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Rep. Frank [D-MA4]: Madam Speaker, a couple of weeks ago I was disturbed to read of reports that people at the Air Force Academy were inappropriately and improperly putting pressure on...

Record Text

Chair: Pursuant to the order of the House of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.

Rep. Barney Frank [D-MA4]: Madam Speaker, a couple of weeks ago I was disturbed to read of reports that people at the Air Force Academy were inappropriately and improperly putting pressure on cadets to follow certain religious practices. In this particular case, cadets who did not follow a certain brand of Christianity were being ridiculed and being criticized, and the allegations were that they were even being pressured by officials of the Academy to follow this specific set of religious practices.

Obviously, we should create a situation in which people of any religious persuasion are free at the Academy to follow that. But for young men and women who were sent to the Academy to learn to lead our Air Force and defend our country in that important institution to be subjected to religious pressures, religious ridicule and criticism because they do not particularly follow one or another religion is terrible public policy, and, of course, unconstitutional.

When I heard that, my reaction was to give the Air Force the benefit of the doubt. I wrote a letter to the Air Force Academy and the Secretary of the Air Force asking that the Air Force be looking into this, and I had read that in fact they were. So I thought, well, I hope we are talking with reasonable people. These allegations sounded to me like things that no reasonable person would allow to go forward. Let us see what happens. I decided I would wait to see what the Air Force did.

Well, I am not waiting anymore, because the Air Force has acted. They have made things worse. They have done some things that confirm the view that I and others have that there is something seriously wrong.

Captain Melinda Morton, an Air Force chaplain, number two in the chaplaincy there, was just transferred, well ahead of when she was supposed to be transferred, to Okinawa.

Now, I mean no disrespect to Okinawa. For the people that live there, it is home, and it is a wonderful home. It has a lot of advantages. But when you are the number two in the chaplaincy in Colorado and you are sent to Okinawa very suddenly, it is clearly meant to be a rebuke, and the reason that the number two in the chaplain's office was sent to Okinawa was because she was supporting the criticisms.

According to a New York Times article, which I will include for the record, she was told by the Chief Chaplain, Colonel Whittington, after a critical report on this subject from a team from the Yale Divinity School, she was asked to denounce the report and defend the Academy. But she said she could not do that because she agreed with the report. It was about 2 weeks later that she was transferred to Okinawa.

So we have here not just a refusal to deal with inappropriate abuse of people on religious grounds, but a punishment of a very brave officer, a woman of integrity, a chaplain, a member of the clergy, who in pursuance of her faith and her obligations and her understanding of the Constitution refused to say something that she thought untrue about a report.

When intelligent people say silly things, it generally means that they do not want to tell you the truth. The explanation the Air Force gives for sending her to Okinawa makes no sense at all. I do not believe we have put in charge of the Academy people incapable of making sense, so when they tell us things that are just silly, I think they are covering up.

They gave a convoluted argument about, well, the other guy is going to leave, so she is going to have to leave afterwards, and, therefore, they both have to leave together. It makes zero sense. If anything, you would probably say if a new person was coming in, it would be better to have her there to help train him.

Then we were also told by both the New York Times and the Associated Press that Colonel Whittington, the chaplain who apparently asked her to denounce the report, and when she disagreed with him and said she could not denounce the report she agreed with, and the report said there had been inappropriate religious pressure, he apparently was part of an effort to penalize her. We are told that he could not give an interview to the New York Times and the AP because he was being interviewed by the Air Force Special Study Panel.

Now, I doubt very much that the Air Force Special Study Panel is grilling him 18 hours a day, or even 10 hours a day. In other words, there is obviously no conflict between being interviewed by this panel and also talking to the press.

Why do they not let the chaplain talk to the press? Because they are afraid if he told the truth it would be embarrassing, is my inference. If there is a different argument, let them give it to us.

Madam Speaker, we should note that among those who brought these allegations to light originally is a proud Air Force Academy alumni, Michael Weinstein, who worked for the Reagan Administration, whose son is now there, who said he has spoken to 117 people at the Academy who validate the accusation that there is inappropriate pressure put on people and that people are subject to disadvantages if they do not follow a particular religious view.

The Air Force has got to reverse this pattern of religious oppression at the Academy, of religious abuse, "oppression" may be too strong; it has got to stop the transfer of a brave woman for speaking out; and they have got to take seriously a problem, rather than make it worse.

Madam Speaker, I include for the record the May 15, 2005, New York Times article entitled "Air Force Chaplain Says She Was Removed for Being Critical."

Air Force Chaplain Says She Was Removed for Being Critical

A chaplain at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs who has accused her superiors of using their positions to promote evangelical Christianity among the cadets says she was fired from an administrative job because of her outspokenness and was given orders to ship out to Japan.

An Air Force task force, meanwhile, has finished an investigation at the academy into charges by the chaplain and others that officers there were inappropriately proselytizing the cadets.

The academy chaplain, Capt. MeLinda Morton, said she had disagreed with her boss, the academy's chief chaplain, Col. Michael Whittington, after a critical report by a team from the Yale Divinity School was released to the news media in April. The report, dated July 2004 and which she helped write, found that some academy chaplains were insensitive to the religious diversity of the cadets.

Captain Morton said her boss asked her to denounce the report and defend the academy, but she told him she agreed with it. She said that about two weeks later, on May 4, she received an e-mail message from Colonel Whittington dismissing her from her position as his administrative assistant, or "executive officer." However, she remains a chaplain, retains her rank and earns the same salary.

"That is pretty plainly, in my mind, retribution," Captain Morton said. "That makes a big point on a staff. The point is, `We don't regard Mel as trustworthy and we humiliate her by firing her.' However, in the whole scope of things, that's pretty minor to what's going on in the academy."

She also said that in March she received orders to transfer to Okinawa, and from there could be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Captain Morton said she was surprised because in December she was told by Colonel Whittington that she would be staying at the academy through summer 2006 to see several projects through. At the time, Captain Morton was developing a sensitivity training program for the academy and was involved in pastoral care for cadets who were victims in a sexual abuse scandal that swept the academy in 2003.

An academy spokesman, Lt. Col. Laurent Fox, said in an interview that Captain Morton's dismissal as executive officer and her reassignment to Okinawa were entirely routine, and not retribution. He said that Captain Morton was removed from her position in order to make way for a new executive officer because Colonel Whittington was leaving the academy in June and Captain Morton is leaving in July.

"We don't see this as a dismissal," Colonel Fox said. "This kind of a transition is a normal process that happens in squadrons across the Air Force."

Colonel Fox said he knew nothing about a meeting that led to a quarrel over the Yale Divinity School report. A request to interview Colonel Whittington was denied because he was being interviewed by the task force investigating the religious climate at the academy. The task force is expected to release a preliminary report on May 23.

Complaints about the religious climate at the academy first surfaced after fliers were passed out in the dining hall advertising a showing of the movie "The Passion of the Christ." An alumnus of the academy, Mikey Weinstein, grew concerned after he visited his son at the school last year and learned that he had been subject to repeated religious slurs because he is Jewish.

Mr. Weinstein, who served in the Reagan administration, said yesterday that he became enraged and set out to see if others had similar experiences. He said he has now spoken with 117 academy cadets, staff members and faculty members who complained about religious intimidation and proselytizing at the academy. Of the 117 people, 8 are Jewish, one is an atheist, about 10 are Catholic and the rest are nonevangelical Protestants.

His son was interviewed by the task force this week, Mr. Weinstein said. He said he was not interviewed by the task force, even though "I have a boatload of information," he said.

"I can't reveal people's names, but I thought it might be useful," he said.

Chaplain Says She Was Ousted

DENVER.--A top Air Force Academy chaplain said Thursday she was fired for speaking up about anti-Semitism and other reports of religious intolerance among cadets and staff, including allegations that evangelical Christians wield too much influence.

Capt. Melinda Morton said she was fired last week by her boss, Col. Michael Whittington. Morton said she was pressured to deny a report by Yale Divinity School Professor Kristen Leslie that a chaplain told 600 cadets during basic training last year "to go back to their tents and tell their fellow cadets that those who are not born again will burn in the fires of hell."

"I was told by Chaplain Whittington that if someone was going to be loyal to the chaplaincy and the Air Force, then someone would take a certain view of the Yale report and view Dr. Leslie as disloyal," Morton said.

Both chaplains had been scheduled to leave the school this year, with Whittington, the academy's chief chaplain, retiring and Morton, his executive officer, scheduled for an overseas assignment. She called that an excuse to get rid of her.

The Air Force's chief chaplain, Maj. Gen. Charles Baldwin, said Morton was not fired.

Her duties have changed, however, because Whittington will retire in June rather than in July as originally planned. Morton has been scheduled for reassignment to an Air Force base in Japan for some time, Baldwin said.

The academy said Whittington was unavailable because he was being interviewed for a Pentagon investigation into more than 50 complaints of religious intolerance in the past several years.