Last week, some friends of mine filed a lawsuit against a California school district that offered a “philosophy” course that taught intelligent-design creationism. The curriculum makes it pretty clear that the course was little more than a vehicle to promote ID, undermine modern biology, and tell local public school students that the Earth is “thousands of years old, not billions.”
This week, the district gave up.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State today announced that it has settled a lawsuit over a California school district’s decision to teach a course promoting creationism. […]
Under the terms of the settlement, the course will terminate one week early. The district’s board of trustees has also agreed to language stating, “No school over which the School District has authority, including the High School, shall offer, presently or in the future, the course entitled ‘Philosophy of Design’ or ‘Philosophy of Intelligent Design’ or any other course that promotes or endorses creationism, creation science, or intelligent design.”
Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “We are delighted with the board’s decision to discontinue the ‘Philosophy of Design’ course and never offer it again. Public schools have no business promoting religion. I hope that other public schools learn from this incident and reject efforts to bring religious doctrines into classrooms.”
This is the best of all possible outcomes. Creationism loses, reason wins, and local taxpayers aren’t stuck paying to defend a class that would obviously have lost in court.