COAST GUARD ACADEMY TO FURTHER PROBE NOOSE INCIDENT

Cummings urged more investigation; items were left for black cadet, officer giving race relations training

September 25, 2007

NEW LONDON, Conn. - The superintendent of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London says he has ordered further investigation into two incidents in which nooses were left for a black cadet and an officer giving race relations training.

Rear Admiral J. Scott Burhoe's order comes after Congressman Elijah E. Cummings called on the academy to thoroughly investigate the two incidents.

An initial Coast Guard probe was unable to determine who left the nooses, said Chief Warrant Officer David M. French, a spokesman for the Coast Guard Academy.

Cummings, a Maryland Democrat and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, had urged Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen to address the full academy and asked for a more intensive probe.

"Racial discrimination and intolerance have no place in either the academy or the Coast Guard, and these incidents run directly against the efforts being made to increase diversity throughout the Coast Guard," Cummings said in a statement.

"I have asked Admiral Allen not only to conduct a thorough investigation into the incidents, but also to address the entire academy to convey that such behavior will not be tolerated in the service," he said.

French said he was not sure whether the academy had seen the congressman's letter.

Cummings praised the efforts of the academy to expand training in race relations but said that was not enough.

A task force found that minority members comprised 13.5 percent of the Coast Guard's student body, compared with 16 percent in 1991, Cummings said. Minorities comprised only 7 percent of the faculty and staff, and fewer than 1 percent of captains on active duty are black, Cummings said.

The first noose was left in the cadet's bag July 15 on board the Coast Guard cutter Eagle, French said. The second was found in early August on the office floor of a female officer who had been conducting the race relations training in response to the first incident, he said.