Posted on 11/27/2005 12:16:08 AM PST by seastay
LOS ANGELES – The college plans of six students at a Murietta school have sparked a lawsuit that could have implications for academia nationwide. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, contends that officials with the University of California system discriminated against students from Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murietta when they decided that some of the school's religious-viewpoint courses – such as "Christianity's Influence on American History" – do not meet the UC system's admissions standards.
The complaint, pushed by the Association of Christian Schools International, alleges the university's decision violates the First Amendment religious-practice rights of the students, including two who plan to attend UC San Diego.
A Dec. 12 hearing has been set on a request by UC lawyers to dismiss the complaint.
The case is being closely tracked by free speech advocates, public educators and Christian leaders who are concerned about the impact the case could have on state school admissions policies and the ability of some Christian schools to teach their core beliefs.
The lawsuit "is one piece of the culture war that is ongoing in our country for a number of years," said Robert Tyler, who represents the students and heads the group Advocates for Faith and Freedom. "It's important for our clients to take a stand at this time to prevent the intolerance of the UC and to prevent them from attempting to secularize private Christian schools."
"This appears to be coming in as the first wave in an assault," said Barmak Nassirian, an official with the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, who sees the lawsuit as an effort by a special interest group to improperly shape admissions requirements.
UC lawyers say Calvary Chapel students are free to study as they choose, but they still must take courses approved by the university system – or alternately take an SAT subject test – to gain admission to one of the UC's 10 campuses.
Christopher Patti, a UC lawyer, said that in the last four years, 32 students from Calvary Chapel have applied for UC schools, and 24 were admitted.
The lawsuit "has more to do with the university's ability to set admissions standards than it does with the plaintiffs' ability to teach what they want," Patti said. "We don't try to limit what they teach."
Lawyers for the plaintiffs contend this dispute came up two years ago when UC admissions officials began closely examining Calvary Chapel's courses and texts that emphasized Christianity. Among the rejected courses were biology classes with texts by A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press, both conservative Christian publishers. Courses titled "Special Providence: American Government," and "Christianity and Morality in American Literature," were also rejected.
The lawsuit argues it is unfair these courses were nixed while others titled "Western Civilization: The Jewish Experience," and "Intro to Buddhism," were approved.
Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at Virginia-based First Amendment Center at the Freedom Forum, said the supporters might have a valid complaint.
"I think the university has the right to require entering students to have a foundation on the subjects the university thinks help provide a preparation for higher education," he said "But I think the schools have a point when they say other courses from other institutions are allowed in, but when a course has 'Christian' in the title it seems to raise a red flag."
Patti said of the roughly 1,000 courses submitted for approval every year, 15 percent are rejected for reasons such as lacking proper content or being too narrowly focused.
It is the Calvary Chapel's biology courses that have sparked the most debate.
Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, which fights attempts to teach intelligent design and creationism as science in public schools, called the biology texts used by the school "unabashedly creationist" books that explain evolution in a confusing manner. Creationism is the belief that God created the universe and all life.
Branch noted that the preface of the Bob Jones University's biology textbook states: "If conclusions contradict the word of God, the conclusions are wrong no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them."
"I don't think the UC is insisting that incoming students accept evolution," Branch said. "They want them to have a good understanding of it. That's the purpose of education, to impart understanding."
But plaintiff lawyer Wendell Bird, who argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1987 Louisiana case dealing with creationist instruction in public schools, said it is wrong to interpret the lawsuit solely as a fight over creationism.
"This case would exist even if the science course had been accepted" by UC admissions officials, he said, noting other courses were also rejected.
Nassirian said he sees the lawsuit's proponents as attempting to win an academic debate outside the academic world.
"You cannot get a victory in court on science, as Galileo learned," he said.
Of course.
As per perceived ad hominum, You are quite defensive.
Sequence analysis, of ribosome RNA or protein sequence or DNA indicate the important regions for structure and function. Structure is function. Conserved residues and motifs tell a lot and provide information to begin deducing structure and designing experiments to infer structure.
In ribosomal structure for example, certain people are subject to being rendered deaf by certain antibiotics. The differences in rRNA sequences between various bacteria that are differentially affected by given antibiotics and the further analysis with human rRNA sequences can indicate why this happens to some people.
I assume you can see why and follow.
All this can be done without a defintive structure derived from X-ray crystallography and are independent of any evolutionary concerns.
"You are striking me as dimwitted and without curiousity" is a "perceived ad hominum"? What are you, an idiot?
(Please don't take that as an ad hominem, and note the correct spelling)
In ribosomal structure for example, certain people are subject to being rendered deaf by certain antibiotics. The differences in rRNA sequences between various bacteria that are differentially affected by given antibiotics and the further analysis with human rRNA sequences can indicate why this happens to some people.
And yet you resist the idea of analyzing the sequences to find out how the resistance evolved. What are you, dimwitted and without curiosity?
Not at all.
You earlier stated: But the genomes make no sense except from an evolutionary perspective
I am addressing how sequences, genomes included, do make sense outside of an evolutionary perspective and their analysis is of value even without evolutionary considerations.
In no way did I state or imply any resistance to analyzing evolutionary aspects of resistance or anything else.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'making sense'. Sure, you can identify streptomycin binding sites in bacterial ribosomes, and look at homologous sites in mitochondrial ribosomes to see if mutations at those sites are associate with deafness; but without an explanation of the homology, which evolution provides, any deductions you make depend on a fortuitous accident.
I'd consider that "making sense".
Why are the sigtes homologous? Why would the homology lead to identical binding?
I'm sure you know this.
Problem is that sequence homology over a small tract of a big macromolecule does not guarantee structural homology, as I'm sure you also know.
The COG CDD projects at NCBI (among others) are trying to address and catalogue various shared structures and domains in proteins.
Domains and motifs can be mixed and matched in different proteins. Recombination events can lead to oncogenic states when domains are mixed. An example is the Hoxd11 were were discussing earlier. The idea that that gene is somehow specific to or in itself directs limb morphogenesis is not really right and I'd hoped to bring that up at some time and this works out well. Hoxd11 as are so many Hox genes (as well as hedgehogs, also mentioned in the SciAm article of another thread) are involved in development seemingly rather generically.
A fusion protein fromed by recombination of a gene called NUP98 and Hoxd11 is, for example, a cause of leukemia. Hoxd11 is found in hematopoietic stem cells and when it becomes dysregulated by the fusion even, the stem cells do not develop (or differentiate) correctly, leading to a proliferation of leukemic cells.
bttt
This seems to cover it.
The trouble is that most Christian colleges are on the small side, and so they can't afford to offer all of the common science majors, like physics, chemistry, and biology. They also usually can't afford to support strong engineering departments.
If you want to be a pocket-protector type, and can't afford Harvard, then public schools are the best way to go.
If by "something" you mean that lots of Freepers will agree with you, then, yeah, you've started something. =)
You are striking me as being horribly rude. :P
BTW, people do not read papers in scientific journals UNLESS they are very curious. Usually, it isn't exactly light reading!
I don't know if that is a fair assesment.
It takes a pretty dim bulb to try hard and still make a 800 SAT score. :P
What does " :P" mean?
Smiley with minor raspberry, IIRC. :)
Yours is the first response to my comment! I thought surely there would be someone out there who would take exception.
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