FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

10 DEC 2020

SWAN Responds to the Army’s Report of the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee
Report revealed lack of confidence in SHARP program and command climate

Washington D.C. – This week, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy released the results of a three-month examination of the command climate and culture at Fort Hood, Texas. Directed by Secretary McCarthy following the disappearance and murder of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillen in July 2020, the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee performed a comprehensive assessment and “reviewed the effectiveness of the Fort Hood Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) Program, to include the training, education, and abilities at all levels to receive and respond appropriately to reports of sexual harassment and sexual assault.” Concluded in the 136-page report with 9 findings and 70 recommendations, the Committee found the SHARP program was not only ineffective but failed as a result of poor command enforcement below the brigade level.

One of the most startling aspects of the report was Fort Hood leadership’s unresponsiveness to the “high risk” of sexual assault and harassment on the installation. As a result of senior leadership’s reckless indifference, the health and welfare of thousands of soldiers were irreversibly compromised. SWAN CEO Deshauna Barber comments, “these committee findings highlight how the most important aspect to eliminate sexual assault is prevention and accountability within unit ranks.” Another tragic aspect of the report is how many findings related directly to the SHARP program’s ineffectiveness. Ms. Barber continues, “it is tragic to see the massive numbers of unreported sexual assaults due to the soldier’s lack of confidence in the institution designed to protect them.” In addition to significant numbers of underreported sexual crimes, the report highlighted several critical structural flaws within the SHARP program at Fort Hood.

SWAN appreciates the transparency and rigor of the report, but is cautiously optimistic. SWAN’s Director of Government Relations Lory Manning elaborates, “the Fort Hood Cultural Climate Report starkly lays out the Army’s failures of leadership, transparency, and care for its soldiers—likely not limited to a single installation. Additionally, it shows a startling, insouciant tolerance of sexual harassment and sexual assault at the unit level. Army leaders must now undertake the hard work of fixing their service from the bottom up and the top down if they are to regain the trust of their soldiers, their soldiers’ families and the American public.”

In addition to the nine findings, the report outlines 70 recommendations which span from improving and resourcing the SHARP program through command climate issues and missing soldier protocols. In a corresponding interview with CBS Evening News last Monday, Secretary McCarthy said the findings of the committee will lead “to one of the most comprehensive steps in accountability in the Army history to get after this…It will change the Army.”

About the Service Women’s Action Network
SWAN is a national, non-partisan organization and member-driven community network advocating for the individual and collective needs of service women and women veterans. To date, SWAN has played a major role in opening all military jobs to service women, holding sex offenders accountable in the military justice system, eliminating barriers to disability claims for those who have experienced military sexual trauma, and expanding access to a broad range of reproductive healthcare services for military women.