AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. -- The Pentagon said yesterday that it wants to promote a top commander at the Air Force Academy -- a born-again Christian who has been the subject of complaints that he improperly mixes religion with education.
The announcement about Brigadier General Johnny Weida came one day before the scheduled arrival of a task force investigating allegations that cadets were pressured to attend religious services, public prayers were held before official events, and Jewish cadets were harassed and insulted at the Colorado Springs school.
Cadets, faculty, and staff were sent e-mails yesterday announcing the task force's visit and encouraging meetings with officials investigating complaints of religious intolerance. Investigators were expected to conduct interviews and focus groups starting tomorrow and to return to Washington at the end of the week.
Acting Air Force Secretary Michael Dominguez established the task force last week after an internal survey and outside groups turned up the complaints. The task force is scheduled to give a preliminary report by May 23.
The news about Weida's proposed promotion has only increased criticism.
In an e-mail in May 2003, Weida urged cadets to ''ask the Lord to give us the wisdom to discover the right. . . . The Lord is in control. He has a plan." Later he issued a memo stating that cadets are accountable first to their God.
Through a spokesman, Weida declined to comment yesterday on either the religious tolerance issue or his pending promotion. Academy officials earlier said Weida now runs his messages by several other commanders before sending them.
Colonel Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman, said he could not comment on whether the board that recommended Weida's promotion knew of the religious-tolerance inquiry. Keck said the board recommends promotions based on an officer's record and potential.
''I am absolutely shocked that anyone would get a promotion in the middle of an investigation in which he is a central figure," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. His organization conducted a two-month investigation of religious intolerance at the academy and has threatened a lawsuit if corrective action isn't taken.
DENVER -- An Air Force chaplain who protested that evangelical Christians were trying to ''subvert the system" by winning converts among cadets at the Air Force Academy was removed from administrative duties last week, just as the Pentagon began an in-depth study of alleged religious intolerance among cadets and commanders at the school.
''They fired me," said Captain MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran minister who was removed as executive officer of the chaplain unit May 4. ''They said I should be angry about these outside groups who reported on the strident evangelicalism at the academy. The problem is, I agreed with those reports."
But Lieutenant Colonel Laurent Fox, an academy spokesman, said: ''The choice of a new executive officer was a standard transition. The situation is, both the commanding officer [of the chaplain unit] and the executive officer are scheduled to leave this post in a couple of months. It was decided to replace the executive officer now for reasons of continuity."
Amid a rising chorus of protests about preferential treatment for evangelical Christians -- and command pressure on nonevangelicals -- among the 4,000 cadets, a Pentagon task force is visiting the Colorado Springs campus this week to study the religious atmosphere and propose possible remedial steps.
Morton, whose removal as executive officer was first reported in USA Today, said she has not been asked to brief the task force.
Surveys of present and former cadets have shown that some students said they felt a heavy and sometimes offensive emphasis on evangelical Christianity, with praise for cadets who pronounce their ''born-again" status and insults aimed at Jews, Roman Catholics, and nonevangelical cadets.
One staff chaplain reportedly told newly arrived freshmen last summer that anyone not born again ''will burn in the fires of hell."
Such remarks have been heard for decades on the campus, according to Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque, a 1977 academy graduate who said he has repeatedly complained to the Air Force brass about the ''religious pressure" on cadets. ''This is not Christian versus Jew," Weinstein said. ''This is the evangelical Christians against everybody else."
The Air Force's new attention to the issue stems from an earlier scandal at the school in which female cadets said commanding officers ignored or played down numerous cases of sexual assault by male students.
As part of its response to the sexual assault charges, the academy asked a team from Yale Divinity School to visit the campus during the summer training for incoming freshmen.
''We were asked to study the quality of cadet-centered pastoral care," Yale professor Kristen Leslie said. ''What we found was this very strong evangelical Christian voice just dominating. We thought that just didn't make sense in light of their mission, which was to protect and train cadets, not to win religious converts."
Morton, who was executive officer of the squadron of 16 chaplains at the academy, said she shared the concerns expressed by the study group from Yale.
''The evangelicals want to subvert the system," Morton said. ''They have a very clear social and political agenda. The evangelical tone is pervasive at the academy, and it's aimed at converting these young people who are under intense pressure anyway."
When a two-page summary of the ''Yale Report" became public this spring, Morton said, the academy's chief chaplain, Colonel Michael Whittington, responded angrily. But Morton said she agreed with the criticism in the report.
Morton said she also has criticized the academy's RSVP program, or Respecting the Spiritual Values of All People, a training unit designed to teach academy personnel to tolerate all religious views. ''I just think RSVP is a weak program," she said.
Whittington was not available for comment Thursday; academy officials said he was busy all day with the Pentagon task force.
After several ''reasonably tense" days among the academy chaplains, Morton said, she received an e-mail on May 4 from Whittington. It said a new executive officer would be named, effective immediately.
Fox, the academy spokesman, said this change was made because Whittington is retiring from the Air Force in June and Morton is due for a transfer in July to Okinawa. But Morton said the normal procedure would be to keep her in the number two post until she departs, so that she could help the unit's new commanding officer settle in.
Morton said the cadet wing at the Air Force Academy is about 90 percent Christian. She said that group is about one- third Catholic, one-third mainstream Protestant, and one-third evangelical. But the evangelicals have a much bigger voice among the chaplains, she said.
''The predominance of evangelical Christians reflects the chaplain corps of the Air Force overall," Morton said. ''The major mainstream Protestant divinity schools are no longer sending many graduates into the armed forces. And so the concentration of evangelicals among chaplains is strong through the whole service."
WASHINGTON -- The Air Force Academy has been troubled by insensitivity toward non-Christian cadets and staff members, but officials have not committed acts of overt religious discrimination, military investigators said yesterday.
A report on an Air Force investigation into the religious climate at the school says academy leaders and the Air Force should clarify policies on religious expression so religious minorities do not feel discriminated against or pressured.
The report, released by the Pentagon, also cites a perception of intolerance among some cadets and staff. But it credited officials at the school with moving to confront the issues.
''The [Air Force] team found a religious climate that does not involve overt religious discrimination, but a failure to fully accommodate all members' needs and a lack of awareness where the line is drawn between permissible and impermissible expression of beliefs," the report said.
The team was appointed after complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence that anti-Semitism and religious harassment have become pervasive.
An attachment to the 100-page report dealt with one officer, Brigadier General John Weida, who was accused of pressuring students. He was cleared of wrongdoing on all but one allegation. The report did not give details, saying that it remained under review.
Weida has been criticized for sending an e-mail promoting National Prayer Day in May 2003 and for a memo telling cadets that they are accountable first to their God.
Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque, an academy graduate and critic of its religious practices, said he was encouraged ''because at least there is a report," but was outraged that the task force ''gives a pass" to a chaplain who allegedly urged cadets to tell classmates they would burn in hell if they were not born-again Christians.
Earlier, on Tuesday, Captain MeLinda Morton, a different chaplain who spoke out against religious intolerance there, resigned her commission after 13 years serving the Air Force. Morton's attorney, Gene Fidell, told The Gazette in Colorado Springs that the resignation was not coerced.
Critics, including Morton, have said evangelical Protestants were harassing cadets of other faiths at the school in violation of constitutional principles of separation of church and state in the military.
Morton had said in May that she was fired and a transfer to Japan was hastened because she spoke out about the academy's religious climate. School officials said her move was routine.
Last week, General John Rosa, the academy's superintendent, offered Morton an assistant position on his staff to work on religious issues, a spokesman said.
The investigation was initiated after critics of the academy's handling of religion told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that students, faculty, staff, and members of the chaplains' office pressured cadets to attend chapel and receive religious instruction.
Lieutenant General Roger Brady, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for personnel, said he found seven incidents that he referred to the military's chain of command for possible investigation.
The Air Force report cites some incidents but does not provide specifics: religious slurs and disparaging remarks between cadets, and statements from faculty and staff with strong religious beliefs that some cadets found offensive.
''There is a lack of awareness on the part of some faculty and staff, and perhaps some senior cadets, as to what constitutes appropriate expressions of faith," Brady said at a news conference.