Air Force Academy – An Air Force team investigating allegations of religious harassment at the Air Force Academy will make its first visit to the Colorado Springs campus this week, academy officials said today.
Academy officials sent an e-mail to cadets, faculty and staff today announcing the visit and urging them to meet with the task force led by Lt. Gen. Roger Brady. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the e-mail, and academy spokesman Meade Warthen later confirmed the visit.
Acting Air Force Secretary Michael Dominguez established the team last week after an internal survey and outside groups turned up claims that cadets were pressured to attend religious services and classes, public prayers were held before official events and Jewish cadets were harassed and insulted.
The task force was expected to arrive late Tuesday, conduct interviews and focus groups starting Wednesday and return to Washington Friday or Saturday.
“I encourage you to participate, either as a focus group member or, if you choose, through a private meeting to discuss any concerns or issues you may have,” Lt. Col. Dave Kyger said in the e-mail. Kyger is executive officer for the director of staff at the academy.
The Air Force has refused to say who besides Brady is on the task force or release its schedule.
Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque, N.M., a 1977 academy graduate who has sent two sons to the school, said today the other team members should be publicly identified.
“If they are not going to be public with the names of the panel members, they are not walking the walk,” said Weinstein.
“The constituent members should have a clearly defined record in achievement in word and deed of supporting the constitutional principles of secularism and pluralism,” he said.
Weinstein said evangelical Christian cadets have called his son, Curtis, a Christ-killer.
