The military service academies saw “significant” decreases in sexual harassment and assaults over the last two years but the reported rates at the academies remain higher than among active duty troops of similar ages, according to a new survey.
In 2024, 783 cadets and midshipmen at the three largest military academies experienced sexual assault or harassment, which the Defense Department called “unwanted sexual contact,” , according to new survey data for the 2023-2024 academic year released Thursday, a rate of about 1 in every 8 students at the three schools. Though high, that number represents a 31% decrease from 2022. In 2022, students at the three schools made 1,136 reports of unwanted sexual contact, an average rate of more than one per day at each school during the academic calendar.
The bi-annual survey covers the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but not the academies run by the Coast Guard or Merchant Marine.
Beth Foster, executive director of the Pentagon’s Office of Force Resiliency, said the number of students reporting an incident is “still comparatively high” to previous years. The academies have tracked these incidents going back to 2006.
“In fact, it is the second highest estimated number of students experiencing unwanted sexual contact on record,” said Lisa Davis, the deputy director of Health & Resilience Research with the Office of People Analytics.
The full report on the surveys will be released in February 2025 but topline data was released to reporters Thursday. According to the Pentagon, 88% of students at the three schools responded to the 2024 survey, 7% more than did in 2022. The Air Force Academy saw the largest bump in student responses, with 95% of cadets responding versus only 66% in 2022.
Similar results but less reports of alcohol
The survey found that in 2024, 457 women and 327 men at the academy experienced sexual harassment and assault. Women make up between 23% and 29% of each academy’s student body, according to a 2023 Congressional Research Service report.
Rates of reported unwanted touching, attempted penetration and rape among women decreased in 2024. But for men, rates “remained statistically unchanged” with unwanted touching offenses continuing to persist at the same rate.
Most reported incidents were between students and occurred after duty hours or on weekends, but were reported both on and off academy grounds. However, reported incidents involving alcohol decreased since 2022.
Despite an overall estimated decrease in the number of incidents, officials noted that reporting rates decreased. In 2024, one in 8 students reported a sexual assault allegation to officials.
“Compared to the active force, our rates of reporting are much lower at the academies so we think that there’s more work to be done there,” said Nate Galbreath, director for the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office.
In August 2023, the Pentagon released its Military Service Academy On-Site Installation Evaluation Report which found that the academies’ climate and training environment “was undermining their ability to prevent these harmful behaviors” like sexual assault. Officials said the recommendations from that report are required to be complete by August 2025.
Some of the changes highlighted Thursday include the Military Academy West Point integrating sexual assault prevention and character development into its curriculum and the Air Force Academy’s adoption of a curriculum on leadership development during all four years at the school rather than just in the final year.
Other changes include quarterly military justice briefings by West Point’s commandant and a Naval Academy shift from 30 midshipman companies to 36, reducing the ratio of students to officers and trainers overseeing them.
Andra Tharp, senior prevention advisor at the Pentagon said the preparation for officers who oversee cadets and midshipmen is being revamped to hone in on teaching and modeling “how to build those healthy climates” and “placing prevention workforce at all of the academies which will help sustain some of these changes and evaluate the impact over time.”
Results among minority students
Sexual assault and harassment still disproportionately impact students from various underrepresented minority groups, the report found.
According to the survey, Hispanic women and Black and Hispanic men, which make up small percentages of the total student population, were more likely to experience and report sexual assault and harassment. Though Hispanic women are just 13% of women at the schools, they accounted for almost one-third of reports in 2022, though that number dropped to 15.6% in 2024.
“One of the things that we need to consider in our work at the academies is that they’re not homogeneous,” Foster said. “Our programming at the academies needs to consider that there is sort of no one standard experience, although that may be a sort of conventional thinking in the academy space.”
Despite being only 0.5% of the three student bodies, students who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or who marked “I use a different term” on the survey had higher rates of sexual assault and harassment compared to their heterosexual peers. For this group, incidents have increased since 2022. Most of that increase was driven by the U.S. Naval Academy, where reports among these students more than doubled over the two years.
Tharp said academies need to ensure that they look at “how different groups may experience climate differently and tailor their prevention to those unique needs.” She said the Department of Defense is putting sexual assault and prevention prevention resources at the “local level” to set best practices that make sense for the specific population.
“While there are some common themes across academies, each institution has its own climate and its own ecosystem,” Foster said. “This means their needs are different, and the actions that they are taking will look a little bit different.”
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