Maritime Academy Gets a Jolt : Education: Legislators assail sexual harassment aboard training ship. Then, a study questions whether the school is needed at all.

The California Maritime Academy received a double jolt of bad news Thursday when legislators sharply criticized sexual harassment aboard the academy’s training ship and the legislative analyst’s office suggested that a national surplus of merchant marine deck officers might mean there is no need for the school.

Officials of the small Vallejo academy, and members of its governing board, were questioned sharply by members of the Senate Select Committee on the Maritime Industry for permitting discrimination against women on annual cruises of the academy’s training ship, the Golden Bear.

Most of the sexual harassment took place during a ritual known as the “Equator crossing ceremony” and was included in a critical report issued by the National Maritime Administration last October.

The report said that midshipmen who had not crossed the Equator before, called “polliwogs,” were forced to engage in “acts of mock sodomy” with “shellbacks,” those who had made the crossing. It also said the polliwogs were assaulted with high-pressure hoses, causing them to sprawl and tumble on the Golden Bear’s slippery decks on the high seas.

Other polliwogs, found guilty of “crimes” by a ‘kangaroo court,” were required to slide down an inflated escape slide filled with rotten food. During the 1988 cruise, some midshipmen defecated in the hat of a female student and that student later received demerits for appearing at formation without her hat, the report said.

State Sen. Milton Marks (D-San Francisco), chairman of the select committee, called the behavior a “sad litany” of sexual harassment, racial discrimination, lack of firm discipline and bad management that “would not be tolerated” by the Legislature and the taxpayers.

Academy administrators and members of the Board of Governors deplored the events aboard the Golden Bear but called them “antics” and “frolics” that were no worse than the usual college pranks.

But William Creelman, deputy administrator of the National Maritime Administration, said that “this was not mere skylarking by a bunch of young students,” but was behavior that could have led to serious injury or death.

“As a former ship’s officer, I can say that what went on was at least dangerous,” Creelman said. “High-pressure hoses and rough-housing on deck, near the ship’s rail, was damned foolishness that should not have been tolerated by the ship’s officers.’

Members of the select committee and other legislators who sat in on the all-day hearing demanded that the Board of Governors adopt an explicit, written policy prohibiting such behavior on the annual cruises and enforce penalties for students or faculty members who commit infractions.

Already reeling from these criticisms, the Maritime Academy’s leaders were then told by Hal Geiogue and Charles Lieberman of the legislative analyst’s office that a recently completed study showed a large surplus of merchant marine deck and engineering officers, which are the positions usually filled by the academy’s graduates.

If present trends continue, there will be about 8,500 trained graduates nationally for only about 4,600 jobs by the year 2000, the study said. Elimination of state support for the academy would save about $5.4 million a year and would have little or no impact on the industry’s ability to hire trained deck officers, according to the report.

“This is 14-karat education for a very small number of students in a dying industry,” said Assemblywoman Jackie Spier (D-San Francisco).

In light of these trends, the Legislature should decide whether the $17,000-per-student cost of educating Maritime Academy students is a worthwhile investment, the legislative analyst’s study said.

“I’m sort of flabbergasted by (this) report,” said Assemblyman Thomas M. Hannigan (D-Fairfield), in whose district the academy is located. “There now is certain to be debate about whether or not the state should continue to fund these activities.”

Creelman said the federal government might drop its financial support of the academy.