Sen. Cruz Wants Answers from Merchant Marine Academy on Official's Bigoted Tweets

Letter

Federal law requires USMMA's SAPR office to "represent the interests of any cadet at the Academy who reports being a victim of sexual harassment, dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, even if such interests are in conflict with the interests of the Academy." However, as referenced previously, it has recently come to light that the current director of the Academy's SAPR office, Anton Tripolskii--who was hired in 2022 for the $142,595 salaried position--made a litany of public statements indicating gender and racial bias. Specifically, on June 6, 2020, Mr. Tripolskii tweeted: "We don't have forces who do right by survivors of intimate partner and sexual violence because we don't have forces who don't abuse Brown and Black people. Same forces, same reasons. Misogyny and racism grow from the same white, male root."

Mr. Tripolskii's statements are troubling for obvious reasons. They are both bigoted and objectively false. It is empirically inaccurate to claim that the sole source of misogyny and racism are white males, and for cadets who happen to fall into those categories, it is difficult to see how they could believe they would be treated fairly by Mr. Tripolskii.

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