Marietta Daily Journal Editorial, December 21, 2006
http://www.mdjonline.com/94/10241495.txt
The Cobb school board finally admitted the obvious on Tuesday: that its “evolution sticker” case had devolved into a waste of time, tax dollars and educators’ attention. As a result, it took the long-overdue step of pulling the plug on its federal court appeal of a lower-court ruling that said the evolution disclaimer stickers the board had ordered placed in all high school science textbooks were unconstitutional.
The board agreed on Tuesday to settle the suit brought against it by east Cobb parent Jeffrey Selman and several others. The agreement specifies the board will not use such disclaimers in the future and commits the board to pay around $166,000 in attorney fees for the plaintiffs. The board also wracked up $109,000 in payments to its own attorney during the case, although that attorney firm, Brock Clay of Marietta, had agreed to represent the board gratis during the appeals phase. Just think how many teachers could have been hired with that $275,000 or so the board wasted on something that never should have been an issue in the first place.
The board put the stickers in the textbooks in 2002. The stickers described evolution as “theory, not a fact,” and said students should consider the subject with an open mind. In turn, that prompted Selman and four parents represented by the American Civil Liberties Union to file suit contending that the stickers violated the concept of church/state separation.
U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper agreed they were unconstitutional, ruling in January 2005 that the stickers represented an attempt by the board to advance religion in the classroom. So the board spent about $14,000 having them removed from the books.
But the board was not content to let that be the final word on the matter, and voted in January 2005 to take the case to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. But in May of this year that court sent the case back to Cooper, citing a number of factual problems in his ruling and leaving it to him to determine whether to hold a new trial.
At that point, with the legal costs rising and no end in sight to the litigation - and with three new members taking office as of next month - the board began talking seriously about settling.
“The board maintains that the stickers were constitutional, but, at the same time, the board clearly sees the need to put this divisive issue behind us,” said board Chairwoman Dr. Teresa Plenge.
Indeed, the sticker issue wound up being a huge distraction for the board and top administrators. Among other things, while the board was making a top priority of dissing Darwin, it let the system drop onto the dreaded “Needs Improvement List” under No Child Left Behind. Whatever time and money it would have been spent from here forward pursuing the appeal and preparing for a new trial could no doubt be better spent trying to get the Cobb system back on track.
Hopefully from here forward, the school board will focus on what is supposed to be its main priority - increasing student achievement - instead of wasting its time and the public’s money on more such matters.
Copyright © 2006 Marietta Daily Journal. All rights reserved.
A settlement in Selman v. Cobb County
There is a settlement in Selman v. Cobb County, the case that challenged the constitutionality of a textbook disclaimer sticker that described evolution as “a theory, not a fact.” In 2002, the Cobb County Board of Education, pressured by local creationists, adopted the stickers, and eleven parents subsequently filed suit, with a trial following in late 2004. On January 13, 2005, Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that the stickers violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, writing, “the Court believes that an informed, reasonable observer would interpret the Sticker to convey a message of endorsement of religion. … an informed, reasonable observer would understand the School Board to be endorsing the viewpoint of Christian fundamentalists and creationists that evolution is a problematic theory lacking an adequate foundation.”
The board chose to appeal the decision, however. While the appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals was in progress, the stickers were removed from the textbooks, pursuant to Judge Cooper’s order, which the board unsuccessfully sought to have stayed. After oral arguments in December 2005, on May 25, 2006, a three-judge panel vacated the decision, primarily because of concerns about the evidence introduced at trial concerning the adoption of the stickers; the panel’s decision emphasized that “we want to make it clear that we do not intend to make any implicit rulings on any of the legal issues that arise from the facts once they are found on remand.” The case was then remanded to the trial court for further evidential proceedings, which could have involved a full retrial.
Preparing for a possible retrial, the ACLU of Georgia (which, with Marietta lawyer Michael Manely, represented the plaintiffs in the trial) was joined by lawyers from the Atlanta law firm Bondurant, Mixon & Elmore; Americans United for Separation of Church and State; and the Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton. AU and Pepper Hamilton brought their expertise from Kitzmiller v. Dover, the 2005 case in which teaching “intelligent design” creationism in the public schools was ruled to be unconstitutional. As in Kitzmiller, Brown University’s Kenneth R. Miller and McGill University’s Brian Alters were recruited to serve as expert witnesses, as was NCSE’s executive director Eugenie C. Scott. In the event, however, the preparation for a retrial was unnecessary, as the Cobb County Board of Education signed a settlement agreement on December 19, 2006.
In the agreement, the board and the school district are enjoined not only from “restoring to the science textbooks of students in the Cobb County schools any stickers, labels, stamps, inscriptions, or other warnings or disclaimers bearing language substantially similar to that used on the sticker that is the subject of this action” but also from taking any of a number of actions that “would prevent or hinder the teaching of evolution,” including making oral or written disclaimers about evolution or Darwin, placing statements in textbooks about “creationism, creation science, intelligent design, or any other religious view concerning the origins of life or the origins of human beings,” and “excising or redacting materials on evolution in students’ science textbooks.” The agreement is binding in perpetuity.
NCSE’s executive director Eugenie C. Scott commented, “The settlement was clearly in the best interests of both the district and the plaintiffs. The district was spared a lengthy, divisive, and expensive trial that it was practically bound to lose again, especially faced with the winning team from the landmark case Kitzmiller v. Dover. And although the plaintiffs were already successful in ensuring that the misleading stickers were removed from the textbooks, the settlement agreement explicitly forbids the board and the district from doing anything in the future that would compromise the integrity of evolution education in Cobb County. That means that the real winners today are the kids, who will be free to learn about evolution — the central principle of the biological sciences — without the distortions of a narrow religious agenda.”
In a December 19, 2006, press release from Americans United, the Reverend Barry W. Lynn lauded the settlement, saying, “Cobb County school officials have taken the right step to ensure that their students receive a quality education.” Lead plaintiff Jeffrey Selman commented, “The settlement brings to an end a long battle to keep our science classes free of political or religious agendas, adding, “I am very pleased that the Cobb school board has dropped its defense of the anti-evolution policy. The board should be commended for taking this action.” The chair of the board, Teresa Plenge, expressed her satisfaction at the result to the Associated Press (December 19, 2006), explaining, “we faced the distraction and expense of starting all over with more legal actions and another trial … With this agreement, it is done and we now have a clean slate for the new year.”
National Center for Science Education
December 19, 2006
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7th September 2006
The Evolution of Creationism
The 2006 Burke Nicholson Interdisciplinary Forum
At Emory University
Sept 13th 7pm Special screening of the docu-comedy:
“FLOCK OF DODOS”
Free and open to the public, seating is limited to first 500
Woodruff Health Sciences Center Administration Building (WHSCAB) Auditorium
Emory University
1440 Clifton Rd
Nearest parking is in the Michael Street deck
Sept 14th 7pm An Interdisciplinary Discussion of the Origins, Evolution and Impact of Creationism in American Society
208 White Hall
Emory University Main Campus
Nearest parking is in the Peavine Deck
Featuring faculty from Medicine, Law, Biology, History, and Theology, including Barbara Forrest, Professor of History and Political Science, Southeastern Louisiana University, and co-author of Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design
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20th July 2006
Last year, over 10,000 clergy members signed a letter supporting the idea that religion and science are compatible ways of viewing the world.
As an offshoot of the effort, the First “Evolution Sunday” was held Feb 12, 2006, Darwin’s birthday, at churches throughout the nation. Some of the sermons have been made available online. On February 11, 2007 the 2nd annual Evolution Sunday will be held.
GCISE hopes that this information can be of use to those trying to reconcile or help friends reconcile their religious beliefs with modern scientific evidence. Despite what the creationists contend, millions of faithful Christians and members of other faiths have no problem accepting the evidence for evolution and do not feel it threatens their beliefs in any way!
Clips from the site:
“The Clergy Letter Project is an endeavor designed to demonstrate
that religion and science can be compatible and to elevate the quality of the debate of this issue.”
“On 12 February 2006 hundreds of Christian churches from all portions of the country and a host of denominations came together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science. More than 10,000 Christian clergy signed The Clergy Letter demonstrating that this is a false dichotomy. On the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, many of these leaders brought this message to their congregations through sermons and/or discussion groups. Together, participating religious leaders made the statement that religion and science are not adversaries. And, together, they elevated the quality of the national debate on this topic.”
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