Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has announced the names of the individuals who will serve on a seven-member panel to review sexual misconduct allegations at the US Air Force Academy. Congress directed the panel on April 16, in Public Law 108-11, Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2003.

Rumsfeld, in consultation with the Chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, named Tillie K. Fowler as panel chair. Fowler is a law partner with Holland & Knight law firm, a former Florida congresswoman and House Armed Services Committee member with expertise in defense policy and military academies. Other panel members are Josiah Bunting, superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute; Amy McCarthy, United Airlines pilot and Air Force Academy graduate; Laura L. Miller, social scientist at the Rand Corp., former assistant professor of sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles and an expert in organizational behavior; Michael J. Nardotti, law partner, Patton, Boggs, LLP, a retired Army major general and formerly the Judge Advocate General of the Army; John W. Ripley, director of Marine Corps History Center and Museum, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, and former president of Southern Virginia College; and Sally L. Satel, practicing psychiatrist at the Oasis Drug Treatment Center, Washington, D.C., with expertise in addictive behavior as it relates to sexual misconduct.

The panel will conduct a 90-day study of the policies, management, and organizational practices and cultural elements of the Academy that may have been conducive to alleged sexual misconduct, including sexual assaults and rape. A report of findings, conclusions, and recommendations will be submitted to the Secretary of Defense and the Chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees upon completion of the study.

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