡尔·舒尔茨上将“不迟于9月18日”为采访提供两名官员被要求的两名官员是美国海岸警卫学院院长库尔特·科勒拉博士和第十三海岸警卫队区指挥官安东尼·沃格特少将。
“监督和改革委员会和国土安全委员会一直在调查海岸警卫学院骚扰和报复投诉的处理情况，以及该学院对公平记分卡审查中发现的差异的回应，”信中写道。"然而，由于海岸警卫队缺乏透明度，我们的调查一再推迟。"
卡明斯和汤普森表示:“海岸警卫队似乎一再阻挠我们对海岸警卫队学院骚扰和报复指控的调查，我们对此深感不安。”他们补充说，如果科勒拉或沃格特“未能按要求出庭，我们将被迫考虑其他方式来获得合规。”
众议院的调查是由学校里欺凌和骚扰有色人种学生的投诉和学校不合格引发的”权益记分卡“成绩，由南加州大学城市教育中心进行的一项研究。
除了发现“黑人/非洲裔美国学员毕业的可能性一直低于所有学员的平均水平”之外，记分卡还指出，该群体还面临着不成比例的更高数量的纪律处分。
一年多前，民主党人在2018年6月首次要求海岸警卫队官员提供骚扰指控的信息。当月晚些时候，海岸警卫队向众议院提供了70页经过大量编辑的文件。
根据《信息自由法》，海岸警卫队“有义务拒绝发布决策前和审议记录，以及那些如果发布将构成侵犯个人隐私的记录”，海岸警卫队在随文件附上的一封求职信中写道。
在接下来的几个月里，海岸警卫队移交了少量的额外信息。卡明斯和汤普森在他们的信中写道:“这些材料比最初的版本包含更少的修订内容，但是仍然有大量的修订内容，而且似乎许多响应我们文档请求的项目仍然没有被制作出来。”。
去年12月，国土安全部(DHS)监察长办公室(OIG)发布了一份报告，称海岸警卫学院的一名副指挥官“根据她的投诉遭到报复，违反了《军事告密者保护法》”。OIG报告还阐述了学院内部在处理骚扰投诉方面的“潜在差异”。
众议院议员的工作人员和海岸警卫学院的官员上周三终于见面了。“所有出席会议的海岸警卫队人员都被指示拒绝回答任何关于学院过去事件的问题，”信中说，“涉及教员或学员，包括任何与OIG报告或海岸警卫队向委员会提交的任何文件有关的问题。”
HOUSE COMMITTEE LEADERS ASK COAST GUARD ACADEMY TO EXPLAIN 'HANDLING' OF HARASSMENT COMPLAINTS
Two House committee chairmen on Monday requested two U.S. Coast Guard officials to attend interviews to explain the "handling of complaints of harassment and retaliation at the Coast Guard Academy."
In a letter on Monday, House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) asked Coast Guard Adm. Karl Schultz to provide two officials for interviews "no later than September 18." The two officials requested were Dr. Kurt Colella, U.S. Coast Guard Academy Deane, and Rear Admiral Anthony J. Vogt, Commander of the Thirteenth Coast Guard District.
"The Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Committee on Homeland Security have been investigating the handling of complaints of harassment and retaliation at the Coast Guard Academy as well as the Academy's responses to disparities identified in the Equity Scorecard review," the letter read. "However, our investigation has been repeatedly delayed by the Coast Guard's lack of transparency."
"We are deeply troubled by what appear to be repeated efforts by the Coast Guard to impede our investigation of the handling of allegations of harassment and retaliation at the Coast Guard Academy," Cummings and Thompson said, adding that if either Colella or Vogt "fails to appear as requested, we will be forced to consider alternative means to obtain compliance."
The House's investigation was sparked by complaints of bullying and harassment of cadets of color at the institution and by the school's substandard "Equity Scorecard" grades, a study conducted by the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California.
In addition to finding that "black/African American cadets have been consistently less likely to graduate than the all-cadet average," the scorecard also noted that the group also faced a disproportionately higher volume of disciplinary action.
Democrats first began requesting information from Coast Guard officials regarding the harassment allegations in June 2018, more than a year ago. Later that month, the Coast Guard provided the House with 70 pages of heavily redacted documents.
Due to the Freedom of Information Act, the Coast Guard is "obligated to withhold release of pre decisional and deliberative records, as well as those records that would constitute an invasion of personal privacy if released," the Coast Guard wrote in a cover letter accompanying the documents.
Over the next few months, the Coast Guard turned over meager amounts of additional information. "The materials contained fewer redactions than the original production, but there were still extensive redactions, and it appeared that numerous items responsive to our document request still had not been produced," Cummings and Thompson wrote in their letter.
In December, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a report stating that a Lieutenant Commander at the Coast Guard Academy "was retaliated against on the basis of her complaints, in violation of the Military Whistleblower Protection Act," according to the letter. The OIG report also set out "potential disparities" in the handling of harassment complaints within the Academy.
The House congressmen's staff and Coast Guard Academy officials finally met in person last Wednesday. "All of the Coast Guard personnel who were present at the meeting were directed to refuse to answer any questions regarding any past events at the Academy," the letter said, "involving either faculty or cadets, including any questions pertaining to the OIG's report or to any document produced by the Coast Guard to the Committee."
