TALLAHASSEE – “Academic freedom is not ‘smelly crap.’ It’s the foundation of a free society,” says science education expert Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs at Discovery Institute. “That’s why Florida’s proposed Academic Freedom Act on evolution is so important.” Florida legislators recently introduced SB 2692, the Academic Freedom Act, to protect teachers and students from Read More ›
This statement, published by Iowa State University, regards Discovery Institute Center for Science & Culture Senior Fellow Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez’s tenure appeal at Iowa State University. In the statement, Iowa State University President Gregory Geoffroy responds as follows: On Friday, June 1, I informed Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, of my decision to deny his tenure appeal. The rest Read More ›
The specter of academic discrimination against an unpopular minority should have a special resonance in the Jewish community. Or so you would think. Between World War I and the end of World War II, Jews in the United States lived through a period of anti-Semitism notable for its impact on academia. According to Leonard Dinnerstein in his comprehensive history Anti-Semitism Read More ›
You know the story, the play, the movie–all based on a piece of American history. It starts when a high school biology teacher in a small, rural American community begins teaching his classes about a theory of mans origins that defies conventional beliefs. The teacher asks his students to examine the fossil record and draw their own conclusions. He traces Read More ›
When most of us think of the controversy over evolution in the public schools, we are likely to think of fundamentalists pulling teachers from their classrooms and placing them in the dock. Images from the infamous Scopes “monkey” trial of 1925 come to mind. Unfortunately, intolerance of this sort has shown itself in California in the 1990s as a result of students complaining about a biology instructor. Unlike the original Scopes case, however, this case involves a distinguished biology professor at a major university — indeed, an acknowledged expert on evolutionary theory. Also unlike Scopes, the teacher was forbidden to teach his course not because he taught evolutionary theory (which he did) but because he offered a critical assessment of Read More ›
