Roseville District Keeping Close Eye on Evolution Trial

Original Article
Granite Bay resident Valerie Weinberg sees a striking similarity between the fight she waged to keep anti-evolution material out of her sons’ high school science classes and the trial unfolding this week 2,700 miles away in Pennsylvania.

“I see it as right along the lines of what we would have had to deal with had our board voted the same way,” Weinberg said.

In Dover, Pa., a group of parents sued the school district after its board decided last year to require science teachers to introduce students to ideas that dispute the theory of evolution.

Larry Caldwell is watching the case too. But he says it’s important for a different reason.

“I think the outcome of that case could have an impact on other debates around the country,” said Caldwell, who unsuccessfully asked the Roseville Joint Union High School District to add arguments against evolution to biology classes last year.

Now, Caldwell and the Roseville school district are locked in a lawsuit in Sacramento’s federal court. The parties are waiting for the judge’s decision on whether the case will move forward and ultimately advance to a trial.

Caldwell, an attorney and father of a Granite Bay High School student, sued the school district in January. He said officials violated his rights to free speech, equal protection and religious freedom in responding to the “Quality Science Education Policy” and related instructional materials he introduced.

Caldwell won’t get any help from California’s education establishment. On Wednesday, state schools superintendent Jack O’Connell defended the state’s approach to teaching evolution.

“We want to send a very clear, pre-emptive message that we’re going to continue to adhere to our world-class standards in science,” O’Connell said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he held a press conference in support of California’s standards.

“These are scientifically approved, and we have mainstream academics with us in support. The standards have been put together with the best minds in the country.”

O’Connell said he wanted to make California’s position clear because the Pennsylvania trial and President Bush’s recent remarks on intelligent design have led to questions about the state’s approach to teaching evolution.

Though the lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Sacramento share some similarities, they differ in significant ways. Caldwell’s suit alleges procedural problems with the Roseville district’s response to his requests. The Dover parents are suing over the actual content added to biology class.

The Dover school board asked teachers to read a statement that casts doubt on the theory of evolution and introduces students to the idea of intelligent design, which says that life is too complex to have evolved through natural selection and instead results from the plan, or design, presumably of a supernatural force.

Caldwell did not ask Roseville officials to teach intelligent design. Instead, he wanted them to adopt videos and written material challenging some aspects of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The materials challenged the theory with examples that raised questions about fossil evidence and posited that similarities between species – such as having five digits on each limb – do not necessarily indicate a common ancestor.

Caldwell’s opponents said the material was too far outside the mainstream of science. Roseville teachers sent the items to several universities for review and decided the lessons were not appropriate for their classrooms.

Caldwell also proposed a policy asking teachers to “help students analyze the scientific strengths and weaknesses” of evolution. The Roseville board ultimately rejected the proposal in a 3-2 vote in 2004.

A year after the rejection, Caldwell’s conviction hasn’t dimmed. He has started a nonprofit organization to help other communities change how evolution is taught. And he now has a Web site – www.qsea.org – devoted to his cause.

“No court has ever held that it is illegal to teach the scientific weaknesses of evolution in science class, and the court in the Dover case won’t be ruling on that issue,” Caldwell wrote in an e-mail to The Bee following a telephone interview.

“On the other hand, a win by the school board in the Dover case may make other school boards across the country more willing to adopt a ‘strengths and weaknesses’ policy like my proposed Quality Science Education Policy.”

In the lawsuit he filed earlier this year, Caldwell says that during his nearly yearlong effort, Roseville school officials prevented meaningful consideration of his proposals by refusing to put the policy on the board’s agenda, defaming him in public meetings and failing to provide a clear procedure for his requests.

The district says Caldwell was given ample opportunity to present his ideas during a series of public and private meetings with school board members and science teachers.

“We’re saying he’s already had his say, the district has heard it and voted on it, and there’s nothing (more) to decide,” said attorney James Carr, who represents the school district.

But the board isn’t united in its opposition to Caldwell. Kelly Lafferty supported his efforts, the only current board member to do so.

She said she hopes the court’s decision in Pennsylvania will make it easier for all school boards to add anti-evolution material to biology classes.

“People need to wake up and realize that the majority of the people in the United States feel that both sides of the evolution issue should be presented to children so they can make their own decisions,” Lafferty said.

That’s exactly what Valerie Weinberg fears.

If the Dover parents lose their case, she said, opponents of evolution “definitely have some more ammunition to use to bring to our board.”