From Whence We Came
Intelligent Design Lawsuit (last updated January 17, 2005) (back to top)
Lori defends a Massachusetts school district that has adopted a curriculum requiring the teaching of creationism and that has fired two teachers for not teaching creationism.
This case seems to be inspired by the Dover (Pennsylvania) Area School District, which announced in November 2004 that it had revised its biology curriculum effective January 2005 so that students are taught that evolution is a theory and that intelligent design - a theory that evolution is the method by which an intelligent creator, such as God, might work - is another theory.
According to the Dover district (on-line here), the curriculum includes the following preliminary statement:
| Students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's Theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, Intelligent Design. The Origins of Life is not taught. |
According to the Dover district, teachers will not teach creationism or intelligent design and will not present their or the school board's religious beliefs, and the district is simply seeking to present alternative theories given the ongoing debate over how life developed. At the same time, the district's statements to students specifically refer to a book, Of Pandas and People, which is now considered a reference book in the biology curriculum and is "available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves."
Some parents sued the Dover district in December 2004, arguing that the effort to present intelligent design was unconstitutional because it inherently was for a religious purpose. Under the United States Supreme Court's "Lemon test," governmental action violates the First Amendment's Establishment Clause unless (1) it has a secular purpose, (2) its principal or primary effect must not advance nor inhibit religion, and (3) it must not foster "an excessive government entangling with religion."
Polls taken by the Gallup organization in recent years have found that many people do believe God had some role in the creation or development of humanity. Polls from November 2004 found that 45 percent of those polled believed that God created humanity as it is now, that 38 percent of those polled believed that humanity developed over time with the guidance of God (a view consistent with that of intelligent design), and that 13 percent believed that humanity developed without God's guidance.
At the same time, Gallup's November 2004 polls also found that 35 percent of those polled believed that the theory of evolution was well-supported by evidence, 35 percent believed that the theory was not well-supported by evidence, and that 29 percent did not know enough to say either way.
Gallup found that belief that evolution was well-supported was strongest among "those with the most education, liberals, those living in the West, those who seldom attend church, and among Catholics" and was weakest among "those with the least education, older Americans (many of whom say they are unsure about the theory in general), frequent church attendees, conservatives, Protestants, those living in the middle of the country, and Republicans."
Battles over evolution in school board meetings and in courts have become more common in recent years.
One recent battle involved the Cobb County School District (on-line here) in Georgia, north of Atlanta, which decided in 2002 to place a sticker on some science textbooks which read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." In a Jan. 13, 2005 decision, District Judge Clarence Cooper found that this policy was unconstitutional and ordered that the district stop. The school board announced that it was "disappointed" in the decision and would review it for possible appeal.
Another prominent battle involved Kansas's state curriculum. In 1999, the state board of education voted 6-4 to eliminate evolution and the Big Bang theory from the state curriculum. Several national science organizations then denied the board the right to use some of their copyrighted material in the school standards, which forced the state board to revise its standards somewhat. In 2000, three state board candidates were elected who promised to include evolution in the school standards, turning out two incumbents who had supported the elimination evolution. In December 2000, the Board approved a new set of science standards once again incorporating evolution.
As for the famous Scopes trial of the 1920s, that trial ultimately did not decide whether an antievolution statute was legal. While people may think from the play "Inherit the Wind" that biology teacher John Scopes was acquitted, he actually was convicted for teaching evolution in 1925 and later had the conviction turned over by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1927 on an unrelated technicality.
The United States Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality of antievolution statutes until 1967, more than four decades after the Scopes trial, when it declared an Arkansas antievolution statute unconstitutional because of its religious purpose (on-line here). The Supreme Court also ruled in a 1987 case, Edwards v. Aguillard (on-line here), that a Louisiana law prohibiting the teaching of evolution unless creationism was also taught was unconstitutional.
Sources: The Dover, Pennsylvania school district is on-line here. The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has information about a lawsuit challenging the Dover district on-line here. The Cobb County School District is on-line here. Frank Newport, Third of Americans say evidence has supported Darwin's evolution theory, Gallup (November 19, 2004).
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