By Russ and Lisa Kendzior

After reading President Bob Clark’s press release denouncing the truth of both the story’s authors and that of my daughter Annie and myself (Nov. 2016 Students Concerned President’s History Will Repeat Itself), my heart sank and I am again reminded that he just doesn’t get it.

What I would have hoped to hear from Bob Clark in 2016, five years after he bungled Annie’s rape case, was a sense of remorse for what happened to Annie – how he would have done things differently, and how he has learned from that experience.

It was a painful experience for everyone. Now that he is a civilian, it would have been decent of him to offer his apologies to a then 20-year-old woman he kicked out of the U.S. Naval Academy for doing nothing wrong.

The facts are simple: After almost three years of carrying the burden of being raped, Annie was experiencing the early signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and was not feeling supported within her company.

She took the bold move of requesting “mast,” which, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is a last ditch option midshipmen have to speak to their most senior military commander on the base. Requesting mast is very rare and reserved for serious issues.

Captain Robert Clark, who was the chief of command of nearly 5,000 men and women who served in the brigade of midshipmen, agreed to meet with her. In that meeting, Annie told him that her emotional distress was largely because she felt consistently singled out by the leadership in her company and requested to be moved to another company.

By this time Annie was in a deep emotional hole, a dark place where she felt helpless and hopeless and that, as a last resort, was asking for the mercy of the chief in command. Bob chose to keep his distance on her case.

Clark had full access to both her academic and military service files and should have asked himself why this 20-year-old, female midshipman with an above 3.0 GPA in Applied Mathematics, who was a blue-chip highly recruited varsity athlete, was requesting mast? What was going on?

He also had to know (or should have known) that Annie had spoken of being sexually assaulted to several people in the USNA community, including midshipmen, her therapist on the yard, and all Navy medical staff who had ever asked if she had ever been raped.

As the father of my only daughter who is thousands of miles away in a government-run institution that personally assured my family that they would take care of her, it truly felt as if he did not want the facts to get in the way of influencing his decision.

But why would the Commandant of Midshipmen, the second highest ranked officer at the U.S. Naval Academy, not want to get to the truth about what is going on within the ranks of his command?

Bob spent his entire career in a male-only submarine force where he had little to no experience working with and leading women. From an outsider’s perspective, he had no desire to get involved with a highly sensitive and political subject like the rapes of my daughter.

To think that somehow Bob Clark is a different person today than a mere five years ago is hard for my family to believe.

Instead of stepping up to the plate and doing his duty of ensuring the safety and well-being of the young, college-aged men and women under his command, he chose to continue to nourish the military culture where victims of rape are re-victimized and kicked out, while their perpetrators graduate and go on to lead enlisted men and women in our Navy and Marine Corps.

Within a year of Annie filing her lawsuit, another female midshipman came forward publicly, which finalized Bob Clark’s removal as Commandant of Midshipmen.

Captain Clark was sent off to Penn State where he was tasked with leading their ROTC program.  A few years after that, he retired from the Navy as Captain and was hired by Wesley College to now lead their institution and student body.

Having read the article published in the Whetstone last week, I was shocked to hear that a member of Wesley’s faculty who served on the search committee, did a “quick Google search” and “found several articles about Kendzior’s case” but apparently did not investigate any further. Is it not important to understand, in detail, how a potential candidate for a college’s President handled rapes in his previous position of leading young men and women?

Annie’s story made international news. There were in-depth stories done by CNN, ESPN, and most of the leading print publications. At the very least, it should have been researched by those charged with that responsibility.

Your students, fellow faculty, staff and alumni deserve better.

My comments are based on my personal experience and first-hand knowledge of Wesley College’s newest President. Annie’s separation papers are signed by Bob Clark and what happened at her separation hearing, which was chaired by Bob Clark, tell the real story.

Lastly, this is not something I and my family enjoy talking about. We do it, not just for Annie’s sake and reputation, but for all the other “Annies” and their parents who, God forbid, may someday have to go through the trauma of rape while being further victimized by those who were entrusted with protecting their safety and welfare.