In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made
school boards. - Mark Twain? (1835 - 1910)
===================================================
Associated Press
Update 3: Calif. School Scraps 'Intelligent Design'
By JULIANA BARBASSA , 01.17.2006, 02:33 PM
Under legal pressure, a rural school district agreed Tuesday to stop
offering high school students an elective philosophy course on
"intelligent design," an advocacy group said.
A group of parents had sued the El Tejon school district in federal
court last week, saying it violated the constitutional separation of
church and state by offering "Philosophy of Design," a course taught
by
a minister's wife that advanced the notion that life is so complex it
must
have been created by some kind of higher intelligence.
Ayesha N. Khan, legal director for Americans United for Separation
of Church and State, which represented the parents, said Frazier
Mountain High agreed to drop the class.
"This sends a strong signal to school districts across the country
that
they cannot promote creationism or intelligent design as an
alternative
to evolution, whether they do so in a science class or a humanities
class," Khan said.
District officials did not immediately return calls for comment.
The settlement was announced just before a federal judge was
scheduled to hold a hearing on whether to halt the class midway
through the monthlong winter term.
In a landmark lawsuit, Americans United successfully blocked the
Dover, Pa., school system last month from teaching intelligent design
alongside evolution in high school biology classes. U.S. District
Judge
John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is religion
masquerading
as science.
However, some activists contended that Jones' ruling opened the door
to teaching intelligent design in philosophy or religion classes.
El Tejon Superintendent John Wight said the subject was proper for a
philosophy class. But Americans United argued the course relied
almost exclusively on videos that presented religious theories as
scientific ones.
The high school in the Tehachapi Mountains about 75 miles north of
Los Angeles draws 500 students from a dozen small communities.
Sharon Lemburg, a social studies teacher and soccer coach who
taught "Philosophy of Design," defended the course in a letter to the
weekly Mountain Enterprise. "I believe this is the class that the Lord
wanted me to teach," she wrote.
Similar battles over intelligent design are being fought in Georgia
and
Kansas.
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