USMMA Sea Year Sexual Abuse Records Lawsuit

This case was a Sea Year records lawsuit with a safety purpose: protect cadets and make the Sea Year program safer. Justice4Mariners and Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy sued the U.S. Maritime Administration to obtain records showing what MARAD, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and commercial vessel operators knew about sexual assault and harassment during cadets’ required at-sea training.

The lawsuit sought records about sexual abuse reports, MARAD and USMMA responses, communications with Congress, communications with shipping companies, Maritime Security Program operating agreements, EMBARC submissions, and Sexual Culture Climate Team materials. The goal was not simply to obtain documents. It was to expose the institutional record so cadets, families, policymakers, and the public could understand whether the systems responsible for Sea Year were protecting cadets or protecting the program.

The case was part of a larger investigative effort by Ryan Melogy, Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy, and CNN reporters Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken. Records obtained through the FOIA request and lawsuit helped support CNN’s reporting on the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy’s culture of fear, including stories about cadets who said they were sexually harassed or assaulted and feared triggering investigations that could harm their careers.

Midshipman-X, Midshipman-Y, and other cadets showed the human cost of abuse at sea. This lawsuit targeted the institutional record behind that abuse: MARAD, USMMA, and the shipping companies that controlled the Sea Year pipeline.

The case helped show that Sea Year sexual abuse was not only a series of isolated incidents. It was a records problem, a reporting problem, a transparency problem, and an accountability problem. By forcing records into the open, the lawsuit helped survivors, journalists, policymakers, and the public push toward a safer Sea Year program for future cadets.