May a teacher answer questions from students about her personal religious beliefs or her beliefs on Darwin’s theory of evolution? That’s the issue addressed in Moore v. Gaston County Board of Education, where a lower federal court found it legal for a agnostic teacher who supported evolution to express his views in response to student questions about what he believed. Would a teacher who doubts Darwinism also be granted the academic freedom to openly answer student questions about whether she finds evolutionary biology persuasive? 1. Summary A student teacher, George Moore, sued the Gaston County School District in North Carolina after being dismissed because he supported evolution in class by giving “unorthodox answers to student questions (derived from the day’s Read More ›

Crowley v. Smithsonian Institution is another case where a federal court found that the government does not violate the Establishment clause when it advocates evolution. Yet the reasoning the court used to find it permissible to teach evolution could, if applied fairly, also validate the teaching of intelligent design as constitutional. 1. Summary Plaintiffs sued the Smithsonian Institution, arguing that displays featuring evolution at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History established secular humanism and violated the constitutional mandate requiring the government to remain neutral in matters of religion.70 Plaintiffs requested an order compelling the Smithsonian to “expend an amount equal to the amount extended in the promulgation of the evolutionary theory . . . on the Biblical account of Read More ›

The case Wright v. Houston was decided by the lowest level of the federal courts in 1973, and it effectively ruled that it is not illegal to teach just the evidence supporting evolution. This is one case in a line of cases that found that teaching evolution does not violate the Establishment Clause. 1. Summary Students in the Houston Independent School District sued their district and the Texas State Board of Education for teaching evolution but not including any other views about origins, such as the Biblical story of creation.43 The student-plaintiffs contended that the study of evolution constituted the establishment of a sectarian, atheistic religion and inhibited the free exercise of their own religion in violation of the First Read More ›

Tomorrow, Tuesday November 10th, University of St. Thomas School of Law is hosting a legal symposium titled “Intelligent Design and the Constitution.” Participants include Peter M. J. Hess (NCSE), David DeWolf (Professor of Law, Gonzaga University; senior fellow, Discovery Institute), Josh Rosenau (NCSE), Thomas D. Sullivan (Aquinas Chair in Philosophy and Theology, University of St. Thomas), Patrick Gillen (Lead Defense Counsel, Kitzmiller v. Dover), Russell Pannier (Emeritus Professor of Law, William Mitchel College of the Law), and myself. The title of my talk will be “The Constitutionality and Pedagogical Benefits of Teaching Evolution Scientifically.” According to the website: The symposium, free and open to the public, will bring together scholars to debate and analyze various constitutional and philosophical issues surrounding Read More ›