By Heather L. Weaver, ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief at 3:10pm
Students at Hugoton High School in Hugoton, Kansas, are set to finally learn the “truth about dinosaurs” next week—at least the truth as the Creation Truth Foundation sees it. The religious organization, which advocates for “a return to all of [the] realities of Biblical Creation,” is scheduled to conduct several mandatory school-day assemblies about dinosaurs for all students and teachers on Tuesday. The ACLU of Kansas & Western Missouri and the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief learned about the planned assembly yesterday afternoon and sent a letter today demanding that the public school district cancel the event.
Just this week, the Tennessee legislature passed a bill that would allow public school teachers to teach creationism in addition to evolution in science classes. Gov. Bill Haslam now has less than 10 days to sign or veto the bill.
By Wesley H. Roberts, M. Ed., Tennessee biology teacher
I have been involved in evolution education for about 25 years. I am in the classroom every day and I currently teach at Hume Fogg Academic Magnet School, Tennessee's top-performing high school.
By Heather L. Weaver, ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief at 4:32pm
March may mean only one thing — the NCAA tournament — for basketball fans, but for Tennessee legislators, March means the revival of a state tradition that is not so worthy of celebration: attacking the teaching of evolution in public schools. A proposed law currently under consideration by the Tennessee legislature seeks to gut science education by purporting to give public school teachers the freedom to help students think critically about the scientific theory of evolution through a review of its "strengths" and "weaknesses."
