The University of California has been accused in a federal
lawsuit of violating freedom of speech and religion rights,
bringing into sharp focus an increasingly heated national debate
about the role of religion in schools and religious influence in
scientific thought.
The suit, alleging discrimination by the UC against high schools
that teach creationism and other traditional Christian viewpoints,
was filed in August by the Association of Christian Schools
International and five students at the Calvary Chapel Christian
School in Murrieta, California.
The plaintiffs allege that a recently implemented UC admissions
policy discriminates against Christian schools by refusing to
accept certain high school classes with coursework that is
religious in nature.
The UC has stated that the rejected courses, because of their
religious content, either present too narrow a perspective or teach
the subject matter from a biased point of view, denying students
the proper education in the various subjects that the UC requires
in its applicants.
But Robert Tyler, a lawyer for Advocates for Faith and Freedom,
which is representing the plaintiffs, said he believes this is not
the UC’s intent.
“We have a situation where the UC system seems to have a
desire to secularize private Christian schools. They’ve
effectively forced schools to engage in a secular theology through
the banning of any recognition of God in the school or the effect
of Christianity on American history,” Tyler said.
Tyler also disputed that Darwinian evolution is widely accepted
by the scientific community at large.
“(Evolution) is widely discussed, and accepted by some,
but I think many that accept it simply say that it’s more
likely than not that it is more right than other theories,”
Tyler said.
He added that students in science courses at Calvary Chapel
“are taught about all aspects of scientific thought,”
including evolution, creationism and intelligent design.
Tyler, who has a daughter who attends Calvary Chapel, asked if
it’s better to have a student educated in all of the theories
being discussed, or focus only on one.
“Knowing about all the theories makes a student far more
prepared than a student that’s had exposure to only
one,” he said.
But history professor David Sabean said the debate was not on
the merits of creationism versus evolution, but on the way students
are taught to approach problems of learning.
Sabean added that this question originates in science but
applies to all subjects as well.
“One should not be seduced into thinking that we just have
a conflict of “˜isms’ ““ a mere ideological
dispute,” he said. “What is at stake is the scientific
edifice of systematic enquiry, the entertaining of hypotheses, and
the organization of evidence.”
The suit raises questions about the role of religion in
education, and to what extent the UC as a public university can
legally enforce its own educational standards.
There is significant debate over where the line should be drawn
in accepting or rejecting high school courses.
For example, one high school course was rejected because a
textbook states in it’s introduction that “the people
who have prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word
of God first and science second.”
In that case, the UC states that the problem could be fixed
simply by classifying the textbook as supplementary rather than
primary.
UCLA professor of law Eugene Volokh said “the UC has the
right to set its own standards for admission, and to determine
which classes qualify and don’t qualify” towards that
standard.
Volokh said it would be wrong for the UC to reject classes
simply because they teach views or perspectives that the school
disapproves of, but “If a course doesn’t even consider
scientific theory, that’s a problem,” just like a
history course that exclusively considers the contributions of
women would not be complete.
UC Spokesperson Ravi Poorsina said the UC’s policy was in
keeping with this view.
“The UC does not have the right to determine what types of
courses are taught, and that’s not what we’re trying to
do. We want to make sure that students entering the UC are prepared
for our coursework,” Poorsina said.
“This is not viewpoint discrimination, and Christian
courses are not the only ones that have been rejected,” she
added.