Religious Debate Intensifies on Academy Whiteboard

Religious Debate Intensifies on Academy Whiteboard
Military.com
by Bryant Jordan
Mar 19, 2014

An Air Force Academy cadet claims she was verbally and physically accosted by senior cadets for writing "there is no evidence that God ever existed" on her dorm whiteboard in response to a fellow cadet posting a Bible verse.

Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said the cadet wrote the statement to point out that posting personal beliefs in a hallway of a squadron area is wrong.

But, according to the cadet's parents who wrote Weinstein a letter, almost immediately upon writing the statement she was "shouted down" by two male cadets who were senior to her in rank. They called her "anti-faith" and said she was insulting "all people of faith."

When she tried to stop them from wiping off the whiteboard they pushed her and forcibly held her back, the letter states. Weinstein would not name the cadet and, as the MRFF keeps its clients' identifies confidential.

The parents of the cadet told Weinstein that the family is Christian, and she was only trying to make a point. In the original incident, a cadet penned a Bible verse that read, in part, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."

In their letter, they said the senior male cadets defended the original whiteboard inscription that spurred their daughter to act. After a cadet complained about the public posting, academy officials got involved, talked to both cadets and the quotation was erased.

"What happened here sparked a debate between competing beliefs," Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson said in a statement afterwards. "One side's perspective of this decision is that [it] elevated one religious faith over all others, and that posting scriptures from any religion on cadets' whiteboards creates a hostile environment."
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