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The chapel at the U.S. Airforce Academy in Colorado Springs.
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| By Associated Press October 10, 2005 |
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The Air Force Academy announced Friday that its No. 3 commander is leaving the school, one month after he was cleared of an allegation that he used his position to proselytize non-Christian cadets.
Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, the commandant of cadets since April 2003, is taking a leadership position at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Air Force spokeswoman Jean Schaefer said the move was routine.
Weida was among commanders who were brought to the academy to help clear up a scandal in which dozens of female cadets said they were punished or ignored when they reported they were sexually assaulted.
But the school near Colorado Springs soon became embroiled in controversy when allegations surfaced that evangelical Christians had bullied cadets who held other beliefs.
An Air Force task force reported in June that it found no overt religious discrimination at the school but that some cadets and staff were insensitive.
On Sept. 7, the Air Force inspector general cleared Weida on the last of seven allegations of proselytizing, including his June 2003 "guidance" to cadets that said they are "accountable first to your God."
He was cleared of the first six allegations in June.
Air Force Academy spokeswoman Capt. Kim Melchor said academy leaders were unavailable for comment Friday because they were traveling to Maryland for Saturday's Air Force-Navy football game.
Weida will become director of capabilities integration and transformation at the Air Force Material Command at Wright-Patterson. The effective date was not announced.
Weida will be replaced at the academy by Col. Susan Desjardins, a commander at Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina.
On Thursday, a Jewish military veteran sued the Air Force, claiming senior Air Force Academy officers harassed and illegally forced evangelical Christian views on cadets.
The suit was filed by Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate and outspoken critic of the school's handling of religion. Weinstein has one son who graduated from the academy in 2004 and another who is a junior there. Both were subjected to anti-Semitic slurs from evangelical Christian cadets, Weinstein said Thursday in an interview.
Over the past decade or more, the suit claims, academy leaders have fosteredan environment of religious intolerance at the school, in violation of the U.S. constitution.
According to Weinstein, evangelical Christians have coerced attendance at religious services and prayers at official events.
"It's a shocking disgrace that I had to file this thing," Weinstein told TheAssociated Press.
Lt. Col. Frank Smolinsky, an Air Force spokesman, responded by saying: "The United States Air Force is committed to defending the rights of all our men and women, whatever their beliefs."
There have been complaints at the academy that a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and that another Jew was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet. A banner in the football team's locker room read: "I am a Christian first and last ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."
Also, there have been complaints that cadets were pressured to attend chapel, that academy staffers put New Testament verses in government e-mail, and that cadets used the e-mail system to encourage others to see the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of the Christ."
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