At least you recognize that they did not mandate reading the book. They did, however, mandate that people who object to the theory of evolution are still required to learn it and be tested upon it. Nobody required that anyone either read the Pandas book or be tested on it. Hence the worst thing that can be said is that the school board advocated a book which may have had a particular religious viewpoint. That is not an establishment of religion and a requirement that a person learn some theory of science that categorically conflicts with his religious beliefs is far closer to an establishment of religion than a suggestion that if you wish to question that theory that there are alternative resources.
You still have refused to provide any constitutional argument that what the Dover school district did was "an establishment of religion" as referenced in the first amendment.
You could mandate reading Karl Marx in a history class or even an economics class. It would be objectionable to mandate that Marx's writing must be accepted by teachers as authoritative and correct on the subject of economics.
But it would not be constitutionally prohibited!
It would be stupid, but the remedy is to remove the board, not to make a Federal Case out of it.
Again you are engaging in hyperbole. The District did not force teachers to accept the Pandas book as authoritative. It simply required them to read the statement of the board that suggested that the Pandas book might be a good reference for viewing alternative ideas.
The Dover school board tried to mandate "Pandas" as equivalent to a science text.
They did nothing of the sort. But even if they had mandated it, it does not establish a religion. At worst it merely presents an alternative religious viewpoint to consider.
the remedy is to remove the board, not to make a Federal Case out of it.
I'm not looking to debate with you, but in case you didn't know, the board was recently removed by the voters. The lawsuit and the local and national publicity it generated likely played a role in the voters' ouster of the board. So it appears the judge ruled in favor of the majority of the voters.
And, IIRC, the Dover voters replaced a lot of Republicans on the board with Democrats. So the outcome of this whole affair is not what Republicans would have preferred. Some bumbling clueless Republicans on a local school board created a mess and the end result was a federal case they lost, a national embarrassment for Dover, and a bunch of Republicans on the school board replaced by Democrats.
This does not bode well for other such Republicans around the country pursuing other such policies.