Air Force Academy superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson pledged transparence in dealing with issues at the elite school’s athletic department, which was the subject of a series of stories detailing drug use, sexual assault and other misconduct in the athletic department in 2010 and 2011.
The Air Force inspector general conducted an investigation and issued a report, which Johnson said “will help in eliminating subcultures at the Air Force’s academy whose climates do not align with our institutional core values.”
But the Air Force refuses to release details on the reports findings. Air Force Times, after submitting a Freedom of Information Act request for the report, received a document so heavily redacted that it’s useless in shedding any light on the problems and recommended solutions at the academy.
The report says the IG uncovered five significant deficiencies, three were redacted from the report. And information provided on those “subcultures,” or how the academy might eliminate them.
Also deleted are entire sections on unit morale, quality of life, accountability and others.
Most disturbing was the deletion of each of a dozen recommended improvement areas for fixing problems uncovered by the IG. They were redacted based upon the FOIA laws which allow for removing information that is “pre-decisional, deliberative process privileged information.”
Project on Government Oversight investigator Michael Smallberg said the Air Force’s use of the exemptions is particularly concerning. “If we don’t even know what the IG recommended, it’s hard to know whether the academy took all the necessary steps to address these problems,” he said.
Academy spokesman Lt. Col. Brus Vidal said Johnson pushed the inspector general to publicly release more information. “Had she not asked that question, we would have released a lot less than what we included, as far as specifics,” Vidal said.
The Air Force has a history of being extremely guarded, particularly when it comes to investigations. They routinely require FOIA requests for information the other services readily provide.
Transparency is essential to understanding the scope of the problems; openness is essential to building trust that the Air Force is addressing them. Anything less only adds to suspicion that problems are privately being covered up and publicly addressed by spin.
The cadets, their parents and taxpayers are owed a full accounting of the problems at the Air Force Academy and what’s being done to fix them.
