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"There's no problem with Dr. Dini saying you have to understand evolution and you have to be able to describe it in detail," said Kelly Shackelford, the group's chief counsel, "but you can't tell students that they have to hold the same personal belief that you do."

The professor isn't telling them to change their personal beliefs. They can believe what they want. What's happening here is that the court is being asked to change the professor's personal belief that these students will not make good scientists. Nobody is owed a recommendation. The only obligation the professor is under is to make his true opinion honestly known to the recipient of the letter.

And NO professor is owed a tax-payer financed pay check. He can hold any belief he wants but has NO right to require that the students uphold his religious belief in evolution. Because unless you know of some video tape showing the evolution of species, this theory is a matter of faith. By the way, answer this: how could incomplete male and female reproductive systems produce offspring? Have you ever had friends or relatives trying to conceive, using everything in our modern medical technology, only to have it fail again and again? And we are to believe that male and female reproductive systems, so utterly dissimiliar, could in the process of evolving reproduce off-spring. Now that requires much more faith than I can muster. No wonder evolutionists need "billions and billions of years",in the words of the late Carl Sagan, to make this laughable theory (see Psalm 2:4) fly.

What's happening here is that the court is being asked to change the professor's personal belief that these students will not make good scientists.....

i would have to agree with you... The only problem I would foresee is; if a student because of his/her belief in creation wouldn't be admitted to a medical school,period. Then maybe the courts would need to decide if this is in a fact a factor that would prevent him/her from becoming a "good" doctor.

"The professor isn't telling them to change their personal beliefs."

Actually, when this first surfaced (and this still appears to be the case), the prof WAS requiring the students to say they BELIEVED in evolution. If they do not believe in it, then yes, he is requiring them to change their beliefs in order to get a letter from him.

It is one thing to require the students to be able to receive good grades and so forth. It's a whole other thing for this prof to be even ASKING about what someone believes. It is not his place to ask.

And what if the good professor decided that he could not provide letters of recommendations for black students based on his own "scientific belief" that they are members of a population that are not intellectually equipped to become good physicians?

His assertions to that effect would have no more basis in fact than his "knowledge" that (a) creationism is a false and unscientific belief and that, by extension, (b) any student who believes otherwise likewise is not intellectually equipped to be a good physician.

I am loath to applaud the intrusion of the state upon the academic enterprise, but I am delighted at the prospect of a self-righteous, bigotted, liberal bastard getting the old Roto-Rooter treatment from the Federal Government which, in case he hadn't noticed, now is increasingly conservative, rational, fair-minded, and likely willing to look into an apparent case of bias by the employee of a Federally-funded cabal that represents itself as being an institution of higher learning.

It's a new day, "Professor," and even "religious fanatics" have a right to equitable treatment when others who hold the "right" world view receive letters of recommendation based on their actual performance in a given class of instruction.

So live with it, and, while you're at it, eat your heart out ............

The professor isn't telling them to change their personal beliefs. They can believe what they want. What's happening here is that the court is being asked to change the professor's personal belief that these students will not make good scientists. Nobody is owed a recommendation. The only obligation the professor is under is to make his true opinion honestly known to the recipient of the letter.

Actually the court is being asked to protect students from discrimination. The professor is a bigot. What if the good Professor felt that Black people just couldn't be good scientists? And therefore they need not ask for recommendations. The only difference is that the area of discrimination is religion and not race. And if the professor cannot base his recommendations on the students academic achievement, then he should find a nice private college to teach at.

They can believe what they want.

Absolutely wrong. He is telling them to swear that they honestly believe in evolution. This is an oath to an ideology - an atheist ideology. It is totally immoral to any religious person to do so. It is totally immoral for any person with any conscience to do so. He is doing Satan's work.