After racial slurs were scrawled outside black students' doors at the US Air Force Academy's preparatory school, Superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria gathered all 4,000 cadets in a hall. Speaking to a crowd of some 5,500 people that included faculty, coaches, airstrip personnel, and senior officers and staff of the 10th Air Base Wing that includes the academy, Silveria urged them to share his sense of outrage. "This kind of behavior has no place at the prep school," he said, "it has no place at USAFA, and it has no place in the United States Air Force. You should be outraged not only as an airman, but as a human being."

While acknowledging that the academy isn't a perfect institution, Silveria said it would be naive and unjust not to speak about racism. Toward the end of his address, Silveria said:

Just in case you're unclear on where I stand on this topic, I'm going to leave you my most important thought today: If you can't treat someone with dignity and respect, then you need to get out. If you can't treat someone from another gender, whether that's a man or a woman, with dignity and respect, then you need to get out. If you demean someone in any way, then you need to get out. And if you can't treat someone from another race, or different color skin, with dignity and respect, then you need to get out.

To make sure his message was received, Silveria told cadets to get out their phones and record it. Citing the need for the group to have moral courage and protect their institution's values, he then repeated his message: "If you can't treat someone with dignity and respect, then get out."

Editor's Note: A follow up story in the Washington Post was headlined "A black student wrote those racist messages that shook the Air Force Academy, school says." After the additional facts came out Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria said, "Regardless of the circumstances under which those words were written, they were written, and that deserved to be addressed," Silveria told the Colorado Springs Gazette in a Tuesday email. "You can never over-emphasize the need for a culture of dignity and respect—and those who don't understand those concepts aren't welcome here."

Possible Preaching Angles: 1) In the same way, God expresses his outrage and wrath towards everything that bends or twists or distorts his good and holy creation. 2) Racism also has no place in the church where we accept each other as equals in Christ.