A Hint of Things to Come

In a recent post I noted that one tactic the religious right might employ in the looming academic freedom crisis would be to claim discrimination at the hands of the educational establishment.

"I fear that some on the religious right may be preparing to force our federally-regulated universities to protect the 'academic freedom' of creationists at the expense of academic standards. For starters, if our universities can have speech codes, banning 'hate speech' why shouldn't a stand for the theory of evolution fall under the same umbrella? Isn't that persecution of Christians? Would Christians acquiesce to an elimination of these chilling speech codes if they realized that they, too, could use them?"

Well, that sort of thing is already happening now. In California, a "teacher has been barred by his school from giving students documents from American history that refer to God -- including the Declaration of Independence." This is a public school trying to follow the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, which it should, since it's a government institution. (But I'm not so sure that presenting a historical document that happens to contain religious references would necessarily be in violation of same. Williams' lawyer seems to agree with me there.)

It's bad enough that some idiot is making a mockery of the Establishment Clause by banning the Declaration of Independence from a history lesson. What's worse is the grounds being used to fight this lunacy: "Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination on Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian."

The proper response to what Principal Vidmar did is to protest this particular misapplication of the Establishment Clause, not to claim religious persecution. That response sets up the Establishment Clause as a straw man and sets a dangerous precedent whichever outcome results. (Assuming, that is, that there isn't someone with a modicum of common sense within the legal system who can come up with something else.) Either the ban is interpreted as a correct and nondiscriminatory application of the Establishment Clause, or the Christian wins on the basis of discrimination law. The latter paves the way for creationists to file similar suits so they can teach creation "science" in our public schools.

Yes, Vidmar is an idiot, but this approach is ultimately even worse. The clouds continue to gather on the horizon for academic freedom.

Of course the report leaves open one interesting question: If it is true that, since May, Williams "has been required to submit all of his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to Vidmar for approval, and that the principal will not permit him to use any that contain references to God or Christianity," might Williams have laid a trap for Vidmar after she stopped him from inappropriately injecting Christianity into his lessons? I'd love to know. Either way, the "discrimination" suit is a bad thing and Vidmar's ban on the Declaration of Independence is, at best, due to a mindless rejection of course materials simply because they refer to "God."

-- CAV