An Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps patch is shown in 2022. Twenty-one instructors in the overall JROTC program were accused of sexual misconduct in the 2022-23 school year, the Defense Department said. (Greydon Furstenau/U.S. Air Force)
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department said it is committed to carrying out congressionally required reforms to its Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program after 21 instructors were accused of sexual misconduct in the 2022-23 school year.
The number was disclosed in an annual report that lawmakers mandated last year amid investigations into widespread sexual assault in the century-old high school program, which is designed to teach students about civic duty.
A Senate probe led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., found 114 allegations of violence, including sexual abuse and sexual harassment of JROTC students by instructors, between 2012 and 2022. A separate House Oversight Committee investigation in 2022 uncovered 60 allegations in the previous five years.
Pentagon officials told Warren in a letter last month that they were implementing key reforms pushed by Congress last year to address the issue, including the creation of standardized agreements that require high schools to notify military branches of instructor misconduct investigations within one business day.
The Defense Department also has established a code of conduct that instructors will have to sign every year as well as a form in English and Spanish for parents and students that provides resources and points of contact for reporting instances of inappropriate behavior.
Instructors are barred from developing a personal, intimate or sexual relationship with a cadet or student, attempting to gain sexual favors from a cadet or student, or making or accepting sexual advances from a cadet or student, according to a prohibited activities form that instructors must sign.
JROTC instructors are typically retired or reserve officers and enlisted noncommissioned officers but can also be active-duty service members and honorably discharged veterans. They are hired as employees of the school district but also have oversight from the military services, according to the Congressional Research Service.
“The department has implemented enhanced policies to facilitate increased oversight of JROTC programs and foster communication with the schools and school districts that host the programs,” the Pentagon wrote in its 2024 report to Congress.
It added “any incidence of sexual discrimination, harassment or misconduct by JROTC instructors is unacceptable.”
Warren said she was glad to see the Defense Department was “taking important steps to implement these reforms” but expressed dismay that sexual misconduct had taken root in a program that enrolls nearly 500,000 students nationwide.
“It’s unthinkable that students who have joined JROTC to develop leadership skills and learn about military service have been abused by their instructors — adults they’re supposed to be able to trust,” she said.
The latest figures show there were nine allegations of sexual misconduct, harassment and discrimination in the Army JROTC between July 2022 and June 2023, six in the Navy JROTC, three in the Air Force JRTOC and three in the Marine Corps JROTC.
Seven of the allegations were in Texas, four were in Florida and the rest were spread across 10 other states, according to the Pentagon’s report.
Of the 21 investigations, 13 were substantiated, four were not substantiated and four were ongoing when the report was written. Seventeen instructors were removed and permanently decertified as a result of either administrative or criminal probes, and four instructors were retained or reinstated.
The Defense Department said allegations of misconduct against JROTC instructors are investigated and adjudicated in the “same manner as any allegations against other faculty or staff members of that school district and jurisdiction.”
It noted the Pentagon and military services have no authority over the eligibility of a person to work as a JROTC instructor beyond decertifying them.
The Defense Department is required to update the Senate and House Armed Services committees on sexual misconduct allegations in the JROTC program each year until 2029. The latest report promises to evaluate the effectiveness of the Pentagon’s reforms in the coming years and make “necessary adjustments” to reduce and address misconduct.
