Dissent from denial of cert in latest evolution case

[MSternAJC at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 6/22/2000 1:57:28 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
mnewsom at LAW.HOWARD.EDU writes:

<<  The propriety of a disclaimer seems to me to rest on the assumption that
 > teaching science is disfavoring religion.  Only if you accept this
 > premise, it seems to me, does any sort of disclaimer make sense.  But
 > there is no reason to constitutionally hold that schools cannot teach
 > math, physics, chemistry, geology, or biology because someone disagrees
 > with the underlying scientific premises of them on religious grounds.
 > >>
I disagree. There is no question about the propriety of teaching secular
subjects in a secular way. It is equally deniable that those secular
teachings will perplex students who have been taught to believe something in
opposition OT these secular teachings. The disclaimer proceeds on the
assumption that the schools have no business declaring war on religious
beliefs (Eugene remarked the other day that he thought that indeed the
schools do want to teach that creationist theories are wrong.).I do think it
is possible to deal with this conflict in ways that do no more than note the
conflict and the limited role of the public schools Public schools should
teach what secular learning teaches. If children are thus exposed to
different ideas, fine. But it is something else again to insist that all
other ideas must yield to the state's ideas. Public schools are not miniature
ministries of atheism
 or even of progressive religious thought.
Marc Stern