NOW Chapter Plans Protest at Naval Academy

A National Organization for Women chapter has said it will picket tonight’s Naval Academy graduation ball to protest alleged harassment of female midshipmen.

The Anne Arundel County NOW chapter called the protest to bring attention to reports of hazing at the 145-year-old Annapolis institution.

Gwen Dreyer of Encinitas, Calif., left the academy recently, complaining that officials did not punish sufficiently the midshipmen who handcuffed her to a urinal after a snowball fight in December and photographed her.

Another female student, Julie Simas of Bowie, Md., said in an interview published Sunday that she resigned last year after being made to stand and listen to a lecture about how to properly walk through the midshipmen’s dormitory.

“I wasn’t allowed to go to the restroom and take care of myself. They just made a joke out of it,” Simas told the Baltimore Sun.

She never reported the incident and resigned at the end of the 1989 school year.

The academy also is investigating the rape of a Annapolis woman by a midshipman.

Academy officials say they are attempting to determine whether the complaints represent isolated incidents or an extensive problem. Other investigations or inquiries by Congress, the General Accounting Office and the Navy’s inspector general are under way.

“It’s a natural progression from one report to several reports to the point that you have to seriously look at what’s going on here,” said Lt. Cmdr. Mark Van Dyke, an academy spokesman.