A U.S. Coast Guard Academy official says she is planning to resign after claiming she was directed to lie to victims of sexual assault and harassment at the military school, which has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years on how it has handled a toxic culture and past claims of abuse.
Shannon Norenberg, the sexual assault response coordinator at the Coast Guard Academy since 2013, said in a lengthy Sunday blog post that the Coast Guard “lied to me” and that she was “absolutely sick” with her job as she blew the whistle on how officials handled sexual harassment claims at the school.
Norenberg said the academy “used me to lie to victims, used me to silence victims, and used me in a coordinated effort to discourage victims of sexual assault at the Academy from speaking to Congress about their assaults and about the Coast Guard’s investigation of their cases.”
“The Coast Guard deceived me into violating a basic principle of my profession, which is to never lie to victims,” she wrote in the blog post. “Although I did not realize what I was doing at the time, I cannot allow this to stand.”
“I can no longer in good conscience be part of an organization that would betray me, betray victims of sexual assault, and betray the system I helped set up to hold perpetrators at the Academy accountable,” she added.
The Hill has reached out to the Coast Guard Academy for comment on the accusations raised by Norenberg.
The Coast Guard Academy has struggled for years to address a toxic culture, but last year, reporting on an internal investigation called Operation Fouled Anchor showed officials had mishandled reports of rape and sexual assault from the late 1980s until 2006.
The Senate launched an inquiry in September into Operation Fouled Anchor.
The scandal has pressured the academy to address its culture, especially as Congress mounts its investigation. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), whose state houses the academy, told a local news channel in May that he is working to get Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan to testify in the coming weeks.
While cadets have previously testified to Congress about the toxic culture at the academy, Norenberg’s blog post appears to be the first tell-all whistleblower account from an official at the school.
Norenberg, who has her own history with sexual assault and was previously with the Marines as a sexual assault response coordinator, said she initially joined with enthusiasm to tackle problems at the academy and to provide more accountability, something she believed officials at the school also wanted to address.
She claims she was first made aware of Operation Fouled Anchor in 2018 after a “secretive and highly unusual” meeting in Washington. The discussions around the report left her “absolutely stunned,” especially because the cases did not appear to have ever been entered into a database that tracks reported incidents.
After the meetings, Norenberg says she was directed to make calls to the victims identified in the report and set up in-person meetings for what she referred to as an “apology tour.” She, an attorney and a Coast Guard Investigative Service agent met with around 25 to 30 victims in “emotional meetings,” she said.
“Some victims were upset that the Coast Guard had ripped open the wounds they had received at the Academy all those years ago, only to take no action against the perpetrators in the end,” wrote Norenberg, who was directed by officials to follow talking points at the meetings.
Norenberg also claims she was told not to give important forms to the victims that would have awarded them access to critical Department of Veterans Affairs, benefits because if she had, the academy would have had to enter each of those victims into a public database, which would report a clear spike of sexual assault cases that could be seen by Congress.
“To prevent Operation Fouled Anchor from being discovered by Congress, Coast Guard leaders deliberately withheld VA military sexual trauma benefits and services from the survivors we were sent around to meet with,” she wrote.
Norenberg also claims she was directed to lie to victims that Congress was notified of Operation Fouled Anchor, when in fact it had not been. She said she first became aware of the extent of what she had done after Operation Fouled Anchor was first reported by CNN last year, and she “literally became sick.”
“The whole thing was a cruel coverup at the expense of the victims, with the entire purpose being to preserve the image of the Coast Guard and avoid scandal,” she said. “And the Coast Guard used me as part of their plan.”