Women And Military: Focus Of Conference In San Diego

MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: This is Midday Edition, I am Maureen Cavanaugh. Women in the military have have have had to deal with a wide range of personas and lectures. They've been headlined as heroes for service to the countries and victims of military sexual abuse much of which goes on proxy and prosecuted and unpunished. Finally, when it with the military but personnel are per trade as an unknown quantity, the various branches of the armed forces were to determine if there qualified for, it positions. All those aspects of military service will be exported a conference as we get Thomas Jefferson school of Law. I like to welcome my guests Jane Siegel and Amy day. Welcome to the program. Why did this years conference the site this focus on women in the military? AMY DAY: It really comes down to the issues that you presented therein in production, women have been female service members have garnered a lot of press lately, and largely for issues connected to sexual assault in the military, this is an issue that we've seen in the headlines most lately, because of the reasons of the fix on sexual assault, but is a very disempowering area, and Thomas Jefferson school of law, we have a large student military population this past fall, 11% of our entering class came for the military and we have a large percentage of student population that are also no trace spouses, so we wanted to explore this issue because it is of particular concern to our student body but wanted to present the issues in a way that was Allen's and fair and that also moved a little bit away from the disempowering narrative of a female who serves in the military being a victim of sexual assault, that is not true, there's so much distinguished service that has been part of our law school community and service conference is an opportunity to sort of discuss these issues deeply, but at the same time to bring in some top military commanders who are women on the campus and also talk about ways that the military's changing to allow increased opportunities for women to become a part of elite forces. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: In addition to Colonel Siegel you have a couple of impressive speakers of this conference, tell us about the net Duranty and Stacy Penn Petras appeared AMY DAY: They are exciting speakers and we have them largely as a testament to Colonel Siegel's teaching, and she top both of them in her career as an instructor while she was an active duty married judge advocate, vice Admiral Duranty is the highest ranking lawyer and all of the baby baby and Marine Corps and choose the first woman to hold that position, the instrument is the exciting to have her on campus and we will also have Captain Stacy per does it was the commanding officer of the Naval Justice: Newport Rhode Island, every military lawyer in the Navy and Marine Corps attends a civilian law school but after law school day attend a three month military training program and Can put Roosevelt is the committee office so officer of the school, her position is really very important and unique right now, that just because it's not where it would be that there's a woman going that position but also because in a time with her so much attention being given to the issue of sexual assault in the military, she is the one training lawyers and going out and prosecuting and defending people of all the that issue. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Let us start with the recent moves in Congress to address sexual abuse the military, your chief counsel in the Marine Corps, were you involved in sexual abuse cases? JANE SEIGEL: I have been involved in sexual abuse cases since the 1975, starting as a young defense counsel senior defense counsel we shall defense counsel and chief defense counsel of the record, that all along that way including my private practice now which is exclusively service, I handle sexual assault cases that I have prosecuted and defended them, and I was certainly set on them as a military judge. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Side talking to the right person, what the posted you actually witness for victims of sexual abuse? We're talking largely women in the Marine Corps and the military, what are the problems in the military chain of command and military justice when it comes to people who have been victimized by this to get justice? JANE SEIGEL: That be correct a misperception, if you are to believe that some of the studies that have been done, there are more male victims than female victims, the other problem is there is no way to get an objective number regarding how many sexual's assaults allegations there are, we see huge numbers and the question is is that a good thing or bad thing? MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Because more people might be reporting? JANE SEIGEL: Exactly, the subcommittee reads that as a horrible problem and an epidemic, and the need to make all of these changes. It can even more reasonably be said that as women become more confident in their own right, that they are willing to report and they do believe in the chain of command, the change of command of, the commander. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: One of the latest things that happened is that the bill signed by the president that was signed to the changes in how these cases are handled in the sense that commanding officers are no longer allowed to overturn the verdict of the jury in the sexual abuse case, you can get is a good thing? JANE SEIGEL: Now, first of all the Defense authorization act of 2014 credit these changes, not just a change but there are in excess of thirty major changes dealing almost exclusively with the crimes of sexual assaults, so we have singled out a little cups cluster of cases, and the commander is the linchpin of the military, not just military justice, but his or her man has to believe in him and trust him and use him in the larger sense, the commander is responsible for all things that happened or failed to him and within the command, and if the view is that the commander can be trusted with every other kind of case, terrorism or murder, things that carry the death penalty, but somehow Congress believes that those very same men and women cannot reasonably and rationally handle sexual assault cases, this has to create a problem in the commander's ability to lead peer MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: That they ask you this, I know that there are number of women in the military who would disagree with you on this, and you probably know that as well, but all of this talk, then be open up to him is well, with all of this talk to think making a military take the issue more seriously now than perhaps in the past? AMY DAY: I think that part of the question is whether the attention particularly on the role of the military commanders misplace, that perhaps that it is sort of a more attractive for easy for the civilian community that has spread into these issues to direct its attention or criticism on that particular Philly area of the military justice system, that a military commander has discretion to not bring a case the child born to set aside the verdict of the military Pedal, and at the same time that is unusual but that actually happens, that the verdict that is reached by military plan all is clearly set aside by military Commander. JANE SEIGEL: He treated quite unusual, it's much more common to find upon submission by the defense counsel post trial, the committee may take some time and sienna just the sentence somewhat in accordance with what happened in trial and an additional matters committed by the defense, that will happen and tying the commander's hands as to what that'll make you or she can consider when first charging the case, but what the commander can do afterward with regard to the case and even what the commander can do in regard to pretrial agreements in sexual assault cases, is going to create a come please logjam for the system. Any justice system military or system were pretrial motion nations are limited will grind to a halt. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: I can tell this part of your conference is going to be very lively with the discussion. Depth as well, I would like to move onto another huge issue for women in the military if I may, and that is the opening of combat roles for women, one controversy is whether or not I have been reading this, it many women want to be in the elite combat roles, Colonel C what is your take on that? JANE SEIGEL: My take on that is that the I'm glad that I was not there, I don't like the doses were people dying around me, and as Luther women that of Natalie desire to go into Mark combat frontline liberals, but are physically qualified to do that, depending on what service you're talking about, women have been more or less successful in getting into those roles, phrases for instance the Air Force is nearly 50% female, they would cease to operate if they started sorting out females from. The Navy has put women on surface ships and put women on cockpits insert summary, the they are still getting around to it, the idea of whether women can go through ground rules, even of a pass to the same tacit rigorous training. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Local the armed services have until sixty 2016 to integrate women into, roles, have you been hearing it's been going? JANE SEIGEL: As I said, it depends on the service that you look at and also depends on what the word integrate means, does that mean take steps toward or does that mean you have to force a collision between male and female? In the Marine Corps they are seeing it as steps toward, where letting women go to schools but recently the commandant was interviewed and didn't think that in his lifetime he would see women in actual 302, the grunts and ground pounders. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Is this bureaucratic resistance an actual problem? JANE SEIGEL: We know there are women who can and want to do roles, and I think based on our long war in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we saw women dying in combat and getting captured, and the American public is not so shocked by this notion, you use the word your credit, I think whenever bureaucratic, I think whenever the military has to make a change it is hard for them and becomes issues like bathrooms and more out, and unit integrity and it's brought up every time with your talking about gays or talking about African-Americans or, talking about women in ground units, we go through the same thing all the time and never to that be a problem, and we look towards our allies, they've already done that kind of an integrating in this out of there either, these great debates that we've had our great, if that makes sense. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: They are words that actions, talking about words, you're going to be using a lot of them during this conference and it sounds like you did have a lively discussion about a lot of issues, with you hope people will take away from this conference? AMY DAY: Mainly I hope that this is a conference that brings together the law school community with our San Diego community more broadly, San Diego is home to the largest concentration of active duty service members of any country in the United States and the highest population of post-9/11 veterans, so I hope that we can have a conversation that is relevant to the city and many more broadly understood that aren't population out of school and I hope this will be an opportunity for people to make connections and we're very excited the groups that were will be welcoming to campus. We have a group called the military spouse network, the conference not just for women in the military but women were impacted by the military, whether they're in a connected to it, this is the opportunity for women who are married to servicemembers to connect with one another, and learn from shared experiences, between people who love this kind of comment obstacle of frequently the locations being married to a servicemember or spouse, to meet people where they of hope to go. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: That me tell everyone to annual women and law conference will take place at Thomas Jefferson school of Law this Friday, I've been speaking with Jane Siegel and Amy Day, thank you both very much.