USAFA Ends Illegal Stonewalling & Finally Responds to MRFF FOIA Requests After Federal Suit Filed

July 23, 2025

In October 2022, MRFF submitted three FOIA requests to the Air Force Academy (USAFA). The first of the three was submitted after the Academy scheduled its “Commandant’s Training Day” on the Jewish high holy day of Yom Kippur, forcing Jewish cadets to choose between their religion and participating in this important training day. MRFF did not buy the Academy’s claim that its utter disregard of its Jewish cadets was just a “scheduling oversight” and submitted a FOIA request demanding all records regarding the scheduling of “Commandant’s Training Day.”

The other two requests were for records of the Academy’s internal correspondence and other records regarding MRFF and records of in-person meetings between Academy leadership and representatives of other non-profit organizations, religious organizations and churches, and political or other public figures.

After receiving “Status Update” after “Status Update” from the Academy’s FOIA officer, which continued through April 2024, with each “Status Update” moving the dates that the documents for each request would be released to MRFF further and further away, all communication from the FOIA officer suddenly ceased.

In response to this obvious attempt by USAFA to stonewall these FOIA requests (apparently hoping MRFF would just ‘go away’) MRFF filed a federal lawsuit on July 11, 2025 with the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico.  

On July 24, 2025, USAFA finally sent responses to all three requests.  MRFF is currently evaluating the Academy’s responses, and should we find them to be unsatisfactory, we’ll just sue them some more.

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