RIGHTS WATCH : Unpurged Shame

The fines imposed against the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel, the site of the Navy’s infamous Tailhook convention, are strong rebukes to the abuse suffered by then-Navy Lt. Paula Coughlin and scores of other women.

A federal jury has ordered Hilton Hotel Corp. to pay Coughlin $5 million in punitive damages, plus $1.7 million in compensatory damages, for the Las Vegas Hilton’s failure to provide adequate security at the 1991 event, during which more than 80 women were subjected to sexual harassment; for some that included being forced through a hallway lined with drunken, groping male aviators.

A troubling irony remains. Few if any of the military men accused of misconduct at the convention have been held accountable by the Navy or the Marines. True, H. Lawrence Garrett III resigned as Navy secretary and Adm. Frank B. Kelso, who was accused of witnessing the assaults, stepped down as chief of naval operations. (Kelso was able to keep his full rank and pension.) However, although about 140 Navy and Marine Corps officers were referred for criminal investigation by the Defense Department’s inspector general, only a few dozen received any form of administrative discipline. There were no court-martials.

As many as a dozen women are pressing claims in state or federal courts, and some of these, too, may receive a measure of justice. But it’s worth remembering that although the hotel has been penalized for its laxity at the Tailhook gathering, the actual perpetrators have thus far escaped, to the great shame of America’s military.