Naval Academy Acts to Resolve Cheating Scandal
With some 125 midshipmen expected to be implicated in the U.S. Naval Academy’s largest cheating scandal, the academy’s superintendent Wednesday named three retired admirals to help determine what type of discipline should be handed out.
Rear Adm. Thomas C. Lynch said at a news conference that the admirals--all former academy officials--would provide “fairness and consistency” and not “overburden the midshipmen” who normally rule on violations of the school’s strict 43-year-old honor concept.
Senior Navy officials approved the process announced Wednesday, academy officials said.
The Navy Inspector General’s report on the December, 1992, cheating scandal involving the final exam for Electrical Engineering 311 may be released as early as Friday. Sources said some 125 midshipmen are involved in the scandal. Nearly 700 juniors took the exam.
It is expected to be the largest cheating scandal in the academy’s history, approximately doubling the 64 midshipmen implicated in the use of “crib sheets” in a 1974 navigation exam. Seven midshipmen eventually were expelled in the 1974 incident.
The “EE problem,” as it has become known, has troubled the academy for the last year, leaving many in the brigade dispirited.
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