Biden Signs Executive Order Making Sexual Harassment a Crime Under Military Law - The Wall Street Journal
President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday making sexual harassment a crime under military law, a change spurred by lawmakers’ growing frustration at the military’s inability to tackle the problem.
Under the order, which takes effect immediately, troops can be charged under Article 134 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, which allows prosecution of crimes outlined by the president.
The White House announced the president signed the order in a tweet Wednesday. It didn’t release additional documents referenced in the order.
The Pentagon referred all questions to the White House.
The president’s order in how sexual harassment cases are prosecuted is encompassed in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the Senate by a vote of 88-11 in December.
Under the current UCMJ, there is no charge for sexual harassment. Instead, military prosecutors have used other sections of the military code to charge troops with crimes, including violating a general order, dereliction of duty or maltreatment of a subordinate, the latter in instances where a service member harassed someone of lower rank.
Mr. Biden’s order “cleans things up for prosecutors. Before, if there was a gap in the law, they had to draft their own charging language,” said Eric Carpenter, a former Army lawyer and a professor of military law at Florida International University College of Law. “It also puts service members on notice that the president and the Department of Defense are taking these issues seriously.”
For the past year, the military has called combating sexual assault and harassment a priority, but internal reports concluded that the number of instances only increased during that time.
According to the most recent Defense Department report, there were 7,816 reported cases of sexual assault during fiscal year 2020, nine fewer cases than those reported the previous year but more than double the 3,327 reported in 2010.
In July, Mr. Biden said he supported removing sexual harassment and assault cases from the chain of command and handing them to independent military lawyers.
The case of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillen, who had reported being sexually harassed by supervisors before she was killed in 2020 by another soldier, highlighted the military’s failing at curbing harassment and assault. The NDAA provision that led to the new military law was named after Spc. Guillen.
Last year, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin convened a panel to propose ways for the military to better combat sexual assault. Among the panel’s findings was a gap between how military commanders described sexual harassment and assault within their ranks and the experiences of junior members.
Write to Nancy A. Youssef at [email protected]
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