BALTIMORE — The U.S. Naval Academy superintendent, recently under fire over an off-the-books “slush fund,” will be forced out of his position a month earlier than expected, officials said this week, as the military also overturned his recommendations that two students be expelled.
Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler had planned to retire in September after three years at the academy’s helm, but the chief of naval operations, Adm. Gary Roughead, directed an exit by the first week in August, saying it would “better position the Naval Academy for success in the upcoming year,” according to a Navy spokesman.
The Navy also determined that there had been “inconsistencies” in the application of the academy’s honor code involving seven Midshipmen alleged to have committed a violation, including two football players. Officials said recommendations by Fowler to expel two Midshipmen had been overruled and the students would be offered the opportunity to return.
Rear Adm. Denny Moynihan, the Navy spokesman, played down the significance of Fowler’s accelerated departure, noting that his successor, Rear Adm. Michael Miller, has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate and is available to assume control. A jump start would allow Miller to “shape corrective actions” related to recent reviews of the academy’s programs and policies, he said. A change-of-command ceremony is slated for the first week in August.
But the decision comes two weeks after the release of a 110-page report by the Office of the Naval Inspector General, which found football bowl game sponsorship money had been placed into an off-the-books account and spent on “invitation-only” tailgate parties, catered receptions and gifts for coaches. The report concluded that the expenditures, some of them “extravagant and wasteful,” did nothing for the intended beneficiaries: the academy’s midshipmen.
Though it was completed in November, the report was released just last month in response to a Public Information Act request by the Navy Times.
The report’s outcome “was a factor” in Fowler’s pending retirement, Moynihan said, though he noted that Fowler made no financial gain. The report said there was no evidence he was “specifically aware of any of the improprieties related to the actions of his subordinates in this matter.”
Officials said the academy’s honor and conduct system would be revamped and the new superintendent would begin personally briefing the vice chief of naval operations at the end of each semester, or three times a year, on disciplinary decisions.
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