Friday Afternoon, October 7, 2022 |
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JTA COVERS AIR FORCE ACADEMY’S
LATEST MRFF-EXPOSED SNUB TO JEWISH CADETS — “COMMANDANT'S CHALLENGE” BEING SCHEDULED ON YOM KIPPUR
Due to MRFF’s unceasing efforts to force the Air Force Academy to be inclusive of all belief systems, largely through widely publicizing its egregious disregard of non-Christian cadets,
the iconic Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), the definitive global source of news and analysis on issues of Jewish interest and concern since 1917, has picked up the latest story of Jewish cadets being discriminated against and denied the equal opportunities enjoyed by their Christian counterparts.
This time it’s the Academy’s grossly exclusionary scheduling “Commandant's Training Day,” also known as “Commandant’s Challenge,” on October 5, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, excluding Jewish cadets from this important training day that JTA describes as “key to advancement within the academy.”
While the Air Force Academy claimed in a statement that “The Academy’s Academic Year Calendar is developed and maintained through an institutional process that includes input on faith considerations of the cadets,” their actions have made it
abundantly clear that these are just empty words.
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(The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual
information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.)
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JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY (JTA)
COVERS MRFF
US Air Force Academy pledges to ‘correct’ process that scheduled key training day for Yom Kippur
By: Ron Kampeas
Friday, October 7, 2022
(MRFF summary of article)
JTA covers the Air Force Academy’s major snub to Jewish cadets by scheduling the “Commandant’s Challenge,” an important mandatory training exercise that “is seen as key to advancement within the academy,” on the Jewish high holy day of Yom Kippur, crediting MRFF with exposing this egregious action on the Academy’s part.
JTA also points out the utter irony that a website staffed by academy graduates wrote in 2019 that the day also provides a focus on “overall respect, religious respect, sexual assault prevention response training.” (emphasis added)
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10/6/22 — U.S. Air Force Academy's public statement addressing USAFA's scheduling of the Commandant's Challenge on the Jewish observance of Yom Kippur
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The U.S. Air Force Academy recognizes the importance of the holy days of all faiths. A training event was unintentionally scheduled this week during the Jewish observance of Yom Kippur.
The Academy’s Academic Year Calendar is developed and maintained through an institutional process that includes input on faith considerations of the cadets. We will correct our processes to ensure this, and mistakes like this, do not happen again.
The Academy office of Diversity and Inclusion, in partnership with Academy Chaplains, maintains a religious calendar of events in support of this effort. In advance of the training events, religious accommodations were planned and made available to all Jewish cadets wishing to observe Yom Kippur.
Throughout the year, Academy leadership ensures training requirements are met for cadets of all faiths while also accommodating cadets in exercising their First Amendment rights.
Respectfully,
Lt. Col. Brian Maguire, Director of Public Affairs, U.S. Air Force Academy
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10/4/22 — U.S. Air Force Academy's Dean of the Faculty,
Brigadier General, USAF, Linell A. Letendre sent this email out ONLY to USAFA faculty members under her command Tuesday, Oct. 4th. at 5:40 pm about an hour before
Yom Kippur was to start at sundown MDT
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From: Letendre, Linell A Brig Gen USAF USAFA DF/CC
(E-mail Address Withheld)
Date: October 4, 2022 at 05:40 PM
Subject: DF Resiliency
To: DF_ALL (E-mail Address Withheld)
[Bold and red highlights added by MRFF]
Colleagues—
As mentioned during last Dean’s Call, tomorrow (5 Oct) is a DF Resiliency Day. I hope you’re able to spend the day with family, friends, or doing whatever helps you recharge. Please keep in mind, however, that tomorrow is the Commandant’s Challenge – and that it will be a normal workday for most of our non-DF colleagues. If you are unable to recognize tomorrow as a Resiliency Day, please coordinate with your supervisor to ensure that you’re able to make up your Resiliency Day later.
I also want to take a moment to recognize a serious scheduling oversight for this evening and tomorrow. As many of you know, this evening begins the holiest day in the Jewish Faith: Yom Kippur. Obviously, tomorrow’s Commandant’s Challenge should not have been scheduled to overlap with this significant religious holiday. Our institution has processes to prevent scheduling mishaps like this, but in this case the processes broke down. Although accommodations have been made for all cadets who are observing Yom Kippur, the schedule should have accounted for major religious holidays from the outset. We are committed to shoring up our academic calendar processes to ensure this issue is not repeated. I greatly appreciate those faculty members who helped raise our awareness about this; together we will move this institution forward.
Again, I do hope you’re able to recharge tomorrow and come back to work refreshed Thursday morning. I appreciate everything you continue to do for our cadets and our Academy.
/r,
LAL
LINELL A. LETENDRE
Brigadier General, USAF
Dean of the Faculty, U.S. Air Force Academy
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MRFF Submits FOIA Request
To disprove the Academy’s dishonest and duplicitous “scheduling oversight” claim, MRFF yesterday, October 6, submitted a FOIA request to the Academy demanding: “All internal documents or communications, electronic or otherwise, between any USAFA faculty or staff regarding concerns, warnings, and/or objections to the scheduling of the ‘Commandant's Training Day’ and/or 'Commandant's Challenge' on October 5, 2022, a date which coincided with the Jewish high holy day of Yom Kippur.”
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MRFF's USAFA FOIA Request Background:
1/30/17 – MRFF Secures Legal Victory Over
USAFA, Covered by Associated Press & CS INDY – “AFA agrees to pay $25,000 to settle FOIA lawsuit”
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Air Force Academy Trashes Jews
and Elevates Jesus, Again
By: MRFF Founder and President Mikey Weinstein
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
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Once again, “your” United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) has shown its truly outrageous, fundamentalist Christian colors. By scheduling the most important Academy military training event of the semester on Yom Kippur, they’ve made it very clear that they fully endorse and embrace the Orwellian position that, while all faiths are equal, some are just more equal than others.
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the most solemn day of the Jewish calendar (the weekly Sabbath is the holiest). Its date of annual observance is (1) fixed by the lunisolar calendar and, (2) can be easily determined years in advance. The “Commandant’s Training Day”, by contrast, is neither.
USAFA has enormous flexibility in choosing when to hold military training events and does so several months in advance. Professed ignorance (willful or otherwise) of the Jewish or any other religious calendar is simply no excuse. In this case, all anyone had to do was to Google “Yom Kippur 2022”, and the dates would have happily popped up on pretty much any computer screen on this planet.
[...]
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See Only a Sampling of USAFA's Numerous
Flagrant Demonstrations of Christian Nationalism
and 1st Amendment Violations
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