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FOIA News: FOIA battle erupts at West Point

FOIA News (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

West Point women fire back at congressman

By Rebecca Kheel, The Hill, Sept. 24, 2015

A group of female West Point graduates is pushing back on a congressman who asked for the records of the first female Army Ranger School graduates by demanding his Ranger School records.

“If he thinks that Rangers lie and standards are arbitrarily ignored, maybe that was his experience,” Sue Fulton, who was in the first West Point class to include women, told the Army Times. “Maybe we should look into what his experience was.”

On Thursday, the West Point women submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the Ranger School records of Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.), the Army Times reported.

Last week, Russell sent a letter to Army Secretary John McHugh asking for documents on the Ranger School women’s test scores, injuries, evaluations and more.

He did so, he said, because of allegations that the standards were lowered to allow the women to graduate.

“The records request on the recent Ranger classes that included females is to investigate serious allegations that are being made by members of the military,” he wrote in Facebook post.

Read more here.