Washington – Charges that Air Force Academy leaders discriminated against non-Christian cadets have prompted the Air Force to take another look at the school’s religious climate.
While Air Force officials stress they’ve been working on the issue for months, acting Air Force Secretary Michael L. Dominguez decided more needed to be done.
Last week, the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State released a 13-page report charging that evangelical Christian cadets were favored over other cadets, that academy chaplains urged cadets to convert their peers to Christianity, and that senior cadets harassed non-Christian cadets about their beliefs.
“Lingering allegations from sources such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State are being taken very seriously by the Air Force,” according to an Air Force statement. So Dominguez ordered the creation of a task force to look at the religious climate at the Colorado Springs school. Domin guez ordered a preliminary report by May 23.
“Sadly, we’ve determined there’s a pattern of treating a cadet who’s a non-evangelical Christian as a second-class citizen,” the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the group, said Tuesday. “I was glad to see that a significant step was taken today to look at this issue in a significant way.”
The group interviewed 15 current and former cadets and found significant evidence of religious intolerance and bias, Lynn said. The group also charged that efforts to remedy previous complaints were half- hearted. For example, the report said Commandant of Cadets Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida undercut an “apology” for overeager proselytizing by displaying a Bible verse on the screen in the mess hall while he read it.
An Air Force spokesman declined to respond to such specific charges, saying the task force and the Department of Defense would respond.
The new task force will look at Air Force policy and the academy’s chain of command to determine how they affect the religious climate at the academy. The issue also has been studied by the academy’s Board of Visitors, an oversight group, which visited the campus last month to learn more about religious- sensitivity training that began this month for 4,100 cadets.
The academy launched a program in March called Respecting the Spiritual Values of All People, or RSVP, after a cadet survey in fall 2003 showed 50 percent of cadets had heard religious slurs and jokes. The survey also raised concerns about unwanted proselytizing on the campus and a perception that Christian cadets are favored over non-Christians.
Staff writer Mike Soraghan can be reached at 202-662-8730 or msoraghan@denverpost.com.
