AFA Religious Survey Called 'Flawed'

Both Air Force Academy officials and a civilian watchdog group that has chastised the Academy for the past six years because of religious proselytizing agree that findings of a recent survey on the religious environment at the school are flawed.

Col. Mike Therianos, the Academy’s director of strategic plans and programs, said officials realized as they went through the findings of the Cadet and Permanent Party Climate Survey that ambiguous and vague questions left room for multiple interpretations.  He also allowed that new questions and changes in questions from previous surveys effected trending data and that the timing of the survey could have been better in that it was conducted during finals and holiday breaks.

Mikey Weinstein, founder and head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, believes the survey was flawed to the point of being useless.

“What does a poll of voluntary, anonymous answers say about the very significant population that doesn’t respond? Whatever you want it to say,” he said. Weinstein also was critical of how the survey was crafted, with respondents answering “sometimes,” “often,” or “very often” to questions such how frequently anyone in the previous 12 months had attempted to draw them into unwanted discussions of religious matters, or how often they had been subject to unwanted proselytizing.

“What kind of survey uses undefined terms [like those]? … What definitions, if any, were used to quantify those terms?” he asked.

Weinstein, an Air Force Academy alumnus whose sons also graduated from the school, established the MRFF in 2006 after growing frustrated with what he claimed was the Air Force’s failure to crack down on proselytizing at the Academy and in the Air Force. His sons had been harassed and derided for their religion and targeted for proselytizing, Weinstein said. His daughter-in-law, also an Academy grad and Air Force officer, was also was subjected to evangelizing.  Since 2006, he said, his foundation has filed a number of lawsuits on behalf of servicemembers claiming discrimination because of their religion or lack of religious beliefs.

The problem of multiple interpretations for the same findings is apparent on one of the many slides included in the survey results. In the slide entitled “Religious Freedom / Permanent Party Trends,” the percentage of staff assigned to the school who said religious tolerance was a problem dropped from about 25 percent in 2004 to less than 20 percent in the current survey. At the same time respondents agreeing that the Air Force Academy climate “fosters religious freedom” went from nearly 90 percent in 2004 to roughly 70 percent for the latest survey.

Results to a third statement on the same page show virtually no change from 2006, when it was last asked, to today. That statement, “Religious discrimination is tolerated,” was still around 17 or 18 percent.

“We’ll continue to analyze the results … to get down to the grassroots level to make sure folks are aware of the programs in place” to deter unwanted religious proselytizing, said Lt. Col. John Bryan, the Academy’s director of communications. The Academy has an inspector general’s office and a Military Equal Employment Opportunity office where complaints may be lodged. Cadets also have the option of going to a chaplain with a complaint, but he conceded that if the problem is one of proselytizing people may be reluctant to go to a chaplain.

Weinstein doesn’t believe the programs the Academy has in place are working. He said the school should have a legitimate mechanism for obtaining anonymous, significant, and real-time reports on instances of proselytizing from cadets and staff.

“Something with a back-up system … so MRFF doesn’t have to be the primary system [that is] safe enough to approach for help,” he said.

Bryan said the Academy plans to have a conference on religion sometime in mid-November. He said those invited will include representatives of different faiths, as well as non-faith groups including free-thinkers or atheists, and civil rights organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith.

The Academy released the survey findings after pressure from the MRFF and media organizations. Weinstein had filed for release of the survey under the Freedom of Information Act and said his group was the first to do so. It’s a point disputed by Bryan, though when the Academy did decide to release it – after discussions with Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz – it decided to release it only to the media..

Schwartz visited the Academy on Oct. 27 and met with the leadership, faculty and permanent party staff, said his spokesman, Lt. Col. Samuel Highley.

“In his remarks, the general reiterated the importance of focusing on the academy's mission to prepare cadets to become officers of character,” Highley said in an email. Schwartz also told his listeners they needed to closely study the climate survey findings and take whatever action is necessary to serve the school’s mission.