American Air Force school investigates religious harassment

Less than two years after it was plunged into a rape scandal, the US Air Force Academy is scrambling to address complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment are rife. There have been 55 complaints of religious discrimination at the academy in the past four years, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet. The 4,300-student school recently started requiring staff members and cadets to take a 50-minute religious-tolerance class. More than 90 per cent of the cadets identify themselves as Christian. A survey in 2003 found that half of the cadets had heard religious slurs and jokes, and that many non-Christians believed Christians got special treatment. Critics of the academy say the sometimes-public endorsement of Christianity by high-ranking staff has contributed to a climate of fear and violates the constitutional separation of church and state at a taxpayer-supported school whose mission is to produce Air Force leaders.