Tag: Politics
National Legal Organization Backs Coppedge Lawsuit Over Jet Propulsion Lab Discrimination Against Intelligent Design
Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a national legal organization whose allied attorneys have logged over 100 million dollars worth of pro bono hours of legal work, has issued a statement backing David Coppedge’s lawsuit against Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A recent article in the Christian Post reporting on the ADF news release summarizes Coppedge’s plight: Last March [2009], Coppedge was accused of “pushing religion” on his co-workers after he began engaging colleagues in conversations about intelligent design — a theory that life and the existence of the universe derive not from undirected material processes but from an intelligent cause — and offering DVDs on the subject when the co-worker expressed interest. His supervisor, Gregory Chin, allegedly received complaints from employees and threatened Read More ›
“The ‘Teach the Controversy’ Controversy”: David DeWolf Tells the True Story of the Santorum Amendment
I recently blogged about my law review article in University of St. Thomas Journal of Law & Public Policy. Discovery Institute senior fellow David DeWolf, professor of law at Gonzaga University School of Law, also published an article in the same issue of that journal titled “The ‘Teach the Controversy’ Controversy.” One of the most interesting components of Professor DeWolf’s article is his retelling of the adoption of the Santorum Amendment into the Conference Report of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Professor DeWolf’s full article can be seen here. What follows is a section from DeWolf’s article. It is the first of two installments here on ENV that will tell the story of the Santorum Amendment and Read More ›
Correcting Myths About Coppedge’s Intelligent Design Discrimination Lawsuit
http://www.discovery.org/a/14511
The ACLU Has a History of Advocating Disparate Treatment for Intelligent Design
In my prior post, I critiqued ACLU-affiliated law professor Gary Williams for claiming that David Coppedge’s case “probably won’t have a shot in court.” If Coppedge has no case, then Mr. Williams must be saying that an employee discussing a matter relevant to the workplace and that is not prohibited by any employer policy–in a non-disruptive fashion–can be targeted when other employees expressing different views about the same topic are not penalized. But this is exactly what happened at JPL, a taxpayer funded entity: JPL has no policy against talking about intelligent design (ID), and permits employees to express viewpoints that are hostile towards ID, but when an employee expresses pro-ID speech, he’s suddenly harassed, investigated, demoted, and told to Read More ›
Is Pro-Intelligent Design Speech During Work Hours “Not Included” in Protections Against Discrimination?
In a recent post I explained why David Coppedge is alleging religious discrimination in his lawsuit against NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for shutting down his pro-intelligent design speech, even though intelligent design (ID) is science, not religion. In the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Professor Gary Williams of Loyola Law School (and former head of the Southern California ACLU) argued that even if ID is religion (or, as in Coppedge’s case, ID is labeled religion by JPL), that Coppedge’s lawsuit is weak: Certain kinds of religious activity are protected if they are not intrusive – such as wearing certain religious garb – but speech during work hours is not included, he said. So even if intelligent design is viewed as Read More ›