Ethics

Louisiana Panel Issues "Academic Freedom" Guidelines

By Ed Brayton

Last year the Louisiana legislature and Gov. Bobby Jindal passed one of those phony "academic freedom" laws designed to get creationist material into science classrooms. Now the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) has issued the implementation rules for that law and it looks like something of a mixed bag.

Supporters of teaching alternatives to evolution in Louisiana public school science classes convinced a state education panel Tuesday to forego a specific ban on the teaching of scientific creationism and intelligent design, two theories that have already been struck down by federal courts.

But the science guidelines adopted by a panel of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education still include language banning promotion of any religious doctrine and requiring that information presented by teachers be "scientifically sound and supported by empirical evidence."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on January 21, 2009 (boomark / email).