Religion-Based Objections to Science Curriculum:

An Analysis of the Legal Aspects of the Creation/Evolution Debate and Public School Curriculum

In 1999, Christian fundamentalists gained worldwide recognition for their involvement in the enduring debate over the teaching of evolution in U.S. public schools. The upsurge of interest in the debate was ignited by the decision of the Kansas State Board of Education in August to de-emphasize the topics of macroevolution (the concept of evolutionary change at or above the level of species), the geologic timescale, and the “Big Bang” theory of the origin of the universe in the statewide science standards. The State Board voted six to four to adopt science standards based on the work of an unofficial subcommittee of the Board. In doing so, the Board ignored the expertise of 27 science educators who spent 15 months writing their own version of the science standards. State Board members publicly defended their decision by saying that one of their major goals in adopting the standards was to increase local control by allowing local school districts to decide whether or not to teach the controversial subjects. In any case, the decision has been both openly derided and praised by members of the general public.

Christian fundamentalists have often sought to shape public school curriculum so that it coincides with their religious beliefs. Consequently, several court cases have dealt with the topics of evolution, creation, and public schools. In my opinion, the events in Kansas could have been interpreted as subject to similar legal considerations, depending on the basis of the argument.  In order to better understand the implications of the situation as it was in Kansas, it is important to explore the legal history of the creation/evolution controversy.

The constitutional basis for the creation/evolution issue is the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment that requires the government to “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Establishment Clause is interpreted by the judicial system to erect a wall of separation between church and state. The Supreme Court ruled that this wall was crossed in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp (1963), in which a school’s morning routine involved the reading of Bible verses and the Lord’s Prayer.  The Court constructed a framework for evaluating charges that school programs and curricula are in violation of the Establishment Clause. It declared that for a school program or curriculum to pass the requirements of the Establishment Clause, both its purpose and its primary effect must be secular. This ruling provided the precedent for future cases concerning claims of Establishment Clause violations in public schools.

The framework set up in Schempp was used in Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) to determine if Arkansas’ “antievolution” statute was in violation of the Constitution. The statute made it unlawful for a teacher in any state-supported educational institution to teach "that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals." Any person caught violating this statute was charged with a misdemeanor and subject to dismissal from his or her job. A Little Rock Biology teacher, Susan Epperson, initiated the litigation after her school adopted a textbook containing a chapter on evolution. She was faced with an unwelcome quandary that both required her to and prohibited her from teaching the theory of evolution. Epperson sought a declaration by the courts that the Arkansas statute was void to prevent her dismissal for violation of the statute’s requirements.

The Chancery Court decided in favor of Epperson, ruling that the statute was unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech guaranteed to citizens of any state by the Fourteenth Amendment. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Arkansas reversed the decision, stating simply that the statute was within the State’s power to determine the public school curriculum. The case was then appealed to the Supreme Court.  The Court ruled that there was no doubt that the Arkansas legislature sought to prevent teachers from discussing the theory of evolution because it was contrary to the literal interpretation of the Biblical account of creation. The purpose and primary effect of the law was found to be religious in nature. It was clear to the Court that fundamentalist conviction was the law’s sole reason for existence. The previous judgment was reversed and the Arkansas “antievolution” statute was declared unconstitutional.

In Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), another case involving evolution, the issue of contention concerned the constitutionality of Louisiana’s “Creationism Act” that required balanced treatment of creation and evolution in Louisiana elementary and secondary schools.  The law did not require the teaching of either theory unless the other was taught. The plaintiffs in the case attacked the Creationism Act as invalid because it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The defendants claimed that the Act had the secular purpose of "protecting academic freedom" by teaching "all of the evidence."

The District Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, concluding that there could be no legitimate secular reason for forbidding the teaching of evolution, a theory that faced rigorous opposition from certain religious sects. The court also concluded that the teaching of creationism in public schools involved teaching the beliefs of a particular religious sect or sects. With both conclusions, the District Court ruled that the Creationism Act was constitutionally invalid because it violated the Establishment Clause.  The Court of Appeals confirmed the District Court’s decision and deduced that the state’s declared purpose of protecting academic freedom was inconsistent with the requirement that creationism be taught whenever evolution was taught. Upon appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed the decisions of the lower courts adding that the defendants’ expert testimony in the case was unrelated to the purpose of the state legislature when it passed the act because none of the persons supplying the testimony participated in the enactment of the law.

In the reality of everyday life in public schools, it is inevitable that some of the curricular objectives taught will be consistent with certain religious beliefs, and that some of them will be contradictory to certain religious beliefs. However, based on the current legal interpretations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, no school curriculum should be selected because it agrees with or opposes any religious or antireligious viewpoint. When this principle is applied to the controversy over the Kansas Science Standards, one encounters a complicated dilemma. 

The account contained in a book entitled “Kansas Tornado” by Paul Ackerman, Wichita State University Assistant Professor of Psychology, suggests that at least part of the Kansas Science Standards were indeed created in accordance with the literal interpretation of the Biblical description of Divine Creation.  In the book, Ackerman reveals the process by which a group of young earth creationists were called together by an unnamed representative of the Department of Education to challenge the proposed Kansas Science Standards. Ackerman and others met at the home of Kansas City area creationism advocate Celtie Johnson. Also present were members of the Creation Science Association of Mid-America, including Tom Willis, Bob Williams, Glenn Kailler and Bob Farwell. Willis, a Missouri farmer, is credited with most of the actual writing.  Members of this group later met with Board member Steve Abrams for lunch. Abrams took the document and presented it to the board.  This document was known as "Draft 4a" or the "Abrams Document" and included numerous activities designed to teach Young Earth Creationism in the classroom. Several key elements of this document appeared in the "Subcommittee’s Draft," the actual science standards approved in August, 1999.

An important question is raised: "Was the purpose and primary effect of the standards completely secular in nature?"  If the answer to this question is "no," then the Kansas Science Standards could have been challenged on the grounds that they violated the Establishment Clause. As can be seen from the above description, the actual writing process involved in the creation of the final draft of the Kansas Science Standards can be called into question when examined for a secular purpose and primary effect. The Board’s refusal to accept the standards created by the original committee of science educators, which described evolution as a unifying theory for all biological sciences, in favor of the unofficial subcommittee’s creationism-endorsed draft only heightens the suspicion concerning the motives behind their decision.  If certain Board member’s motives were closely examined, I believe that this action could have been challenged as a violation of the Establishment Clause.

However, since the standards were only recommendations used solely for statewide testing purposes, the argument that they represented an actual school curriculum, and should therefore be treated as the establishment of religion, would likely have been unsuccessful.  It was difficult to imagine a situation in which a teacher or concerned parent could have challenged the standards since they were not forced onto any school. Also, since the actual standards that were approved contained no concrete references to creationism or creation science, the argument that the standards themselves represent a violation of the Establishment Clause would have been difficult to win in a court of law.

Ultimately, the situation in Kansas was best described by Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, who said, "The first amendment protects against the government establishment of religion, but that doesn’t mean that it will protect against bad science."

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