Supreme Court: Don’t Teach Evolution Difficulties!

It’s over. Teacher Rodney LeVake’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court has ended, with the justices refusing to hear his case.

As we reported earlier (Time Magazine Gets It Wrong Again!), LeVake is a Christian biology teacher in Minnesota whose “crime” was simply to expose his students to some of the scientific flaws in evolution. He did not even teach creation but merely brought up problems with evolution. His punishment was removal from his high-school biology classroom (to teach the “safer” subject of general science).

Contrary to some media reports, LeVake never taught creationism in his biology classes. He merely wanted his students to know that evolution is not a fact.

LeVake filed suit against Faribault High School (near Minneapolis) back in 1998, claiming that the school district had violated his freedom of speech and freedom of religion.1 Incredibly, the district court ruled that the school could forbid LeVake’s criticism of evolutionary ideas even “though [his arguments] may be scientifically meritorious.” (See Muzzled in Minnesota!)

LeVake then went to the U.S. Supreme Court, but on Monday, January 7, 2002, the Court refused to hear the case. Sadly, the U.S. Supreme Court appears to be reaffirming its pattern of hostility toward the teaching of Christianity. (See a previous ruling in U.S. Supreme Court’s Evolution Ruling Reveals Hostility Toward Christianity.)

Answers in Genesis applauds the courageous efforts of instructors like LeVake, who are fighting to protect the freedom of teachers to present students with the scientific evidence against Darwinian evolution, including, as LeVake told Time, “the amazing lack of transitional forms in the fossil record.”2 What could be more fair to students?

In a society that increasingly rejects the authority of Scripture and its history in Genesis, we should not be surprised at how America’s court system and public schools are increasingly intolerant of anything that may even hint of Christian beliefs. This shows how important it is that Answers in Genesis present information that exposes the bankruptcy of evolution that students can’t hear in their public school classes.