Ethics

Sandefur on the ICR Accreditation Lawsuit

By Ed Brayton

Sandefur has an amusing post at the Panda's Thumb about the Institute for Creation Research lawsuit against the state of Texas for refusing to give them official accreditation to hand out advanced degrees to their ill-educated victims.

You'll recall that the Institute for Creation Research--the creationist outfit that purports to award advanced degrees in the sciences--has filed a lawsuit against the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, objecting against its decision not to authorize the ICR's granting of degrees. As I observed earlier, the original complaint in the case was 67 single-spaced pages long, and included 86 footnotes, including one that took up an entire page. It was a masterpiece of how not to write a complaint.

Well, the federal court didn't take lightly to that, and ordered the ICR to file an amended complaint that complies with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the ICR has now done so. The new complaint is 20 double-spaced pages...but it is 20 pages of non-stop, thigh-slapping hilarity. It contains language that appears to be randomly cobbled together through some sort of Lawyer Phrase Generator, and which I defy any member of the bar to explain in sensible terms: "There are still 2 state statutes that are potentially dispositive (in a manner favorable to the [ICR]) as to issues of 'first impression', so this Court needs to make some Erie v. Thompkins guesses thereon." What the hell does that even mean?

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on August 29, 2009 (boomark / email).