The Air Force Academy’s top cadet apparently sent an e-mail to other cadets Tuesday with religious references despite an Air Force warning last week against such communications.
Wing Commander Nicholas Jurewicz, who relinquished his cadet command to his successor in a graduation parade at the academy Tuesday, e-mailed about 3,000 cadets regarding character development, according to The Associated Press.
Jurewicz is to become a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force in today’s graduation ceremony, said Johnny Whitaker, communications director at the academy.
The e-mail contained quotes from several books of the Bible, and from Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, Isaac Newton, many generals – including Napoleon Bonaparte, Colin Powell, Robert E. Lee, Erwin Rommel and George Patton – and others.
Reached by telephone, Jure wicz declined to comment to The Associated Press.
Last week, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper sent a memo to commanders reminding them that using their power and position to promote their religious beliefs is “wholly inappropriate.”
Whitaker said Tuesday night: “We’re going to look into it. If he violated any policies or rules, we’ll take appropriate action.”
Jumper’s statement, issued Friday, spoke to the use of e-mails, saying it is inappropriate to use them to promote a specific belief or promote a religious event.
Capt. MeLinda Morton, an academy chaplain who says she was fired for her criticism of what she said is religious proselytizing at the academy, said: “This this is a prime example of what we’ve been talking about here in terms of leadership failure. If he doesn’t understand the constitutional boundaries here, to use his position to espouse religious ideology, then who does?”
Jumper’s memo last week was issued a day after the head of a task force investigating claims of religious bias at the academy gave an oral briefing to Michael Dominguez, acting secretary of the Air Force.
An Air Force spokeswoman couldn’t say whether anything in the briefing led to the memo.
“I’ve had the document read to me,” Morton said, “and it has biblical quotes along with other quotes from antiquity” regarding “resourcing” the cadets’ character development.
It is an example of a cadet following the example set for him at the academy, Morton said.
“It talks about developing yourself in terms of character. Clearly the message is, if you’re going to resource your character here at the Air Force Academy, you do that with evangelical spirituality.
“That’s precisely what we’ve been talking about here.”
A task force spent three days at the academy in mid-May looking into the religious climate at the academy and concerns that Christians, especially evangelicals, are favored over non- Christians. A report from the task force is expected in about two weeks.
