By MARTHA RAFFAELE, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago
HARRISBURG, Pa. - "Intelligent design" cannot be mentioned in biology
classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said
Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution
since the 1925 Scopes trial.
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Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they
ordered that its biology curriculum include the notion that life on
Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District
Judge John E. Jones III said. Several members repeatedly lied to cover
their motives, he said.
The ruling will not likely be appealed by the slate of new board
members, who in the November election ousted the group that installed
intelligent design, the new board president said Tuesday.
The school board policy, adopted in October 2004, was believed to have
been the first of its kind in the nation.
"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the
Board who voted for the ID Policy," Jones wrote, calling the board's
decision "breathtaking inanity."
"The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District
deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its
resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources," he wrote.
The board's attorneys had said members were seeking to improve science
education by exposing students to alternatives to Charles Darwin's
theory that evolution develops through natural selection.
Intelligent-design proponents argue that the theory cannot fully explain
the existence of complex life forms.
The plaintiffs challenging the policy argued that intelligent design
amounts to a secular repackaging of biblical creationism, which the
courts have already ruled cannot be taught in public schools.
The judge agreed.
"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a
pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in
the public school classroom," he wrote in his 139-page opinion.
The Dover policy required students to hear a statement about intelligent
design before ninth-grade biology lessons on evolution. The statement
said Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps." It
refers students to an intelligent-design textbook, "Of Pandas and
People," for more information.
Jones wrote that he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept
shouldn't be studied and discussed, saying its advocates "have bona fide
and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors."
However, he wrote, "our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional
to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science
classroom."
The controversy divided the borough of Dover and surrounding Dover
Township, a rural area of nearly 20,000 residents about 20 miles south
of Harrisburg. It galvanized voters to oust eight incumbent school board
members who supported the policy in the Nov. 8 school board election.
The ninth board member was not up for re-election.
Said the judge: "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so
staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public,
would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real
purpose behind the ID Policy."
The board members were replaced by a slate of eight opponents who
pledged to remove intelligent design from the science curriculum.
They also will likely drop the old plan now that the judge has ruled,
new board president Bernadette Reinking said. "As far as I can tell you,
there is no intent to appeal," she said.
Reinking said the new board will likely move the subject of intelligent
design into some undetermined elective social studies class. She said
the board will need to talk to its attorney before determining specific
actions.
Eric Rothschild, lead attorney for the families who challenged the
policy, called the ruling "a real vindication for the parents who had
the courage to stand up and say there was something wrong in their
school district."
Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law
Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., which represented the school board, did not
return a telephone message seeking comment.
It was the latest chapter in a debate over the teaching of evolution
dating back to the famous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, in which Tennessee
biology teacher John T. Scopes was fined $100 for violating a state law
that forbade teaching evolution. The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed
his conviction on a technicality, and the law was repealed in 1967.
Jones heard arguments in the fall during a six-week trial in which
expert witnesses for each side debated intelligent design's scientific
merits. Other witnesses, including current and former school board
members, disagreed over whether creationism was discussed in board
meetings months before the curriculum change was adopted.
It is among at least a handful of cases that have focused new attention
on the teaching of evolution in the nation's schools.
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court in Georgia heard arguments
over evolution disclaimer stickers placed in a biology textbooks. A
federal judge in January had ordered Cobb County school officials to
immediately remove the stickers, which called evolution a theory, not a
fact.
In November, state education officials in Kansas adopted new classroom
science standards that call the theory of evolution into question.
--
Will Brink @ http://www.brinkzone.com/