The New York Times, June 25, 2000, Sunday, Week in Review Desk
HEADLINE: WORD FOR WORD/RELIGION IN THE CLASSROOM;
In a Louisiana Parish, Dim Echoes of the 'Monkey Trial'
BYLINE:  By THOMAS VINCIGUERRA

   LAST week, the Supreme Court ruled that studentled prayers at high
school football games are unconstitutional. Largely overshadowed by the
decision was another important case concerning separation of church and
state in an educational setting. By a 6to3 vote, the high court let stand
a lower court ruling in Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education v. Freiler,
which barred a Louisiana school board from requiring that the Darwinian
theory of evolution only be taught with a disclaimer mentioning the
biblical story of creation.
   The decision came just weeks before the 75th anniversary of the Tennessee
"Monkey Trial," in which John T. Scopes, a high school teacher, was charged
with violating the state's antievolution law. That trial, which pitted the
orator William Jennings Bryan against the celebrated lawyer Clarence
Darrow, has been ingrained in the popular imagination as the archetypal
clash of scientific enlightenment and oldtime religion.
    Even if Tangipahoa v. Freiler hasn't captured the public's attention
or inspired the high drama of "Inherit the Wind," it offers a fresh look
at the continuing struggle over the role of religion in the classroom.
Excerpts from the case documents and reactions to the decision follow.
THOMAS VINCIGUERRA
   The original disclaimer, adopted by the school board on April 19, 1994,
read in part as follows and was meant to be quoted by the teacher before
any classroom study of evolution:

   It is hereby recognized by the Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education,
that the lesson to be presented, regarding the origin of life and matter,
is known as the Scientific Theory of Evolution and should be presented to
inform students of the scientific concept and not intended to influence or
dissuade the biblical version of creation or any other concept.

   It is further recognized by the Board of Education that it is the basic
right and privilege of each student to form his/her own opinion or
maintain beliefs taught by parents on this very important matter of the
origin of life and matter. Students are urged to exercise critical
thinking and gather all information possible and closely examine each
alternative toward forming an opinion.

   A transcript of the April 19 meeting reveals the major objections that
Herb Freiler, the father of a student and a future plaintiff in the case,
raised to the resolution:

    Gentlemen, we have, among other beliefs  let's see, I've jotted down a
few we have snake handling, we have speaking in tongues, faith healing,
some people rolling in the aisles, we have the spectacle of Jimmy
Swaggart, oh, Jim and Tammy, Oral Roberts, who speaks in  in physical
terms of what the Lord should give you.

   Other than the tremendous amusement value of these things . . . the
point of all this is that America was made and founded basically on
freedom and tolerance  that is, to live and let live, respect for other
people's opinions. What you are doing . .  is to just foist your own
fundamentalist Christian viewpoint on the citizens of this parish at great
embarrassment to many of us.
   The board member who originally proposed the disclaimer, E. F. Bailey,
had this response:

   If it were a government class, a history class at school, and the teacher
got up and was going to talk about various forms of government . . . and
he or she talked about the dictatorial forms of government and didn't
mention democracy, and then went on to another subject, wouldn't people
stop and say, "Hey, wait, didn't you forget democracy? Don't we live in a
democracy? You forgot about that." . . . And isn't that  is that what
we're doing now? Isn't it so that a large percentage, something in the
neighborhood of 90 percent of our youngsters, are taught, from infancy on
up, that God created all life and matter? . . . Here comes their first
science class, and . . . somebody comes and tells them that they are a
mere accident, that they're a product . . . of the Big Bang theory and
that that's why they are here, and the kid is thinking and saying: "Wait a
minute. This doesn't coincide with what my parents taught me. This is not
what I learned in Sunday school."

   Mr. Freiler and two other plaintiffs filed suit.  Among those who submitted
friendofthecourt briefs on behalf of the parish board were the Christian
Legal Society and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
In a joint filing, they argued, among other things, that:

   Leading scientists have challenged on scientific grounds the
conjunction of
evolution and the general materialistic presuppositions of 19thcentury
philosophy . . . and the more specific view that there is no purposeful
cause for the universe.  . . . Sir John Polkinghorne, a distinguished
astrophysicist who served until recently as president of Queen's College
of Cambridge University, notes that all serious physicists of this century
agree that a satisfactory account of the universe must include two sets of
seemingly contrary laws: chance and necessity, gravity and
electromagnetism. But the profound question that no scientific account can
satisfactorily answer is, "Why is this so?" For an answer to the question
"Why?," Polkinghorne insists, we are driven by physics beyond physics to
metaphysics.

   In a countering brief, the National Center for Science Education
offered
this perspective:

   Evolution, like the theories of heliocentrism and gravitation, is
considered
"factual" even if specific details remain to be worked out. It is a core
idea of science that underpins all present study of plant and animal
biology, and there is no genuine dispute in the scientific community that
it occurs. . . . The reason that the scientific literature does not define
evolution as a theory of metaphysics is that science deals with questions
of how things occur, not "why" they occur.

   In 1997, a district court in Louisiana found the disclaimer to be
unconstitutional:

   While encouraging students to maintain their belief in the Bible, or in
God, may be a noble aim, it cannot be one in which the public schools
participate, no matter how important this goal may be to its supporters. .
. .
   Last year, the decision was upheld on appeal. Earlier this year, in a
petition to the Supreme Court, lawyers for the school board took issue
with the lower courts' reasoning:

   In the parish schools, evolution is taught; the "biblical version of
creation" is not! How can the effect of the disclaimer be to endorse or
advance a concept that is merely mentioned, using only four words, when
evolution is the only concept for the origin of life and matter that is
included in the curriculum, the only one that will be explained and
discussed in any lesson following the disclaimer's being read?

   Understood and considered in the context in which it is intended to be
used, the disclaimer expresses tolerance for the views of all students.
   In his dissent to last week's Supreme Court decision to let the lower
court rulings stand, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote:

   In Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), we invalidated a statute
that forbade the teaching of evolution in public schools; in Edwards v.
Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987), we invalidated a statute that required the
teaching of creationism whenever evolution was also taught; today we
permit a Court of Appeals to push the much beloved secular legend of the
Monkey Trial one step further.  We stand by in silence while a deeply
divided Fifth Circuit bars a school district from even suggesting to
students that other theories besides evolution  including, but not limited
to, the biblical theory of creation are worthy of their consideration.

   The following day, an editorial in a local newspaper, The Hammond Daily
Star, expressed relief that the matter had been resolved:

   God has not been forced out of the schools.  Neither the Supreme Court
nor any other governmental entity is so powerful that it can keep God
outside any walls or prevent people from praying.  Students, teachers and
anyone else at school can and still do pray, read the Bible, and exercise
their religious beliefs as long as they don't interfere or push their
views on anyone else and as long as they are not disruptive to classes and
school activities. . . .
   Let the teachers teach. Let the students learn.
 

   The School Board has more urgent issues to tackle  do we have to name
them? attracting and keeping qualified teachers, adequately providing and
managing resources, hearing and addressing parents' concerns, leading and
overseeing efforts to improve school facilities.

   Let's move on.

   But the matter is anything but settled. After the decision, Mr. Bailey
of the school board vowed to press his cause. Although he announced no
specific plan of attack, he said one option might be to eliminate the
teaching of evolution altogether.