ARLINGTON, Va. (ABP) — While the United States Air Force Academy has cleared its just-graduated top cadet of charges that he violated the First Amendment, Pentagon officials have announced further expansions of their investigation into the religious climate at the school.
Academy officials announced June 7 that 2nd Lt. Nicholas Jurewicz, who graduated from the Colorado Springs, Colo., academy June 1, had not acted improperly when he sent an e-mail to about 3,000 underclass cadets the day before commencement. Fashioned as a farewell from the cadet wing commander to the students who had been under his charge, Jurewicz's message was accompanied by an attachment containing a series of quotations.
An academy press release noted that, “among about 300 quotations, approximately 30 either mentioned God in some form or were taken from the Bible. It also contained quotes from Buddha, Gandhi, Confucius, poets, authors, presidents, military leaders and a host of others.”
Neither the e-mail nor its attachment violated the Constitution's ban on government endorsement of religion because “there was no attempt to convince any of the recipients of the intrinsic value of any one quote or quote source,” the release said. “The cadet made it plain in his farewell message at the termination of his command position that there was no compulsion for any recipient to read and/or heed what was presented.”
An academy spokesman reached by telephone June 9 said the determination would be the end of the investigation into Jurewicz's e-mail.
But the incident came in the midst of a wider controversy over the religious climate at the academy, and just days after Air Force officials sent a memo reminding the service's leaders that “using your place at the podium as a platform for your personal beliefs can be perceived as misuse of office.”
Controversy over the treatment of religious minorities at the school erupted in April, after a Washington group that monitors church-state issues sent a letter to Pentagon officials complaining that there was a pervasive and systematic bias in favor of evangelical Christians at the government-run school.
The letter detailed allegations of promotion of evangelical forms of Christianity by administrators, faculty and upperclass cadets at the academy. It also alleged incidents in which cadets of minority faiths were harassed or humiliated.
Acting Air Force Secretary Michael Dominguez appointed a special task force to investigate the allegations — which have been echoed by current and former academy cadets and parents, as well as a Lutheran chaplain at the school. The task force has made a preliminary report to Air Force officials, but that document has not been made public.
In response to requests from members of Congress for an outside investigation, Dominguez sent a letter to Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) June 7. The letter, provided to Associated Baptist Press by Capps' office, catalogued the task force and other internal Air Force investigations into the matter.
Dominguez also informed Capps that the Air Force inspector general's office would examine “specific allegations of improper conduct” against Brig. Gen. John Weida, the academy's second in command and commandant of cadets. He was the focus of many of the allegations of religious coercion detailed in the Americans United letter.
The academy spokesman referred a reporter's June 9 inquiries about the Weida investigation to the Pentagon. Officials in the Pentagon press office had not yet returned a request for comment by press time for this story June 10.
Dominguez also said in his letter that a team from the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces (NCMAF) was visiting the campus the week of June 6 to study the religious climate there. NCMAF serves as a liaison between the armed services and more than 250 denominations and other religious groups that endorse military chaplains — including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the American Baptist Churches USA.
NCMAF Executive Director Jack Williamson, reached by telephone in his Virginia office June 10, said he had just returned from the Colorado Springs campus. He declined to release any further details about the NCMAF team or its visit, except to say that team members were working on a report that they would release to the Pentagon task force on the academy. The task force, Williamson said, would then decide whether to make NCMAF's observations public.
Rep. Capps, in reaction to Dominguez's letter, said she still had concerns that the internal investigations would be as thorough and public as possible.
“While I hope this is a demonstration that the Air Force leadership is fully engaged on this issue, I am concerned that this letter understates the very serious nature of the problem of religious intolerance at the academy,” she said, in a statement. “The issues at the academy, after all, are not simply products of media reports.”
But Dominguez asked for forbearance. “Air Force and academy leadership are deeply engaged in the question of respect for individual beliefs,” he wrote. “As this work progresses, our work — and critics of that work — will generate news stories. I ask that you reserve your opinions on this matter until I can get to ground truth through the objective processes now on going [sic].”
The controversy over religion at the academy comes on the heels of a highly publicized scandal involving allegations that administrators had tried to cover up numerous accusations of rape and sexual harassment of female cadets. It resulted in the removal of much of the school's leadership two years ago.