A bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers, including Hawaii’s U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, is asking the Government Accountability Office to conduct an evaluation on how the Departments of Education and Defense handle allegations of sexual abuse in each service’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.
“The overwhelming majority of JROTC instructors are honorable and trustworthy,” the lawmakers wrote. “They have served their nation with distinction — and continue to do so by teaching and mentoring our nation’s next generation of military officers. However, any incident of sexual abuse or harassment is one too many and betrays the faith and trust that JROTC cadets and their families have placed in the U.S. military.”
The JROTC program is administered and partly funded by the U.S. military. JROTC is distinct from the ROTC programs on college campuses, run by active-duty service members, that train students in military tactics and eventually commission them as military officers. JROTC instructor roles are filled mostly by military retirees with active-duty service members occasionally, but very rarely, assigned.
Military officials have insisted that the JROTC isn’t primarily intended as a recruitment or military training program, but as a youth program to instill self-discipline and civic values into students. According to the U.S. Code, the JROTC program exists “to instill in students in (U.S.) secondary educational institutions the values of citizenship, service to the United States, and personal responsibility and a sense of accomplishment.”
In their letter, the lawmakers referenced a July New York Times report that said over the past five years JROTC instructors have been charged with sexual misconduct involving students at a higher rate than civilian high school teachers. According to the Times, prosecutors had brought criminal charges against at least 33 JROTC instructors across the country at the time, some of whom “had already been flagged for previous allegations of misconduct but were allowed to stay on the job,” while many other instructors “have been accused of misconduct but never charged.”
That reporting prompted congressional reviews. In August the Senate’s Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on National Security launched an investigation into allegations raised by the Times’ reporting and found evidence that the incidence of sexual abuse and harassment committed by JROTC instructors could be significantly more widespread than previously reported.
The subcommittee found that 60 allegations of sexual abuse, harassment or other sexual misconduct had been made against JROTC instructors and reported to the Department of Defense and the military services during the past five years, 58 of which were substantiated after investigations by law enforcement or schools.
In September, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee launched an investigation into oversight of the JROTC program. The Pentagon reported that over the past decade there had been 114 allegations of violence, including sexual abuse or harassment, in the JROTC program. The Navy told lawmakers it did not have any “specific policy to address adult sexual misconduct” in the program, and the Pentagon said “there’s very little oversight” and no surveys or public reporting of incidents of sexual assault.
The military, which since the end of the draft 50 years ago has relied on an all-volunteer force to conduct its operations, has in recent years struggled to connect with the nation it serves. A 2022 Gallup Poll found the public’s trust in the military had dropped 8% in just two years, to 64% in 2022 from 72% in 2020.
The military is also facing a major recruiting shortfall. Army recruitment fell in 2022 by 15,000 soldiers — or 25% — short of the service’s 60,000 recruitment goal. Service leaders expect to fall short again this year.
“We are not going to make that goal,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told lawmakers Tuesday at a congressional hearing. “We are doing everything we can to get as close to it as possible; we are going to fall short.”
During a Senate hearing in September, Hirono told military officials, “You talk about wanting access to high schools, but it’s not going to work very well if your instructors are engaging in sexual harassment, other kinds of misconduct.”
At least one case played has played out in the islands. In October, Hawaii’s U.S. district court sentenced Victor Aguilar, a 66-year-old former JROTC instructor at Waimea High School on Kauai, to 14 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting one of his students. Federal agents arrested Aguilar in 2021.
According to court documents, he admitted that on at least two occasions in 2020 while he was an instructor, he knowingly possessed sexually explicit images of the student. In his plea agreement, he admitted that he had sexual contact with the student approximately 25 times over a six-month period. These encounters took place at the school, in Aguilar’s vehicle and in his home.
In addition to 14 years behind bars, Aguilar also was sentenced to 10 years of supervised release, and U.S. District Judge Jill Otake ordered Aguilar to pay nearly $6,000 in restitution and imposed a $10,000 assessment under the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act.
