Rachel VanLandingham

Marine Corps Commandant Robert Neller should be immediately relieved of his command. As the senior leader of the Marine Corps, he is ultimately responsible for the good order and discipline of the corps, and his willful ignorance of his Marines’ escalating abuse of female Marines on social media has allowed both to seriously degrade.

Not only does Neller’s dereliction of duty warrant his firing, subordinate Marine Corps leaders need such an unequivocal signal that failure to exercise their command to safeguard their female members will not be tolerated.

This latest Marine Corps nude photo scandal — not the first — demonstrates the lamentable misogynistic culture that still exists in the corps. The scandal and the culture that has tolerated it represent a significant leadership failure. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., alerted the Marine Corps four years ago to the problem of male Marines posting denigrating photos and comments about female Marines on Facebook, but the Marine Corps commandant at the time blamed social media, sequestration and the military justice system for the problem.

Little was done in response, with even the Marine Corps guidance on social media behavior issued not as binding orders but as non-punitive encouragement instead. So no one should be surprised that now, hundreds and possibly thousands of Marines have engaged in "revenge porn" behavior by directly posting salacious photos of fellow servicemembers on social media, and by soliciting and encouraging such postings through atrocious social media comments on the photos.

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The current commandant, Gen. Neller, continues this blame game and, even worse, seems disconnected and disinterested. During a briefing to reporters Friday, he admitted that while he has known about the issue since 2013, he didn’t understand it because he doesn’t use Facebook or social media. That’s a weak excuse for doing nothing to protect his female Marines from such abuse and invasions of privacy. If the senior leader of the Marine Corps didn’t understand the problem, he should have educated himself or appointed others under his command to do so. Failure to do so epitomizes failure of command.

Neller also just announced that he is forming a task force to supplement the ongoing criminal investigation into this misconduct. Why did it take a public scandal to prompt such action? It seems clear that the commandant is more than simply ignorant of this criminal behavior: He is also apathetic. His briefing remarks revealed a senior Marine Corps leadership that is disconnected from its members, one that tolerates its male Marines referring to female Marines as “wooks,” “walking mattresses” and worse.

In fact, Neller even complained that this scandal was keeping him from much more important matters, such as a Marine deployment to Norway, and seemed highly annoyed that he was going to have to answer to Congress when he’d prefer to be elsewhere. This tone-deafness about an issue rotting his corps is beyond negligent; it is grounds for removal.

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This latest scandal is the tip of the iceberg of a deep-seated resentment of women in the Marine Corps. Such resentment might represent only a minority of the corps, but it’s a minority that Marine Corps commanders have continually ignored and tolerated, risking the health of the overall Marine Corps in the process. Yet it’s doubtful that the secretary of Defense, retired Marine general James Mattis, will do the right thing and fire Neller.

First of all, the brotherhood of generals and flag officers takes care of each other. Second, Mattis himself is part of the problem, given his past public opposition to women in combat positions in the Marine Corps.

Mattis now has an opportunity to undo some of his contributions to a Marine Corps that is unwelcoming to women. He can do it by relieving Neller of his command and ensuring that those who have been abusing the women of the corps are held accountable.

Rachel VanLandingham, an associate professor at Southwestern Law School, is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who served as a judge advocate while on active duty.

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