Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

[JMHACLJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/23/2005 7:36:13 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
edarrell at sbcglobal.net writes:

In 2003 the Justice Department investigated a report of religious  
discrimination at Texas Tech University, where a popular and tough biology  professor 
required students to pass his classes in biology before he'd write  them a 
recommendation to medical school.  He also required kids to  explain evolution to 
him, to indicate that they understood the science.   The protesting student 
argued it was a religious burden to try to meet those  qualifications.
 
It would appear that religious students are not driven from science so  much 
as they ask science to be changed to accommodate them, from anecdotal  
evidence.



That certainly reflects a re-writing of the history of that episode.   I 
visited Professor Dini's webpage during his witch-burning era (when he warned  
students who doubted the fact of evolution that they would not be, in his  
opinion, suitable for further scientific training and that they would,  therefore, 
be ineligible for a reference to higher education by him).  He  was, of course, 
welcome to his opinion, but he made a place of public  accommodation very 
unwelcome on grounds of religion and deservedly drew on  himself the heat and 
focus of the DOJ.  And, at the end of it all, he took  down his offensively 
noxious declaration.
 
Particulary troublesome about your rewrite is the fact that it was only  
after he was the subject of a DOJ investigation that he  changed his requirement 
from expressing affirmatively a  belief in the truth of evolution with the 
requirement that students be able to  explain the theory.  See 
_http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/April/03_crt_247.htm_ 
(http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/April/03_crt_247.htm) .
 
Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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