President Obama has nominated General Michelle Johnson as superintendent of the Air Force Academy:

The president of the United States nominated Maj. Gen. Michelle Johnson for the appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and for assignment to serve as Air Force Academy’s 19th superintendent.

If confirmed by the Senate, Johnson would become the first woman to hold the position.

Currently serving as NATO’s deputy chief of staff for operations and intelligence, Johnson is a 1981 distinguished graduate from the Academy where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in operations research. She was the first female cadet wing commander and the first female Rhodes Scholar from the Academy.

There have been a lot of problems with Air Force Academy with regard to religious intolerance, even by the standards of an increasingly Evangelical officer corps in the US Military more generally.

Given that it’s located in the “Evangelical Mecca” of Colorado Springs, it’s the home of Focus on the Family, this is not surprising.

I’m wondering how the institution is going to handle a woman in charge, particularly when she has been appointed by the bogeyman of the religious right.