, R-Texas, demanded answers from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy head regarding the academy's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response director's series of racially-charged tweets.late Wednesday regarding Sexual Assault Prevention and Response director Anton Tripolskii, who came under fire last month for racially-charged tweets attacking White people.
"These current appointees and their fellow cadets are owed a safe environment to study, learn, and train," Cruz wrote. "Furthermore, since these remarks occurred prior to the director’s hiring, I have a number of questions about the USMMA’s hiring process," Cruz said, going on to note that the academy"has struggled for many years with issues of sexual assault and harassment."
Cruz noted that the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act required the USMMA to bring on a SAPR coordinator full-time that would be under the watch of the program director. The senator also highlighted that"there have been major gaps" in the academy fulfilling the requirement,"including an eight-month period in 2019 when there was no SAPR coordinator at USMMA."
"Mr. Tripolskii’s statements are troubling for obvious reasons. They are both bigoted and objectively false," Cruz wrote."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."