Interesting Court Ruling

On Friday, a District Court in California ruled on a case, C.F. v. Capistrano USD (PDF), in which the central issue was whether a high school teacher violated his students' religious freedoms by making statements in class that were openly hostile to religious beliefs. While the Establishment Clause of the Constitution stipulates that the government (including public schools) cannot establish or promote a particular religious belief, the Free Exercise Clause makes it illegal to prohibit the free exercise of religion. The Courts ruling on behalf of the plaintiffs basically says that a teacher did, in fact, infringe on the religious freedom of his students when he referred to creationism as "superstitious nonsense."

This isn't the only statement made by this teacher (a Mr. Corbette) which was questioned. It was, however, the only one for which the Court opined there was no secular purpose...meaning the intent of the language served no legitimate purpose other than to show a disapproval of religion. Ed Brayton has written a nice summary and opinion here. Unfortunately, you won't be able to access that link from school since it's a (!gasp!) blog.

The key part of the ruling is this:

The Court turns first to Corbett’s statement regarding John Peloza (“Peloza”). This statement presents the closest question for the Court in assessing secular purpose. Peloza apparently brought suit against Corbett because Corbett was the advisor to a student newspaper which ran an article suggesting that Peloza was teaching religion rather than science in his classroom. Corbett explained to his class that Peloza, a teacher, “was not telling the kids [Peloza’s students] the scientific truth about evolution.” Corbett also told his students that, in response to a request to give Peloza space in the newspaper to present his point of view, Corbett stated, “I will not leave John Peloza alone to propagandize kids with this religious, superstitious nonsense.” One could argue that Corbett meant that Peloza should not be presenting his religious ideas to students or that Peloza was presenting faulty science to the students. But there is more to the statement: Corbett states an unequivocal belief that creationism is “superstitious nonsense.” The Court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context. The statement therefore constitutes improper disapproval of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.

As a science teacher, my first impulse here is to applaud this ruling. I understand that Mr. Corbett did not want to give another teacher a platform to try to pass of supernatural beliefs (which are, by definition, not scientific) as legitimate science. This is a stance taken by many in the scientific and educational communities. Mr. Corbett crossed the line, however, when he used emotionally charged language to denigrate the beliefs of that teacher as part of his classroom instruction.

Public school teachers have the responsibility, as professionals, to provide the best education possible to their students. I will continue to stand firmly behind my assertion that this is ONLY accomplished in science when we teach SCIENTIFIC principles, including the robust and well established theory of biological evolution. I will stand firmly behind my assertion that trying to force public schools to teach religious views such as creationism, creation science, or intelligent design in science classes is absolutely unconstitutional. And I will stand firmly behind my assertion that to profess a religious belief which involves special creation in any form means that you have to be able to explain away mountains of hard, well-established scientific evidence...or simply be willing to accept that your beliefs are not in line with current scientific thinking.

HOWEVER...I also will stand firmly behind the idea that a student's religious belief (or lack thereof) is their belief which they are entitled to. How a student sees themselves in relation to a higher power is at the core of their understanding of the world and themselves. When a teacher, acting as a professional public educator, intentionally bashes a particular religious belief for no other purpose than to advance their own atheistic worldview is nothing short of educational malpractice. And it makes it that much more difficult for those of us who are trying to have real, open, and honest conversations about the relationship between science and religion.

As Brayton puts it so well:

There will inevitably be conflicts between things taught in school and the religious beliefs of some students. When those conflicts occur, a teacher has to handle those situations with some degree of sensitivity. It is one thing to tell a student that they are teaching something because it is the position best supported by the evidence; it is quite another to tell them that their religion makes them incapable of seeing the truth and that their religion is a fraud believed in by fools. I think this teacher clearly crossed over the line here, and not just in the one statement the court found to be a problem.

I couldn't agree with him more.