NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) — At the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, officers-in-training spend four years together at a riverside campus steeped in shared values of honor, respect and devotion to duty. Yet for all the uniformity, many say the experience can feel vastly different for some minority cadets compared with whites.
African-American cadets, in particular, have been raising concerns about off-color jokes, disparities in discipline and the administration’s handling of what some see as racial hostility. Episodes have included a white cadet playing the song “If the South Woulda Won” in a black cadet’s room and an instructor’s use of a racial slur to get cadets’ attention for a presentation cracking down on the widespread, casual use of such epithets.