Christian High School Sues University of California system
- on 08.28.05
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This is going to be a case for all homeschoolers and those that attend a Relgious school of any kind to watch as it progresses through the courts. It could very well end up at the Supreme Court and have very dramatic ramifications on private edcuation institutions and I believe ramifications on public eduation as well. I’ll explore that after your read the articles.
What appears to be happening is that the University of California system is not allowing certain course taken by high schoolers to be accepted when students are applying to become a student. The courses and/or books they are rejecting are as follows:
- “Christianity’s Influence on American History”
- “Christianity and Morality in American Literature”
- “Special Providence: American Government.”
- Biology textbooks by Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books.
(Hat Tip: The Eduation Wonks for the story links in his post about this entitled “California SmackDown! Christian HS Vs. The UC System“)
NBC 3 WSTM has the following brief story.
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LOS ANGELES The University of California is accused of discriminating against high schools that teach creationism and other conservative Christian viewpoints. The suit says the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta was told its courses were rejected because they use textbooks printed by two Christian publishers, Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books. An attorney for the group says U-C policy violates the rights of students and religious schools. A university spokeswoman says the university has a right to set course requirements. The Association of Christian Schools International represents more than 800 schools statewide. Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. |
The Daily Breeze in LA has a more in-depth story.
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Lawsuit says classes offering religious viewpoints should be accepted for public university admission. By Matt Krasnowski Copley News Service Opening a new front in the national debate over mixing religion and academics, a Christian high school has filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the University of California system, alleging its rejection of the school’s “Christian viewpoint” classes unfairly prevents students from meeting college admissions requirements. The lawsuit, which claims violations of First Amendment free-speech and religious-practice rights, was filed this week on behalf of the Calvary Chapel Christian School of Murrieta and six of its current students — including two who state they hope to attend UC San Diego. The complaint centers on classes that incoming students are required to take to meet basic UC admissions standards. The suit contends that for 70 years, the UC system required only that the courses be completed for students to be eligible for admission, but recently UC officials have started regulating the content of the high school classes and the books used. Science, English, history and social science courses that Calvary offers were rejected by UC officials, and two biology textbooks produced by Christian publishers were also deemed unacceptable, the suit states. UC officials have decided to “single out one perspective, and turn down these courses because of their Christian perspective,” said Wendell Bird, an Atlanta-based lawyer who filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court. “That is flat-out discrimination.” Bird said to his knowledge UC is the only public university system in the nation not accepting such Christian school teachings. UC spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina said lawyers for the system are reviewing the suit and she could not address all its allegations. But she said the admission standards are intended to benefit the students and make sure they are prepared when they enter college. “The university is legally permitted to establish legitimate academic standards for admission,” Poorsina said. The lawsuit comes amid a national discussion over evolution and what Christian leaders call “creation science” or “intelligent design,” and whether both schools of thought should be taught in public classrooms. The Calvary school lawsuit complains that in January 2004, a UC official informed Christian high schools that two Christian biology textbooks are not acceptable, and that the science course outlines are “not consistent with the viewpoints and knowledge generally accepted in the scientific community.” The lawsuit alleges that the actual concern of UC officials is how the textbooks challenge evolution and give “scientific reasons why Darwinian evolution may be false and stating that the Bible’s teachings on the subject are true.” UC officials rejected a proposed Calvary course titled “Christianity’s Influence on American History” because the class outline “is not consistent with the empirical historical knowledge generally accepted in the collegiate community” and its focus was “too narrow/too specialized,” the suit states. Plaintiffs contend that UC officials “routinely approve far more narrow history courses.” UC officials also rejected courses by the 1,000-student Murrieta school titled “Christianity and Morality in American Literature” and “Special Providence: American Government.” “If a Christian School can’t be Christian, and a Jewish school can’t be Jewish, and a Buddhist school can’t be Buddhist … then the heavy hand of government has suppressed a lot of individual freedom,” Bird said. “We’re fighting for the rights of all people who have chosen non-public schools.” Poorsina said the UC system recognizes the rights of schools to teach courses it deems appropriate but “we also recognize not all high schools are necessarily geared toward satisfying UC prep requirements.” The lawsuit seeks no monetary damages but asks for a court ruling barring the UC system from engaging in “any viewpoint regulation of subject areas.” |
I want to briefly dicuss some of the ramifications I see. Let’s start with what happens in UC wins the case. They will then be able to regulate what high school students are taught. This will include homeschoolers, religious schools (Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, etc.) with impunity. They will also be able to regulate Public school curricula in the same way. Local control at the high school will be taken over by the State University sytems around the country. Giving the University systems this control will have a chilling affect on Private Schools and Homeschools. It may have the same effect on Charter and other Alternative schools. I know most of you are going I’m paranoid at this point, but this is waht I see happening down the road. You will lose local control of your high school curricula.
If the High School wins, then local control will be maintained. Religious schools can continue to weave their religious views throughout the curricula. This ability is the reason a lot of parents choose to homeschool or send their kids to religious schools.
There is also a more subtle undertone to this case beside the Religious Discrimination. That is the Intelligent Design/Evolution Debate I have already discussed here and here. I don’t believe right now there will be any ramification from this part of the story, but the potential is there for the court to weigh in on this topic. That thens opens a whole new realm of possibilities.
If the High School wins, the ramifications you present are far more chilling than education being controlled by Univirsities.
It is sad to say that it is an evolution vs creation arguement. UCLA is not declining the books mentioned because they are “Christian” in nature. They are stating that to qualify for admission one must have “X” amount of science and history. The books that they exclude are philosophical but hardly scientifically accurate or historically accurate. They do not say a student cannot learn from those books, what they are saying is that there are requirements to be met. You can still teach from those books they just won’t count for those subjects.
I think the schools bringing about the case are going to end up getting what they do not want, a legal definition of what is science and what is philosophy. Science is not about world view, it is about emperical study, observation and correlation, not a tradition that has been handed down orally.
All ideas aside, biology is biology, anatomy is anatomy, and by golly atoms are real and the earth is older than 6,000 years. There is proof, and why limit God by saying different?