Summary: A new GAO report quantifies JROTC misconduct concerns, finding accusations in up to 240 schools and revealing gaps in training and oversight as expansion plans advance.
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September 28, 2025 / Survivors Rights - A government report released Friday on sexual abuse in high school Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) programs estimates that dozens and potentially hundreds of instructors have been accused of sexually abusing or harassing students in the past five years, the New York Times reported Friday.
JROTC programs operate in more than 3,400 public schools, where veterans teach teenagers topics such as military history, life skills, and marksmanship to roughly half a million students each year. The instructors have long worked with little oversight and limited training on being a teacher.
A series of New York Times articles in 2022 found that 33 instructors had been criminally charged with sexual misconduct involving students over a five year period and that many students were being automatically enrolled into what is supposed to be an elective course.
Those articles spurred several government inquiries and led to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report issued on Friday, which for the first time provides an official estimate of the pervasiveness of sexual abuse in the program. Over the past five years, between 2 and 7 percent of schools with JROTC programs had at least one instructor accused of sexual misconduct, a broad category that ranges from sending sexual messages to assault. That could mean as many as 240 schools.
