ISSUED

Founded by Nancy Parrish in 2011, Protect Our Defenders (POD) lobbies Congress for more ethical rules and regulations regarding military sexual assault prosecution in the Armed Forces. Their ultimate goal is to give the victims of military sexual violence a voice and means to advocate for themselves.

Adelaide Kahn-Fowler, Director of Programs and Policy of POD, articulates one of the missions of the organization as shining a light on the failings of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for active duty and civilians alike, and gives hope for a more accountable future in our conversation below.

Can you tell us a bit about Protect Our Defenders? How did the organization get started?

I’ll start with our mission and then I’ll go into a pre-history, so our org is the preeminent org that focuses on assisting survivors of military sexual assault (MST). That includes civilians, AD, veterans, and dependents who typically fall into that civilian category, but they are slightly different in terms of what rights are afforded to them, so we mention them as a separate category. Anyway, assisting them through the process within the military justice system following an instance of MST. We also provide advice, commentary, basically to the best that we can in a bipartisan way. We push for reform to the military justice system that falls under the broad category of Federal law, and so any changes to the UCMJ which dictates the law that those who are active duty in the military have to follow.

Congress has the ability to change provisions within, and so we influence that every year based on the stories that we hear from survivors and the expertise that our leadership brings to the table. We also work to educate the public on these issues because they’re super niche, and also to educate folks who have the unfortunate reason to engage with the military justice system in this context.

We’ve been around since 2011. I think ever since the tragic murder of Vanessa Guillen in 2020 this issue has become more a part of the national discourse on bigger level than when we started. As a result, there have been a lot of other organizations that have either turned their attention toward these issues, or created to kind of address these, but we’ve been around since 2011, because our founder, Nancy Parrish, worked for a long time with congress woman Jackie Speier out of northern California.

Out of that friendship she learned of the extent of this problem. At the time, it was very hush hush. Hardly anyone knew about it at all except those that were experiencing it directly. This org was founded to basically provide the type of assistance that was so deeply needed at that time. And then about a year into our existence The Invisible War came out and started to bring greater attention to these issues.

How would your organization approach mitigating such cases in a way that prevents them from occurring to begin with, and helping those affected when they do happen?

I think that also is a multilayer, that requires kind of a multilayer approach, and one thing that I think our org has advocated against for years is that there’s a lot of, in terms of the chain of command, there’s not a lot of accountability the higher up you go for bad decision making and bad or toxic leadership.

You might have somebody who’s sort of creating this toxic environment in a leadership capacity, maybe by their own model of behavior or their lack holding anybody accountable who misbehaves within their chain of command. So, you have this kind of cesspool of misbehavior and acceptance of misbehavior. Then it might come to the attention of the services secretary and then that person might get moved, or quietly retired.

When you don’t have that kind of person who’s being held to account, what kind of precedent are you setting, or what kind of example are you setting? I mean the fact that there’s only been one air force general officer to be court marshalled for a sex assault? Like, you can’t tell me that it’s because general officers are saints and none of them are committing any kind of, like… We know that’s not true.

So we think it’s a lack of example being set. They don’t practice what they preach, there’s kind of a culture, [a] precedent that’s established, and “What do you expect?”

If we’re looking at the big picture, the view down the road if we may. What impact is Protect Our Defenders hoping to accomplish in the long run?

How we view ourselves right now, is as a watch dog agency, and calling out instances where either policy or a reform was badly worded so there are loopholes. The ultimate goal of that particular policy may not be actually playing out, because something is wrong with it, or there isn’t any adherence to it.

So, we’re staying engaged in the capacity to continue to better the system and the execution of these processes is one way. I think empowering and holding to account the instillations or institutions where there isn’t a strong or supported Sexual Assault Prevention Reponse or Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention unit because we’ve seen those stories that have come out in the last couple of years where those who have tried to do their jobs and advocate on behalf of survivors have themselves been punished.

I think there’s so many things that are kind of akin to that to basically foster a safer work environment. Unfortunately, we haven’t spent a lot of time as an org focusing on prevention, and I don’t feel like anything in my career to this point can speak to the prevention efforts other than sometimes I see the training material and (laughs) oh my god, how can this, like, I don’t know, you know, it’s ridiculous. So, I imagine some sort of refinement of the prevention programs they’re working on, but ultimately, I think continuing to use the platform to publicly hold the whole institution accountable, over and over again.

Is there anything we didn’t cover that you would like to add?

I want to hit on the other thing I was talking about in terms of lack of accountability. One thing that came about or was built into our conversation after we published our two racial disparity reports, is we look at the…, and this is starting to change, but it’s still changing painfully slow, but when you look at the higher-ranking officers, particularly the four stars. They are overwhelmingly white and male, and so I think continuing to create promotion opportunities or mentorship opportunities for service members of color and women and those who are LGBTQ service members and just diversifying the leadership. We’ve seen this in other institutions. If you have greater representation in a leadership capacity, you’re watering down the kind of influence of the old boys club, and there could be opportunities for culture change within that.

Now, I think that process is really slow. We still see higher ranking women and others who are meting out the same attitudes and behaviors as their white male counterparts. Because […] a lot of it has to do with what they themselves have accepted to get to where they are, and also, they’re still a minority. If they’re the one outspoken one, then you don’t get to where you are. So, that process takes a lot longer, but I think it’s equally important if you’re going to inspire people not only to feel comfortable and safe in their workplace but also to stay. I mean I think the military right now is having a bit of a reckoning when it comes to retention and enlistment. Neither are particularly good right now.

If your organization had one message that it wanted people to take away from this interview, what would it be?

I would say for the civilians who happen to read this article, go to our website and read about it. The extent at which this problem is occurring and know too that it’s not just affecting those who are serving our country. It affects all of us. I think the more people become aware of the problems within this, again like I said at the top of this conversation, this is on its face, niche, but it really affects everybody. The military itself is so large, all of us are touched by it in some way shape or form and you never know when some of the information that we have on our website might be helpful. And you know, because sometimes we don’t know what kind of political climate we’re heading into next year with this upcoming election, and the more kind of public awareness we have, the more we’re going to be able to continue to push forward with the reforms we want to see happen.