On Wednesday, RFI hosted a group of about a dozen U.S. Army War College (USAWC) students and their professor for a virtual training session. RFI has provided similar training sessions for USAWC students each year since 2018.

The USAWC educates senior U.S. and partner nation military officers and other senior government leaders in the formulation of military strategy. This session was part of the class’s tour of non-governmental and governmental institutions in the Washington, D.C. area, with the aim of gaining a broader perspective on how various entities inform the development of national security policy.

RFI’s Associate Vice President for U.S. Strategies Nathan Berkeley, and Director of Islam and Religious Freedom Ismail Royer presented the domestic and international dimensions of our work, including our collaboration with civil society organizations and engagement with key government offices to defend religious freedom in law and policy, in the United States and select regions around the world.

Royer provided a case study that exemplified these efforts, outlining RFI’s work going back to 2023 defending Muslim and Christian parents in Montgomery County, Md., whose young children were subjected to a mandatory curriculum aimed at teaching them that people can change their sex and that sexual relationships between people of the same sex are to be affirmed. Montgomery County initially allowed objecting parents to opt their children out of this instruction but then rescinded the opt out, violating these families’ religious freedom and parental rights (learn more). This portion of the session enabled RFI’s presenters to show how our understanding of the true meaning and value of religious freedom can be put into practice, and to explore the limits of religious freedom as the students asked thoughtful and informed questions about how to apply these principles in public school education in light of the common good.  

Berkeley and Royer also described RFI’s educational programs, with an emphasis on our Statesmanship and Religious Freedom Seminar and the critical work of equipping the next generation of religious freedom champions.  

Throughout, Berkeley and Royer underscored the universal principles underlying our approach to defending this fundamental human right, including the recognition that God created every human being equal in dignity and endowed all of us with certain rights that must be respected in law and culture.