Sherrill didn’t walk with her graduating class in wake of Navy Academy cheating scandalGovernor hopeful says she was punished for failing to turn in classmates
By David Wildstein, September 25 2025 12:03 pm
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee for governor of New Jersey, was barred from walking with her class at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1994 as a punishment connected to the massive cheating scandal that implicated over 130 midshipmen in her class.
A copy of the commencement program from May 25, 1994, obtained by the New Jersey Globe, does not include Sherrill’s name. Sherrill said that her absence from the ceremony was a consequence of failing to report classmates who had been involved in the scandal.
“I didn’t turn in some of my classmates, so I didn’t walk, but graduated and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving for nearly ten years with the highest level of distinction and honor,” Sherrill said.
However, the Sherrill campaign rejected a request that she permit public inspection of any disciplinary records from her time at the academy. Only Sherrill could authorize the release of those sealed records.
Sherrill has made her military service as a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and helicopter pilot the centerpiece of her political identity, but has never publicly discussed her class’s cheating controversy in stump speeches or interviews. There were rumors that she was tied to the scandal in 2018 when she sought to flip a House seat in New Jersey’s 11th district, but it was suggested to the New Jersey Globe at the time that Sherrill was not involved.
The scandal revolved around electrical engineering exam answers that some midshipmen obtained and shared with their classmates in December 1992. Two dozen of Sherrill’s classmates were expelled, and one of those involved said in 2002 that he thought more than 400 out of the 663 midshipmen who took the exam had seen copies of it in advance.
The events struck at the heart of Annapolis’s honor code, sparking congressional hearings and internal investigation; the resignation of Rear Adm. Thomas C. Lynch, the superintendent at Annapolis; and widespread debate over whether the institution had been too lenient in past cases of misconduct. The academy subsequently undertook significant reforms to strengthen its academic integrity system and restore public trust.
There was no interruption in Sherrill’s military service as a result of the scandal: she was assigned to Annapolis for 254 days after graduation as she awaited a spot to open up for her at the Navy flight school in Pensacola, Florida.
Sherrill went on to serve in the Navy for nine years and had been recommended for promotion to the rank of lieutenant commander before her retirement in 2003. The U.S. Naval Academy website lists Sherrill as a notable graduate. She received the Navy Achievement Medal for saving the life of a fellow shipmate while at the academy, and the prestigious Distinguished Public Service Award in 2024 – the Navy’s highest civilian honor.
The news comes amid a tightening of the New Jersey governor’s race. Sherrill had been ahead in every poll since the primary, but an Emerson College Polling/PIX 11/The Hill survey released today shows her tied with Republican Jack Ciattarelli at 43% each.
Sherrill pushed back on the relevance of the scandal to her gubernatorial campaign.
“Jack continues to try and use any avenue he can to execute the MAGA playbook of smearing military service,” she said. “Now, his latest attempt is to go after a 30-year-old widely reported incident when I was an undergraduate at the Naval Academy.”
Ciattarelli’s campaign manager, Eric Arpert, stated that Sherrill’s admission of disciplinary action raises questions about her entire life story.
“Today’s admission by Congresswoman Sherrill that she was implicated in, and punished for, her involvement in the largest cheating and honor code scandal in the history of the United States Navy is both stunning and deeply disturbing,” Arpert stated. “For eight years, Mikie Sherrill has built her entire political brand around her time at the Naval Academy and in the Navy, all the while concealing her involvement in the scandal and her punishment. The people of New Jersey deserve complete and total transparency.”
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