In today’s Advisor, we publish a guest column from Mark I. Schickman of the California Employment Law Letter on mock training videos gone bad.
To Bawdily Go Where Lawman Had Gone Before
by Mark I. Schickman
These are the voyages of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Her mission: to serve with honor, courage, and commitment, to display excellence, readiness, quality of service, and quality of life, and to be a continuing symbol of liberty, justice, and freedom.
The eighth U.S. vessel to bear the Enterprise name, she is the world’s first and fastest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. She also [got a new captain in 2011,] Dee Mewbourne, because her erstwhile captain, Owen Honors, [had] been relieved of command because of the middling raunchy fake training videos he created several years ago while he was the ship’s executive officer. Honors was an ambitious thespian, personally acting out the videos’ most offensive portions, shot in the style of the carrier’s usual training videos. There is liberal use of the f-bomb and simulated masturbation in locations including commodes, the office, and training sessions. Sex is simulated, and gay-bashing occurs throughout.
The videos were shot in 2006 and 2007 while the Enterprise was in the Persian Gulf, its 4,400-person crew preparing for war. The films were intended solely for crew entertainment and morale after 18-hour days in 120-degree heat, say the many Honors defenders among the crew. They say the 28-year highly decorated captain with a heretofore spotless record was “scapegoated” after a Virginia newspaper learned of and publicized the mock training films.
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Not so, say the military brass who “lost confidence” in and moved Honors to administrative duty for his “lack of good judgment and professionalism,” which undermined his “character and credibility.”
‘Law and Order: Raunchy Video Edition’
You may be tempted to say, “That’s pretty harsh. Was Owen Honors warned not to shoot raunchy videos?” Well, that intelligence was available the year before, when San Francisco Police Captain Rick Bruce was relieved of his command amid a spate of suspensions for doing exactly the same thing.
Bruce was in charge of the San Francisco Bayview District Police Station, one of the toughest beats in the city. In 2005, he appeared in a video much like Honors’―simulated sex and masturbation, gay and racist jokes, all intended for fun in-house consumption. But the story became a cause célèbre once the news media broadcast the video.
The 24 cops suspended in 2005―and most of the precinct―told the same tale as the Enterprise crew when they justified the racism, sexism, and homophobia in the joking video they produced for internal consumption: After long, hard days of putting your life on the line, you want to kick back and joke around. But Mayor (soon to be Lieutenant Governor) Gavin Newsom responded with outrage, while Police Chief Heather Fong suspended everyone involved in the “shameful, egregious, and despicable” conduct.
In the Heat of the Moment
Honors lost command of the Enterprise, and the Navy is investigating the other senior officers who knew about, participated in, and then ignored the videos―and later supported Honors’ promotion to captain. Will further discipline stick? If you, again, look at the San Francisco precedent, no. A San Francisco Superior Court panel reversed all of the police department suspensions with back pay and reinstated all 24 suspended officers, saying the video wasn’t such an “exigent, emergency situation” to warrant immediate summary suspension.
So why do smart, successful leaders who rose to the rank of captain do such stupid things? In part, it’s a function of unit morale trumping political correctness―a common practice, it seems, until the situation becomes public. Then the organization’s executives do their best Captain Renault imitation and decry, “I am shocked, shocked to find raunchy language among cops and Navy officers.” In part, it’s also a matter of “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Errors are simply unacceptable when you’re the captain.
Or the problem may be acting in the heat of the moment. [Seven] years ago, Honors and his peers must have thought they were doing the right thing by keeping their men amused over Honors’ antics rather than ruminating over fear for their lives. If they’d predicted that their actions would later be subjected to landlubber scrutiny, they’d probably have aimed the shipboard humor a little higher.
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Mark I. Schickman is a partner with Freeland Cooper & Foreman LLP in San Francisco and editor of California Employment Law Letter.
In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll look at costly sexism charges at one company, plus we’ll introduce an upcoming webinar on how to eliminate the key risk factors for sexism in your workplace.