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Air Force Task Force Admits Omission

Posted on: Saturday, 21 May 2005, 18:00 CDT

DENVER - A task force investigating religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy acknowledged Saturday it did not meet with two outspoken critics.

The Air Force task force began a review last week of reports that evangelical Protestants were harassing cadets of other faiths, and is to report Monday to the acting secretary of the Air Force, Michael Dominguez.

The task force is investigating allegations that cadets were pressured to attend religious services, that public prayers were held before official events and that Jewish cadets were harassed and insulted.

Kristen Leslie, a Yale theology professor, said Saturday that no one from the task force had contacted her. Leslie attended a basic training exercise at the academy last year and reported observing an academy chaplain tell cadets to warn their colleagues who are not born again that they will burn in hell.

Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate who has a son at the academy, said Saturday the only contact he has had with the task force was a phone call asking him to stop criticizing it. Weinstein, who is Jewish, has said his son has been called a "Christ killer" by evangelical Christian cadets.

Weinstein said he has heard from 117 people complaining of religious intolerance at the academy.

Jennifer Stephens, Air Force spokeswoman on the task force, said Saturday the task force also did not meet with Capt. Melinda Morton, an Air Force chaplain who has said she was fired for exposing the influence of evangelical Christians at the academy. Stephens said Morton was on leave when the task force spent four days at the academy.

Morton said the task force did speak with her by telephone Friday, asking her to cite examples of religious intolerance. But she was not asked about the decision to remove her as second in command of the chaplaincy corps.

The academy has denied that Morton was fired, saying she was replaced because she would be leaving soon anyway.

The day Morton spoke with the task force, 46 Democrats in Congress sent Dominguez a letter asking him to become personally involved in the investigation in order to avoid a whitewash. Lawmakers said the academy tried to whitewash its sex assault scandal two years ago, when dozens of female cadets said they were ignored or punished if they reported abuse.

"It is critical that the Air Force take this matter more seriously than it initially did the cases of sexual harassment," lawmakers wrote.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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