Naval Academy Confirms to AP Were Careless or Gender-Biased

7 July 2010 - (AP) – ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Four midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy are being treated for signs of heat exhaustion after running an obstacle course in near 90-degree weather that is part of an Eastern heat wave. Naval Academy spokeswoman Judy Campbell said she did not know if the individuals were men or women.


10 Mar 2011 - (AP) – ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Naval Academy expels 3 more over synthetic pot. That brings the total number of mids ousted for spice to 11, with seven expelled in January and one kicked out in February. The three former midshipmen were all male sophomores, academy spokeswoman Deborah Goode wrote in an e-mail. She declined to go into any more details, citing privacy concerns.
.
Readers are left to wonder when the Naval Academy will ever have a spokesman rather than spokeswomen handle such trivial confirmations of AP news items. Glaringly undisclosed in the synthetic pot story is whether or not all 11 offenders have been males. It seems unlikely:

"In 2009, as in prior years, the rate of current illicit drug use among persons aged 12 or older was higher for males than for females (10.8 vs. 6.6 percent, respectively). Males were more likely than females to be current users of several different drugs, including, for example, marijuana (8.6 vs. 4.8 percent), psycho-therapeutics (3.1 vs. 2.4 percent, for nonmedical use), and cocaine (0.9 vs. 0.4 percent)." source

Every USNA expulsion for cause is both a waste of taxpayer dollars and a failure to accurately identify a truly deserving (career-committed) midshipman. When will old-fashioned admission criteria be restored to end a folly that is costly and detrimental to Navy heritage?
.
We should have been maintaining the progress ofd prior generations, not frittering it away!


Submarines are always silent and strange.