John M. McHugh
Secretary of the Army
101 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-0101
Dear Secretary McHugh,
It has been brought to the attention of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) that, in a blatant violation of the Constitution's No Religious Test Clause, a religious test is being required by the U.S. Army for the assignment of Assistant Professor of Military Science (APMS) of the ROTC program at Wheaton College.
Among the available assignments for Captains on a current list sent to MRFF by a very shocked and appalled active duty Army officer, there are four ROTC Assistant Professor assignments. In parentheses next to one of the four, the one for Wheaton College, is the requirement "MUST BE OF CHRISTIAN FAITH."
While Wheaton is a private Christian college, and can impose a religious test on its own faculty members, it cannot impose that same religious test on the faculty members provided by the U.S. Army for its ROTC program, and the U.S. Army unequivocally cannot require a religious test for any ROTC assignment, regardless of the religious preference of the college at which that ROTC assignment exists.
In addition to the incontrovertible violation of the Constitution's No Religious Test Clause (i.e. the special treatment given to Wheaton College by the U.S. Army, which allows Wheaton to “custom order” ROTC faculty members through their religious beliefs), it is abundantly clear that Wheaton's ROTC program thoroughly (thoroughly unconstitutionally) integrates religious education and evangelism into its ROTC military training (see attached article, which can be found at http://huff.to/1uCN4S3).
Therefore, MRFF demands that the United States Army immediately eliminate the Constitutionally noxious “MUST BE OF CHRISTIAN FAITH” job requirement for the APMS slot at Wheaton College. Further, MRFF demands that the Army also expeditiously launches an aggressive and comprehensive investigation into all aspects of the Army’s ROTC program at Wheaton, focusing on what are clearly a plethora of stunningly blatant Constitutional violations of the No Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, in addition to violations of the No Religious Test prohibitions of Clause 3, Article VI, as well as violations of DoD and Army directives, instructions, and regulations.
Given the magnitude of these breaches at Wheaton, any and all Army personnel found to be either directly or indirectly complicit in these egregious violations of Constitutional and regulatory law must be swiftly, visibly, and meaningfully punished.
Sincerely,
Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein, Esq.
Founder and President
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
CC:
The Honorable Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense
General Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General Raymond T. Odierno, Chief of Staff of the Army
