Gull Lake Situation

Michigan Next?

stcynic — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 09:49:10 +0000

Michigan Next?

The Detroit Free Press has a report on the Dover decision that includes this tidbit:

The next court test on whether public schoolchildren can be taught that some intelligent force set the universe in motion could move to Michigan now that a federal judge has barred a Pennsylvania district from teaching intelligent design...

In Michigan, the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor has threatened to sue Gull Lake Community Schools in the community of Richland for refusing to allow two middle school science teachers to teach intelligent design. Representatives from the center have said they are also considering defending teachers in other districts who want to teach intelligent design.

The center did not say today whether it will carry out a previous threat to sue Gull Lake Schools.

It also provides a little background on the Gull Lake situation that shows why the TMLC would be quite foolish to pursue the case after the Dover decision:

The Michigan teachers, Julie Olson and Dawn Wenzel, put a book on intelligent design called "Of Pandas and People" on Gull Lake's annual textbook list. Wenzel and Olson also added a lesson involving "Of Pandas and People" into the district's binder-thick science curriculum.

The school board subsequently approved both, and the teachers quietly taught intelligent design to middle school students until a parent complained in the fall of 2004. That's when the district ordered the teachers to stop.

The superintendent said the board approved the overall book list and curriculum, and didn't realize they were also approving something that included intelligent design. But the Thomas More Center, a legal advocacy group defending Christian principles, maintained the district had approved teaching the controversial lessons, and threatened to sue.

Given that the Dover trial established beyond a shadow of a doubt that Of Pandas and People is a creationist textbook no different from what was banned in Edwards v Aguillard, the TMLC would be foolhardy to attempt to defend it again. The courts have made clear that teachers do not have a right to teach material outside of the approved curriculum, much less material that has already been ruled unconstitutional.

Update: My MCFS colleague Don Weinshank was on WJR radio this morning with a representative from the TMLC and when asked whether they still intend to file a suit in Gull Lake, he answered yes and indicated that it would be filed within 2-3 months. Wow. Are they fools or masochists?

stcynic Wed, 12/21/2005 - 04:49

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Gull Lake Situation

"Are they fools or masochists?"

Those options are not mutually exclusive.

First things first. I think we need to rename TMLC the "Torture-us More Law Center." They seem to have a penchant for picking losers and getting waxed in court.

Second, I really hope they're dumb enough to go through with this suit. If Dover was a good case, Gull Lake would be a great case. The free speech issues go nowhere; Hazelwood and its progeny clearly establish that. And as for the Establishment Clause? Well, I think we know how that turns out, provided that the district court follows the law.

Here's another interesting factoid. In Dover, TMLC defended a lawsuit brought by parents who sought to prevent ID in the science classroom. In Gull Lake, the situation would be much different -- TMLC would be bringing the suit seeking to compel the teaching of ID in the science classroom. While it is extremely difficult to get sanctions for bringing a frivolous suit, TMLC had best be careful. Filing suit over Gull Lake means TMLC is dancing with frivolity.

Let the games begin.

I wonder if the DI crowd shows up for this one.

'Wow. Are they fools or masochists?"

I can't imagine how a certain amount of greed is not a factor as well. The contribution streams may start drying up but as yet they are still flowing at a rate beyond excessive.

Doesn't Michigan have standards for what can and cannot be taught? Isn't the case TMLC proposes to bring an admission that the teachers were derelict in their duties?

If Gull Lake can get a team close to what the ACLU had in Dover, wow!

Ed Darrell wrote:

If Gull Lake can get a team close to what the ACLU had in Dover, wow!

I frankly don't think it would ever come to that. In every previous case where a teacher has asserted a right to teach creationism against the wishes of the school board or state, the cases have been dismissed and the dismissals upheld on appeal. I'm not sure it's even necessary to get into the question of what they want to teach, it is enough that the right they assert simply doesn't exist.

While it is extremely difficult to get sanctions for bringing a frivolous suit, TMLC had best be careful. Filing suit over Gull Lake means TMLC is dancing with frivolity.

The last paragraph of the 139 page decision in the Dover case essentially suggested that the TMLC's defense of the Dover case was frivolous and essentially suggested that plaintiffs file for costs and attys' fees. The Dover case appears to have been a "declaratory judgement" action (loosely stated, plainffs and defendants are interchanged, but it's a bit more complicated than that). I would be surprised if, after the TMLC loses the Michigan case, the court doesn't award costs and attorneys' fees. Maybe the TMLC can bankrupt themselves with these suits.

Dover and the Future of ID Lawsuits

stcynic — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:46:51 +0000

Dover and the Future of ID Lawsuits

I somehow missed this article from the Chicago Tribune on December 6th, about the possible outcomes of the Dover trial and the long term impacts on the larger dispute those outcomes would be likely to have. The article notes the three possible ways the judge could rule (and the ruling is expected next week):

First, he could rule broadly that ID is a religious belief, not a scientific theory. If so, the introduction of ID in a public school science class would be unconstitutional.

"And that, of course, is the option we are asking the court to take," said Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. The ACLU, along with Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Philadelphia firm of Pepper Hamilton, represented the plaintiffs at no cost...

Second and equally broad in scope, Jones could affirm the constitutionality of teaching ID by supporting its validity as scientific theory and rejecting the argument that it is a religious belief, a decision the ACLU probably would appeal.

"If that happens, we're going to have school boards across the country trying it [introducing ID] the next day," said Charles Haynes, senior scholar and director of education programs at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va...

Indeed, Jones could issue a narrow decision, limited to whether board members had a primarily religious, rather than secular, purpose in adopting the policy introducing ID.

"I don't think it's the test case most of us would have hoped for," said attorney Valerie Munson, head of the religion and law practice group at the Philadelphia firm of Eckert Seamans.

Usually, it is difficult to determine motivation or purpose, she and others noted. But in the Dover case, some members of the board made public statements about Jesus Christ and creationism, which indicated religion may have weighed more heavily in the adoption of the ID policy than their asserted purpose of encouraging critical thinking in students.

If Jones decides the case on motivation, the broader questions about ID would be left to other cases in other courts.

Obviously, we are hoping for a broad ruling of the first type. Most observers think it's unlikely that the judge is going to rule in favor of the school board given how badly the trial went for them (though there is never a guarantee of how a judge will rule, all of the signs from the trial itself were positive from my perspective). A narrow ruling specifically on the intent of the school board would be okay, but it would mean that this trial has to take place all over again somewhere else. Where? How about here in Michigan.

And there will be other cases, said Thompson, who anticipates a lawsuit against Michigan's Gull Lake school board on behalf of two teachers who are asserting their rights to teach evolution in conjunction with ID.

Well that will certainly be interesting. There had been very little activity around the Gull Lake situation since the school board ruled ID out of science classrooms there after an eventful meeting at which I spoke. That was several months ago, so I had kind of figured that the TMLC had come to its senses and decided not to pursue what would be an obviously unwinnable case (the case in Dover is very strong; the case in Gull Lake is considerably stronger because there are multiple precedents saying that teachers do not have the right to teach what they want to teach, but only what the controlling authority sets as the curriculum. In fact, all three cases that have been filed to the contrary resulted in dismissal. The TMLC has to know that and has to know that it has very, very little chance of winning such a case. But it sure would get interesting around here if such a trial took place. Stay tuned, as they say.

stcynic Fri, 12/16/2005 - 10:46

Tags

Dover Lawsuit

Gull Lake Situation

A question:

Could the judge declare the Board's actions illegal BOTH because they were religiously motivated AND INDEPENDENTLY because ID is inherently religious? This would appear to be the most robust decision, as it would mean that an appeal would have to rebut both forks of the decision in order to overturn it.

Tim Makinson wrote:

Could the judge declare the Board's actions illegal BOTH because they were religiously motivated AND INDEPENDENTLY because ID is inherently religious? This would appear to be the most robust decision, as it would mean that an appeal would have to rebut both forks of the decision in order to overturn it.

Yes. The legal standard he will apply is called the Lemon test, which has three prongs - purpose, effect and entanglement. He can, and should in my view, rule on both purpose and effect here. A law is invalidated if it violates any one prong. There has been some talk among the Supreme Court justicies over the years of the need to revise or scrap the Lemon test, particularly the purpose clause (and I don't think that's unreasonable - one can pass an entirely constitutional law for a bad purpose), but it has never been overturned and is still binding precedent on the lower courts.

I would tend to be of the opinion that the purpose clause should be watered down rather than eliminated altogether. Laws passed for an unconstitutional purpose should be reviewed with a far higher level of scepticism than one with an innocent purpose. At the very least, where an unconstitutional purpose can be proved, I would prefer that the burden of proof be on the law's defenders to prove that it does not have an unconsitutional effect.

But then IANASCJ (I am not a Supreme Court Justice).

The Michigan case is one that the Discovery Institute is probably working very hard to kill. These two teachers actually have an ID lesson plan that they used. It isn't publically available, but it likely has all the worthless and dishonest ID propaganda in it. It would be the death knell for ID to have ID put on trial like that.

Guys like West wouldn't just be backpedaling claiming that ID is a young science they would have to come up with an explanation for why the bogus junk that they used to hawk isn't good enough to be included in a lesson plan. Everyone has to remember that the Discovery Institute had years to put forward their ID lesson plan, but they never put up what they wanted to teach even when they claimed to be able to teach it. The reason why there was never an ID lesson plan will become very apparent if the Michigan ID lesson plan has to be defended in court.

Ron Okimoto wrote:

The Michigan case is one that the Discovery Institute is probably working very hard to kill. These two teachers actually have an ID lesson plan that they used. It isn't publically available, but it likely has all the worthless and dishonest ID propaganda in it. It would be the death knell for ID to have ID put on trial like that.

Well, there are two things to consider. First, the DI continually says that they don't favor mandating the teaching of ID, but they do support the right of teachers to do so. In that respect, it's a case they may well support. On the other hand, what the teachers in that case were teaching was a mixture of ID and traditional young earth creationist stuff, so that will make them want to back away. But the DI has no control over the case. They tried very hard to get the Dover case to go away too, but the TMLC took the case against their wishes. The TMLC is a lot more reckless than the DI is in terms of long term strategy, which is the big reason why the two groups are at each other's throats.

Victory in Gull Lake

stcynic — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:56:46 +0000

Victory in Gull Lake

Last evening I attended the Gull Lake school board meeting on a sweltering night when they were to decide whether or not to allow two 7th grade science teachers to teach ID as they had been doing for the last couple of years. I am happy to report that after about a year of effort and controversy, the school board voted unanimously that ID could not be taught in science classes in that district, nor could the book Of Pandas and People be used in the 7th grade class where it had been used as a supplemental text for the past couple years by two teachers there. They did so in the face of a lawsuit threatened by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of the two teachers, who claim that they have a right to teach ID in their classes even if those with authority over the curriculum do not agree.

I gave a brief talk to the board that focused on two things. First, the fact that many prominent ID advocates had themselves said that it was premature to talk about teaching ID in public school science classrooms because it is not yet a full fledged scientific theory and has not been established within the scientific community to warrant such inclusion. Specifically, I quoted Bruce Gordon's statement that ID had been "prematurely drawn into discussions of public science education where it has no business making an appearance without broad recognition from the scientific community that it is making a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of the natural world." Second, I sought to reassure the board that the lawsuit threatened by the TMLC has little hope of succeeding and that they almost certainly know that. As I wrote on the Michigan Citizens for Science webpage a few weeks ago, there are three precedents for such a suit. In all three, the complaint was dismissed and the dismissal upheld on appeal.

The final result in Gull Lake was as follows. The ad hoc committee that was formed to reach a resolution on the issue, which was made up of 7 people including the two teachers who were teaching ID, voted 5-2 against teaching ID, with those two teachers obviously being the 2 yes votes. It was then sent to all of the junior high and high school science teachers, where again only the two teachers in question thought it should be taught. It was then sent to the District Curriculum Council, which voted 15-0 against teaching ID. And last night, the school board vote to reject ID in science classrooms was unanimous. They did accept the committee's recommendation that the board approve ID as a potentially suitable subject for a high school level elective course in social studies, humanities, political science or philosophy, but that would have to go through the normal process of being approved separately by the administration and could not begin until at least fall of 2006.

So all in all, a resounding victory for the advocates of quality science education. We now await the decision of the Thomas More Law Center on whether they will actually file the suit they have been threatening. In speaking with a couple members of the Gull Lake board last evening, it seemed that they were all expecting such a suit to be filed. I'm not so sure. The TMLC must know that they have virtually no chance of winning that suit, so if they file it will only be because they want either the media attention or the donations that would follow that attention. And at this point, they have their hands full with the Dover ID trial, and that frankly isn't going well for them at this point either. So good news all the way around.

stcynic Tue, 06/14/2005 - 03:56

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Gull Lake Situation

Excellent news Ed.

That's the dilemma the ID crowd faces every time. It can survive in the shadows, lurking in websites and PR releases and articles published by friendly houses, but it has to come into the bright light of day sooner or later, and whenever it does, it gets revealed for the sham that it truly is.

I look forward to the resolution of the Dover situation.

Congratulations, Ed, on a job well done. This is a victory for both science and education. The administration at Gull Lake should also be commended for its dedication to the best interests of the students, and for the courage it took not to back down in the face of heavy-handed threats from Thomas More. This courage and dedication is no small thing, and it stands in sharp contrast to Gull Lake's counterparts in Kansas and Dover.

As to this:

The TMLC must know that they have virtually no chance of winning that suit, so if they file it will only be because they want either the media attention or the donations that would follow that attention.

Both of the reasons you cite are, sadly, sufficient for the creationists to move forward with a lawsuit. No publicity is bad publicity, and the spin that will ensue from Thomas More is so predictable that you could write the press release yourself. And, of course, anything that keeps the contributions flowing is a good thing. So, what's your best guess? Will Thomas More file? Or do they simply spin and walk away?

Dan wrote:

So, what's your best guess? Will Thomas More file? Or do they simply spin and walk away?

I really don't know. Everyone I talked to last night seemed resigned to the fact that a suit would be filed. Bev Hundley, the curriculum director, said that their attorney, Lisa Swem, expected a suit. I expect Lisa has more of a feel for whether a suit will be filed than I do. She likely at least has had some direct contact with the TMLC on the matter. So I'll defer to her judgement for now. But it's tough for them to take a case for free knowing they can't win the case, especially when they're already footing the bill for the far bigger and more comprehensive trial in Dover and that one isn't going well for them right now (I hope to be free to post some details on that soon, but for now I can't). They have to calculate that it will bring in more in donations than it will cost them.

Congrats, Ed. When this sort of nonsense starts appearing in our district, which it invariably will, I'll give you a call.

Ed:

Thanks for continuing to fight the good fight. Some day, I'll figure out how to email you a bottle of 12 year-old scotch.

Scott (Eon)

This is interesting, but I have one question. What has occurred in the midwest in the last 40 years or so that has resulted in an apparent anti-science revolution there? I grew up and was educated in a northern suburb of Cincinnati in the 1960s, and nobody in my school district had any problem with teaching of evolution in biology class. What has happened since the 1960s in the midwest that has resulted in this firestorm? This is a serious question.

A second, less serious question, is whether it should be "Thomas Moore" instead of "Thomas More" I have no idea, but I understand the reference

Gull Lake Update

stcynic — Wed, 18 May 2005 10:27:32 +0000

Gull Lake Update

My colleague Howard Van Till attended the school board meeting in Gull Lake on Monday. The superintendant announced there that the internal committee had completed its work and would announce a decision on whether they would allow ID to be taught by two junior high school science teachers in the district. That decision will apparently announced to the faculty before being announced publicly, presumably by the time of the next school board meeting. This comes as the Thomas More Law Center is threatening them with a lawsuit if they do not allow the teachers to teach ID. Conversely, if the school district decides to allow it, that will almost certainly bring a lawsuit on behalf of parents in the district on establishment clause grounds, similar to the ongoing case in Dover, PA. My organization, Michigan Citizens for Science, has already coordinated with the ACLU and Americans United about a possible suit should they decide the wrong way. Stay tuned.

stcynic Wed, 05/18/2005 - 06:27

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Gull Lake Situation

When are the fundies going to drop out of the public school system? They've been threatening to for about a year.

Kick their ass, seabass! Yeah, I watched Dumb and Dumber Monday night. But still, shut 'em down :)

Heck, in many cases the fundies continue to try to impose their views on the public schools even if their kids are in church schools or home school. When you are committed to doing the work of the Lord, little things like it not being any of your business won't stop you.

While the University of Chicago is holding a symposium on the role of women, or lack thereof, in the postgraduate study of physics, these reconstructionist/dominionist types are doing everything they can to not only get rid of the teaching of science, but also keep women in their place. There must be some pinnacle moment when all this breaks one way or the other...

Gull Lake Brushes off Lawsuit Threat

stcynic — Tue, 03 May 2005 12:45:28 +0000

Gull Lake Brushes off Lawsuit Threat

The Gull Lake School Board has essentially decided to brush off a threatened lawsuit from the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of two teachers who say they have a right to teach intelligent design creationism in their science classrooms. Lisa Swem, attorney for the school district, is saying that the school will continue with its current policy of having a committee meet and decide on how to proceed regardless of the TMLC's threats. That committee, as I previously reported, has already met and ruled against the teachers on a 5-2 vote, which should have ended the whole thing according to what everyone had agreed upon beforehand. So it's sort of an old-fashioned stalemate that puts the ball back in the court of the TMLC. Will they file the suit or won't they? Stay tuned.

stcynic Tue, 05/03/2005 - 08:45

Tags

Gull Lake Situation

To be a successful litigator, your three most developed skills must be (1) case selection, (2) case selection and (3) case selection. Quite often, "case selection" reduces to "client selection." Assuming the legal advisors to the TMLC may be presumed to be rational actors, it seems like a good time for the school board to call their bluff.

It would also be a good time for scientists and friends of education to rally to the side of the school board, to thank them for standing up for high academic standards, to thank them for standing up for the kids' right to a quality education, etc., etc.

Where do we send thank-you letters to the board? What's the address of the local newspaper?

You can find contact information at the school's website: http://www.gulllakecs.org/.

Sandefur on Pico

stcynic — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 10:15:08 +0000

Sandefur on Pico

Timothy Sandefur has a post at the Panda's Thumb about the Gull Lake situation and the Thomas More Law Center's citing of Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No 26 et al v. Pico in its letter to the Gull Lake school board. As he points out, Pico does not support their case at all.

stcynic Tue, 04/26/2005 - 06:15

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Gull Lake Situation

Just to let you know, I've just come over to my older computer in Germany, running IE 5.0 (something). The middle column is so narrow that it has maybe 2-3 words per line. I don't bother much with the other columns. It's almost worthless to read here, which is a shame.

Gull Lake's Internal Committee

stcynic — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 08:43:48 +0000

Gull Lake's Internal Committee

The attorneys on both sides of the Gull Lake issue seem to be playing hard and fast with the facts on the "internal committee" that was formed to decide whether to allow the teachers to teach creationism in science classes. When we first became involved in the situation, the school board treated it like a hot potato, not wanting to make any decision that would open them to criticism from either side. So they formed an internal committee made up of the two teachers, two other science teachers, the principals of the junior high and high school, and the superintendant. Lisa Swem, the attorney for the school district, appears to be using the ongoing nature of the committee's work as a reason to put off the lawsuit from the TMLC. In a CNSnews article, she says:

Swem said the process of discussing the legitimacy of the intelligent design theory is "ongoing." The superintendent, she said, has already commissioned a committee to study the issue and make a recommendation to the local board of education. The advisory committee includes the two teachers who were previously discussing intelligent design theory with their students.
"It is anticipated that the committee will have a recommendation to the board of education before the end of this school year," Swem said, adding that once the recommendation has been submitted to the board, the decision is the board's to make.

She said that litigation from the Thomas More Law Center will "complicate matters," but said that "the school district is going forward as planned, convening the committee, finalizing so they can make a recommendation and a threat of a lawsuit is not going to interfere with that careful, considered, deliberative process."

But in point of fact, the committee has already made its recommendation to the school board and the school board sent it back to them. Deb Ryan, the school board president, is a creationist and after the committee voted 5-2 against allowing creationism into the science classrooms, she ordered them to keep working on it - whatever that might mean. The Kalamazoo Gazette reported on all of this:

Last week, the seven-person panel voted 5 to 2 against including intelligent design in the science curriculum, Wendzel said...
Deb Ryan, president of the Gull Lake school board, said the issue is not going to involve the board but may go back to the panel.

"It's still an administrative process. It's not over," Ryan said.

It appears that this is being passed like a hot potato. At some point, the school superintendant took things into his own hands and just told the teachers they could no longer teach it, and that is what is prompting the threats from the TMLC. Richard Thompson of the TMLC says the committee was just a conspiracy against his client:

But Thompson said the school's advisory committee, which was formed in December, is a deception. "This committee has been told they're not going to make a decision until there is a consensus which means that our clients have to agree not to teach intelligent design," Thompson told Cybercast News Service.
The committee is "a total pretext to ... prevent the study of intelligent design," Thompson said. It's "a facade that is not going to get anything done, has not gotten anything done and it's been a pretext under which they have confiscated the books and have told our clients you can't teach intelligent design."

I think he has it wrong. Yes, the committee is a facade, but it wasn't formed as a pretext for shutting down the teachers. It was formed as a pretext for getting the hot potato out of the hands of the school board so that blame could be shifted regardless of the outcome. And the threat of a lawsuit from the TMLC certainly forces the hand of the school board. But I'd sure like to hear Gull Lake's attorney go after the TMLC on the substance of the case rather than just engage in bureaucratic doublespeak about the "deliberative process."

stcynic Mon, 04/25/2005 - 04:43

Tags

Gull Lake Situation

I agree that it would be much better if all parties would talk about substance. However, Gull Lake's attorney is in a strange place. The Chairman of the Board is a creationist; and evasion and delay is the Board's strategy. My guess is that Gull Lake's attorney is following client orders or at least client intentions. At some point, the Board must face the music. For now, they only dance.

Duane-
I agree with your assessment and I'm sure the attorney is in a strange position here. The law firm she works for represents a large portion of the school districts in the state, so I imagine that the vast majority of what they do is probably contract and administrative law, not this type of litigation. And I think you're right about the board as well. They're just trying to avoid the issue and the TMLC's aggression will prevent them from doing so.

I wonder if we're seeing the start of a Kansas kangaroo hearing in the making. The creationist school board president clearly has not gotten the answer she wanted from the committee. So let's hold a hearing at which evidence can be presented to support a fabricated controversy that needs to be taught. The strategy seems to have worked fairly well in Kansas so far. I hope it doesn't come to that, but we know that the ID/creationists will stop at nothing to get their way.

I would think that the constituency of the school board would, under board rules, make their collective voice heard during open session at a board meeting, when the board reports out the results of closed session determinations. The litigation would be discussed in closed session, then during open session it would be reported that it is on-going. The most significant pressure an individual or group can bring to these issues is to demand the fiscal accounting of the matter. Under law the boards must report the expenditures for the litigation, and as that figure creeps upward, the public can pressure the Chairman of the Board to let go of the issue. I doubt the district is so flush with funds it can afford protracted attorney's fees for very long. In CA, on average, the usual monthly outlay just for the discussion phases of such litigation range in the mid thousands to the low tens of thousands of dollars, per case.