ID goes to court, again

January 11, 2006

Just last month, intelligent-design creationism faced its first major legal challenge — and lost miserably. The second round is about to begin, this time in California.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today filed a lawsuit in federal court in California to stop a public school district from teaching a course that promotes a religious perspective about the origins of life.

On Jan. 1, the board of trustees of El Tejon Unified School District approved an elective called “Philosophy of Design” that advocates “intelligent design” and other concepts of creationism. The course is now being taught at Frazier Mountain High School in Lebec.

Americans United, representing parents of Frazier High students, sent a Jan. 4 letter to Superintendent John Wight and school board members advising them that teaching a particular religious viewpoint in a public school class violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

After school officials refused to discontinue the course, Americans United today asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Fresno Division, for a temporary restraining order to end the class. The Hurst v. Newman lawsuit is being filed on behalf of 11 parents of students in the school district.

This isn’t exactly the same situation that was rejected in Dover, Pa.; in El Tejon, officials are trying to promote intelligent-design creationism in a class called “Philosophy of Design.” The defense, obviously, is that the school isn’t promoting religion in science class; it’s promoting religion in “philosophy” class. Unfortunately for proponents of the idea, legally public schools can’t promote religion in any class, so they’re not on firm ground.

The curriculum makes it pretty clear that the course is little more than a vehicle to promote ID and undermine modern biology.

An initial course description, which was distributed to students and their families last month, said “the class will take a close look at evolution as a theory and will discuss the scientific, biological and biblical aspects that suggest why Darwin’s philosophy is not rock solid. The class will discuss Intelligent Design as an alternative response to evolution. Physical and chemical evidence will be presented suggesting the Earth is thousands of years old, not billions.”

In case there was any doubt about the class’ religious agenda, teacher Sharon Lemburg, who proposed the course, dropped any pretense about academic objectivity and religious neutrality.

For example, Lemburg’s syllabus asks why ID is “gaining momentum” and why it is “so threatening to society, the educational system and evolutionists.” The original syllabus for the class listed 24 videos for potential use, all but one of them produced by religious organizations and centered on attacking evolution and advancing intelligent design. One video, called “Chemicals to Living Cells: Fantasy or Science,” is produced by a Christian ministry called Answers in Genesis.

What’s that definition of insanity, making the same mistake over and over again, expecting a different result? Creationists keep trying to replace lessons on modern biology with Scripture — ironically, their methods follow the evolutionary model of “descent with modification” — despite the fact that courts keep telling them to give up.

My friend Barry Lynn said today, “It is all too clear that the teacher is seeking to persuade students that intelligent design is a legitimate scientific alternative. Her course attempts to re-define science to advance a religious belief. That’s not constitutionally permissible or educationally sound. It must be stopped.”

I have a hunch it will be.

So what are they trying to prove that a bunch of idiots all moving in one direction is going to be enough to make science wrong? What happens if the bible says 2+2=5 are we going to have classes telling the evils of modern mathmatics? This is getting sad, why do we keep entertaining these notions? Why are so many people giving this legs by letting it be argued as a sound arguement? Its almost like the more attention we give this whole issue the more empowerment it receives, these are too obsurd, and should never even make it in the school board meetings, let alone the courtroom? These advocates of creationism, are not intrested in fair representation, cause lets face it, to be fair we should have evolution being taught as an alternative to God in Sunday school class, but I don’t think that would ever happen.

  • “Physical and chemical evidence will be presented suggesting the Earth is thousands of years old, not billions.” Is the idea that if you call the class a philosophy class, you can use the same syllabus as the “science” class but it’ll be okay?

  • Note also that Ms. Lemburg’s educational background lies in physical education and social science, neither biology nor philosophy. (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_01/007977.php).

    The “philosophy course” wrinkle should make for an interesting discussion, but having taken a few philosophy courses in my day, I recall that such courses generally involve more open-ended presentation of arguments and objective discussion and assessment of the positions articulated. The course description here makes it clear that this course is about advancing a particular religious viewpoint (and the reference to “Darwin’s ‘philosophy'” (is it not even “just a theory” any more?) being “not rock solid” demonstrates a sadly deficient understanding of the extent to which the theory of evolution by natural selection provides the bedrock of all biological research for the past 150 years).

  • A follow-up thought to KCinDC’s post: doesn’t the mainstream I.D. movement (Dembski, Behe et al.) accept the proposition that the Earth is in fact millions of years old? I thought that was a primary point of contention between the I.D. wingnuts and the Young Earth wingnuts?

  • Clarification: I mean the blatantly unconstitutional attempts at forcing religion into public schools, THAT is the waste. Not appealing to the courts to force religion back out.

  • Jeremy, your comments remind me of this website: http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/

    It makes the point that those who make religious arguments based on literal readings of the Bible are (among other things) being inconsistent. Just because it’s in the Bible does not make it literally true. The Catholic church has even agreed on that point. The people who are attempting this stuff aren’t mainstream Christians. They are extremist elements in the same way that the Islamic terrorists who believe in suicide bombings are a fringe extremist group.

  • Well, until the courts hit the teachers with the attorney fees in these cases, this may continue ad nauseum. I can darn near guarantee that once a teacher is slammed with court costs and attorney fees on such blatant violations, others will most definitely think twice about this.

    And what I cannot understand is why they just don’t put together a religion class that is split up into about 7 parts, each part providing an overview of each major religion, plus a part on non-major religions. This can no doubt be done in a manner that not so subtly promotes christianity and which provides teaching on “intelligent design” but yet could pass constitutional muster.

  • Last post, I swear. At least for now.

    Jeremy,

    A couple of things. First, I don’t think it’s the opposition that’s driving Intelligent Design onto the national stage; the disproportionately well-funded Discovery Institute and its ilk have managed, unfortunately, to make substantial progress in selling their crackpot design theory (which has been refuted in its various guises *at least* since Hume’s “Meditations on Natural Religion) to a segment of the population that sees (rightly so, in my opinion) a dangerous conflict between its religious beliefs and Darwin’s theory of evolution. The I.D. movement was responsible for taking this debate into the school board meetings, in places like Dover, PA and Cobb County, GA. At that point, what choice did proponents of church-state separation, or the merely scientifically literate concerned with maintenance of adequate educational standards, have other than to start filing lawsuits? You’re right that by doing so, Intelligent Design’s opponents gave it a lot of free publicity and perhaps gave the impression that a valid scientific controversy exists, but the alternative would be to stand idly by as the quality of science education and the wall of separation between church and state were corroded.

    Second, I disagree with your suggestion that evolution should be taught in Sunday school for the sake of fairness. Sunday schools (assuming they’re not on the government dole as faith-based organizations) don’t have to be fair; they can teach whatever they bloody well please, and I say more power to them. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment applies only to the government, leaving private institutions like churches free to be as partisan as they like. Since I’m quite fond of my own freedoms of speech and conscience, I view this as a good thing, even when such institutions are infecting innocent children with ignorant hogwash memes.

  • We’re often reminded by the clones on the TV news that some large percentage of Americans consider themselves “evangelical Christians.” Now, there seem to be about as many different versions of evangelical Christians as there are street corners but one thing is clear – they give a pot-load of money to televangelists and similar crackpots at the Discovery Institute. As long as there’s a never-ending supply of money from the credulous and narrow-minded folks the Christian taliban prey upon, there will be yet more Dovers and Lebecs. Who knows, with the addition to the Supreme Court of a lying, hypocritical jurist like Alito we may have Christian creationism crammed down our throats after all.

  • I can only guess that they are teaching this as a part of their effort to destroy public schools. What practical value does a class like this have for public school students?

    Of course, this is not a “required” course for graduation like a science class, and it is clearly outside the realm of anything as practical as home ec.

    The students signing up for this course would be a self selecting group of believers. So really the issue is one of should public money be used to help a splinter group of society refine and train it’s propoganda disemenation system.

    I’m thinking no again.

  • I’m here in the area, and was one of those who alerted Americans United (actually, the Science Education people) to the situation.

    This is just phase one, folks, in a VERY little mountain school district. And the school district did it stupidly, so they’ve got really little chance in court. And their lawyer is already pleading that they don’t have a lot of money.

    Phase II will happen in nearby Bakersfield, where the fundies already have a three-two majority on the high school district board and are itching to pull something like this. They’re just waiting to see what happens so they can try something slightly different.

    Ironically, we’re watching Evolution in action…

  • Randomfactor raises another good point. Not only is this a waste of the court’s time, it’s a sad waste of terribly scarce school district money. You would think districts would be more judicious with their money and try to avoid expensive court battles. Though I supppose whoever forced this program on them would have sued to force this program in if the district had originally refused.

  • leaving private institutions like churches free to be as partisan as they like. Since I’m quite fond of my own freedoms of speech and conscience, I view this as a good thing, even when such institutions are infecting innocent children with ignorant hogwash memes.

    What if the “private institution” espouses hatred and violence, especially against the USA and our constitution? Do you still view this as a good thing? Imagine if you will a community with 65% of the population as followers of Wahhabiism. The “ignorant hogwash memes” espoused by Wahhabi clerics could easily be the spark for violence against women who dare to be seen outside of their home–whether those women are muslim or not.

    I love our constitution and the freedoms enshrined within it. However, there is a line. Allowing fundamentalist churches, temples or mosques to preach violence as a means to an ends is unacceptable.

  • “What if the “private institution” espouses hatred and violence, especially against the USA and our constitution? Do you still view this as a good thing?”

    I think the Supreme Court struck the right balance in Brandenburg v. Ohio, in which it held that the government cannot restrict political speech except when such speech is likely to create imminent lawless action (that’s more or less the language the court used, I haven’t read the case in a while). I have no problem restricting speech that is likely to lead to immediate violence, so let’s leave that aside for the moment. Beyond that, government censorship is not an appropriate solution to speech that we as a society happen to disagree with, or even find reprehensible. (The Brandenburg case, incidentally, involved some pretty disgusting words spoken at a KKK rally, which the Court held to be constitutionally protected).

    My comment about religious institutions being free to be as partisan as they like referred to churches teaching ridiculous doctrines like Intelligent Design and creationism, but I would uphold their right to advocate “hatred and [some, if it’s not imminent] violence… against the USA and the constitution” as well. What’s the alternative? Do we really want to give the government the authority to restrict the speech of those groups it finds “hateful” to the USA? Would you trust the Bush administration to use that power responsibly? I sure as hell wouldn’t.

  • but I would uphold their right to advocate “hatred and [some, if it’s not imminent] violence… against the USA and the constitution” as well.

    Given that there is no good way to prevent this I tend to agree. However, I draw the line at public funding of these institutions or even some of their activities.

  • Sure, no argument with that. I noted in my first post that my support for churches being as partisan as they like was “assuming they’re not on the government dole as faith-based organizations.”

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