Professor's Snub of Creationists Prompts U.S. Inquiry

New York Times ^ | 2/02/03 | NICK MADIGAN

[kattracks]

UBBOCK, Tex., Feb. 2 — A biology professor who insists that his students accept the tenets of human evolution has found himself the subject of Justice Department scrutiny.

Prompted by a complaint from the Liberty Legal Institute, a group of Christian lawyers, the department is investigating whether Michael L. Dini, an associate professor of biology at Texas Tech University here, discriminated against students on the basis of religion when he posted a demand on his Web site that students wanting a letter of recommendation for postgraduate studies "truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer" to the question of how the human species originated.

"The central, unifying principle of biology is the theory of evolution," Dr. Dini wrote. "How can someone who does not accept the most important theory in biology expect to properly practice in a field that is so heavily based on biology?"

That was enough for the lawyers' group, based in Plano, a Dallas suburb, to file a complaint on behalf of a 22-year-old Texas Tech student, Micah Spradling.

Mr. Spradling said he sat in on two sessions of Dr. Dini's introductory biology class and shortly afterward noticed the guidelines on the professor's Web site (www2.tltc.ttu.edu/dini/Personal/letters.htm).

Mr. Spradling said that given the professor's position, there was "no way" he would have enrolled in Dr. Dini's class or asked him for a recommendation to medical school.

"That would be denying my faith as a Christian," said Mr. Spradling, a junior raised in Lubbock who plans to study prosthetics and orthotics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "They've taken prayer out of schools and the Ten Commandments out of courtrooms, so I thought I had an opportunity to make a difference."

In an interview in his office, Dr. Dini pointed to a computer screen full of e-mail messages and said he felt besieged.

"The policy is not meant in any way to be discriminatory toward anyone's beliefs, but instead to ensure that people who I recommend to a medical school or a professional school or a graduate school in the biomedical sciences are scientists," he said. "I think science and religion address very different types of questions, and they shouldn't overlap."

Dr. Dini, who said he had no intention of changing his policy, declined to address the question of his own faith. But university officials and several students who support him say he is a religious man.

"He's a devout Catholic," said Greg Rogers, 36, a pre-med student from Lubbock. "He's mentioned it in discussion groups."

Mr. Rogers, who returned to college for a second degree and who said his beliefs aligned with Dr. Dini's, added: "I believe in God and evolution. I believe that evolution was the tool that brought us about. To deny the theory of evolution is, to me, like denying the law of gravity. In science, a theory is about as close to a fact as you can get."

Another student, Brent Lawlis, 21, from Midland, Tex., said he hoped to become an orthopedic surgeon and had had no trouble obtaining a letter of recommendation from Dr. Dini. "I'm a Christian, but there's too much biological evidence to throw out evolution," he said.

But other students waiting to enter classes Friday morning said they felt that Dr. Dini had stepped over the line. "Just because someone believes in creationism doesn't mean he shouldn't give them a recommendation," said Lindsay Otoski, 20, a sophomore from Albuquerque who is studying nursing. "It's not fair."

On Jan. 21, Jeremiah Glassman, chief of the Department of Justice's civil rights division, told the university's general counsel, Dale Pat Campbell, that his office was looking into the complaint, and asked for copies of the university's policies on letters of recommendation.

David R. Smith, the Texas Tech chancellor, said on Friday afternoon that the university, a state institution with almost 30,000 students and an operating budget of $845 million, had no such policy and preferred to leave such matters to professors.

In a letter released by his office, Dr. Smith noted that there were 38 other faculty members who could have issued Mr. Spradling a letter of recommendation, had he taken their classes. "I suspect there are a number of them who can and do provide letters of recommendation to students regardless of their ability to articulate a scientific answer to the origin of the human species," Dr. Smith wrote.

Members of the Liberty Legal Institute, who specialize in litigating what they call religious freedom cases, said their complaint was a matter of principle.

"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."

Mr. Shackelford said that he would await the outcome of the Justice Department investigation but that the next step would probably be to file a suit against the university.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the chuckle!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your post!

I asked these questions at post 767:

1. Do you have a source for your implication [that creationist physicians would over prescribe antibiotics]? A study of the religious beliefs of the physicians v the antibiotics prescribed per patient per diagnosis?

2. I was robbed at gun point by two black teenagers. Does that [your dealing with a Freeper who disavows micro-evolution applies to all creationists] mean that every group of two black teenagers will rob me at gun point?

3. Do you have a source for this allegation [dogmatic anti-evolutionary stance is anti-science]. A study of religious beliefs v scientific contributions?

4. Freedom of religion and equal protection under the law are guaranteed by the Constitution. There are Federal criminal statutes for discrimination based on religion. Federal and state law expressly prohibits discrimination based on religion. How do you justify your position under the law?

I summarize your answers at post 769 as follows:

1. No answer.

2. No, your statement is based on your personal experience.

3. Your statements are based on your personal experience and the opinion of T.T. Martin.

4. You do not have a personal legal argument for your position under the law but refer to H. L. Mencken who covered the Scopes trial and has an opinion, but does not present a legal argument.

My questions were asking for documentary evidence and legal arguments to substantiate your point of view. I will weigh your arguments objectively - but I apply a rule for evidence as a court of law would.

Except for your personal experience, all of your evidence is hearsay. Your personal experience would be inadmissible as it has no relevance as to the legality of the conduct of Dini and Texas Tech.

Personal contempt for creationism does not justify or excuse illegal conduct.

[Youngblood]

"It is hard to imagine how this can be so, but it is easy to imagine how physicians who ignore or neglect the Darwinian aspects of medicine or the evolutionary origin of humans can make bad clinical decisions. The current crisis in antibiotic resistance is the result of such decisions"....

well, well...is this the best the professor can do?

If this is the best he can do to prove his case, it's really pretty funny. Last I read, anti-resistant bacteria were still bacteria. Just why does one need to believe in evolution to understand this idea?

Is this supposed to be addressed to me?

[atlaw]

"In fact, 'students who deny the evolution of humans because it ‘seems’ to contradict his/her cherished beliefs' are a protected class under the law, and may not be discriminated against."

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you here. I know of no court that has designated this particular class of students as protected, and I cannot imagine any court doing so. It is simply too amorphous a group.

What does the term "cherished belief" refer to? If a student says to this professor that he denies evolution because it contradicts his cherished belief that white people are the master race specially created by God to enslave all others, is that student a member of the protected class? If not, why not?

And is the professor then to be compelled by law to write a recomendation for the racist student so as not to offend the student's cherished belief? Again, if not, why not? Is this particular student to be denied protection because his cherished belief is offensive to another protected class, and that other protected class is more protected than the protected class of the student?

You are asking a court to bite off the enormously difficult task of weighing the propriety or legitimacy of each "cherished belief." No court is going to want to do that, and no court should.

[Lurking Libertarian]

I wonder if it would be legal for the left wing government professor to ask his students to "honestly affirm" their support of socialism and other left wing causes before writing a recommendation. In fact, he probably does that anyway in a more underhanded manner, but do you believe he could announce such on a website and legally get away with it?

As a lawyer, I think he legally could get away with it, though he'd obviously be a doofus.

But turn your hypothetical around: would it be OK with you if an economics teacher refused to give a letter of reccomendation for business school to a student who was an avowed Marxist, even if the student got an A in the course?

[PatrickHenry]

He is asking the student for a profession of faith – that the student believes in science over his own “cherished beliefs.” This is not unlike Caesar warning that he will fed to the lions any who don’t worship him and then asking “Who is your God?” That is coercion and it is unconstitutional.

A-Girl, once more I take pen in hand in an attempt to clarify the issues in this matter. Let us go back to the religion & science controversy of the 1630s, but imagine that it's being played out today. A student wants a letter of recommendation so he can study astronomy at the graduate level. One professor, an admirer of Galileo, openly declares that to get a recommendation from him, a student must accept the solar system theory. The professor says that in his opinion you can't be an astronomer unless you're willing to use the telescope and draw the logical conclusions from what is observed.

Well, now, the fat's in the fire. A student (who is a scriptural literalist) claims that his "cherished belief" that the earth is the unmoveable center of the universe is being challenged, and unless he gives up that cherished belief, he's being excluded from the field in which he wishes to specialize.

Tell me, do you think the professor is engaging in impermissable religious discrimination? (Be careful: I think this scenario is a bang-on parallel to the controversy in this thread.)

[Lurking Libertarian]

There are Federal criminal statutes for discrimination based on religion.

You keep posting comments like this throughout the thread. As others have pointed out, there is no conceivable way this kind of conduct could ever possibly form the basis for a criminal prosecution. Will you take my word for it as a lawyer, or do you want me to run down the hall and pull out the citations?

[Lurking Libertarian]

Actually, since conservatives aren't the ones silencing anyone on campus, I'm not really worried about that happening. The evidence is overwhelming that it is occurring in the opposite direction.

That's not an answer to my question. Asking counter-factual hypothetical questions is one of the ways a court will test the validity of a legal position, to see if it is truly a valid statement of a principle which should be established as a precedent, or merely an ad hoc argument designed only to win a specific case.

[Doctor Stochastic]

What if the student's "cherished belief" was that the Great Pumpkin seeded the Earth with proto-spores?

[f.Christian]

Forcing someone to say science (( sun )) revolves around evolution ((asteroid )) is witchcraft // vetting ==== tyranny !

[atlaw]

Watch it bub. The Great Pumpkin had nothing to do with those proto-spores and you know it. Anybody who spouts heresy to the contrary gets the old protected-class-cold-shoulder.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank y’all for your posts! Since you are both evidently lawyers, I’m replying to both of you at the same time.

And is the professor then to be compelled by law to write a recomendation for the racist student so as not to offend the student's cherished belief? Again, if not, why not? Is this particular student to be denied protection because his cherished belief is offensive to another protected class, and that other protected class is more protected than the protected class of the student?

The professor and the school (both receiving public funds) are compelled by law to not discriminate against students on the basis of race, gender, age, religion, etc. Dini can make all kinds of conditions for his favors to help kids enter medical school, but illegal discrimination (particularly with regard to public funds) is not one of them.

Me: "In fact, 'students who deny the evolution of humans because it ‘seems’ to contradict his/her cherished beliefs' are a protected class under the law, and may not be discriminated against."

You: I'm afraid I have to disagree with you here. I know of no court that has designated this particular class of students as protected, and I cannot imagine any court doing so. It is simply too amorphous a group. …

What does the term "cherished belief" refer to? If a student says to this professor that he denies evolution because it contradicts his cherished belief that white people are the master race specially created by God to enslave all others, is that student a member of the protected class? If not, why not?

“This particular group” is anyone harboring the religious belief narrowly defined by Dini. Theirs, and anyone's right to believe what they will, are protected as follows (please note that the USSC rulings – such as in the flag case – are based on the belief, not on a denomination):

First Amendment to the Constitution

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

You keep posting comments like this throughout the thread. As others have pointed out, there is no conceivable way this kind of conduct could ever possibly form the basis for a criminal prosecution.

United States Code, Title 18, Criminal Code Part I, Chapter 13 Civil Rights, Section 241 Conspiracy

If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; … They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; …

United States Code, Title 18, Criminal Code Part I, Chapter 13 Civil Rights, Section 245 Protected Activities

Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, by force or threat of force willfully injures, intimidates or interferes with, or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with …any person because of his race, color, religion or national origin and because he is or has been - (A) enrolling in or attending any public school or public college; …

Supreme Court Case Law

Thomas v Review Board

A person may not be compelled to choose between the exercise of a First Amendment right and participation in an otherwise available public program. It is true that the Indiana law does not compel a violation of conscience, but where the state conditions receipt of an important benefit upon conduct proscribed by a religious faith, or where it denies such a benefit because of conduct mandated by religious belief, thereby putting substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs, a burden upon religion exists. While the compulsion may be indirect, the infringement upon free exercise is nonetheless substantial

Braunfeld v Brown

Certain aspects of religious exercise cannot, in any way, be restricted or burdened by either federal or state legislation. Compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship is strictly forbidden.The freedom to hold religious beliefs and opinions is absolute. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303 ; Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 166 . Thus, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 , this Court held that state action compelling school children to salute the flag, on pain of expulsion from public school, was contrary to the First and Fourteenth Amendments when applied to those students whose religious beliefs forbade saluting a flag. But this is not the case at bar; the statute before us does not make criminal the holding of any religious belief or opinion, nor does it force anyone to embrace any religious belief or to say or believe anything in conflict with his religious tenets.

Cantwell v Connecticut

The constitutional inhibition of legislation on the subject of religion has a double aspect. On the one hand, it forestalls compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship. Freedom of conscience and freedom to adhere to such religious organization or form of worship as the individual may choose cannot be restricted by law. On the other hand, it safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion. Thus the Amendment embraces two concepts,-freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the [310 U.S. 296, 304] second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society. 4 The freedom to act must have appropriate definition to preserve the enforcement of that protection. In every case the power to regulate must be so exercised as not, in attaining a permissible end, unduly to infringe the protected freedom. You are asking a court to bite off the enormously difficult task of weighing the propriety or legitimacy of each "cherished belief." No court is going to want to do that, and no court should.

You assert that the term "cherished beliefs" makes it too vague for the courts. I counter that the courts are very specific already with regard to the word "beliefs!"

It is not a matter of classifying and weighing beliefs. We are all guaranteed the right to believe as we wish. It would be unconstitutional for the government (much less a professor and his university) to weigh the propriety or legitimacy of any cherished belief.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your post!

Tell me, do you think the professor is engaging in impermissable religious discrimination? (Be careful: I think this scenario is a bang-on parallel to the controversy in this thread.)

In the example you gave, the professor did not precondition his recommendation on the student disavowing his religious belief.

In your example: The professor says that in his opinion you can't be an astronomer unless you're willing to use the telescope and draw the logical conclusions from what is observed.

If Dini made a similar requirement the Department of Justice wouldn't have been involved, because there would no coercion to disavow a religious belief, no discrimination based on religion, no probable cause.

[Dinsdale]

There have been many great contributions to science and medicine by people who believe in creation

All those contributions were in areas unrelated to evolution. The fact remains the attitude 'God said it, I believe it, that settles it!' is not only unscientific it is anti-scientific (hostile to the persuit of truth).

[f.Christian]

The fact remains the ATTITUDE 'evolution said it, I believe it, that settles it!' is not only unscientific it is anti-scientific (hostile to the persuit of truth).

[atlaw]

I can't tell from your post whether you think that my hypothetical racist student is or is not a member of the protected class you claim to have found in Dini's web site. Neither can I tell whether you think that the professor should or should not be compelled to write the racist student a recommendation. However, you do say that "[i]t would be unconstitutional for the government (much less a professor and his university) to weigh the propriety or legitimacy of any cherished belief."

If by this you mean that the racist student is a member of the protected class, then aren't you putting the professor in a no-win situation? Either refuse the recommendation and get sued by the racist, or write the recommendation (thereby endorsing racism) and get sued by another and equally offended protected class.

[PatrickHenry]

In the example you gave, the professor did not precondition his recommendation on the student disavowing his religious belief. In your example: "The professor says that in his opinion you can't be an astronomer unless you're willing to use the telescope and draw the logical conclusions from what is observed."

If Dini made a similar requirement the Department of Justice wouldn't have been involved, because there would no coercion to disavow a religious belief, no discrimination based on religion, no probable cause.

Ah, but run through it again. In my example, the student definitely has a bible-based belief that the earth is the unmoveable center of the universe, and the mean ol' professor requires that this belief be abandoned in favor of the solar system. As I said, it's a bang-on parallel. Is my astonomy professor engaging in religious persecution?

[f.Christian]

Ah, but run through it again. In my example, the TEACHER definitely has a FICTION-based belief that the EVOLUTION is the unmoveable center of the universe, and the mean ol' professor requires that this belief be ENFORCED in favor of the ASTEROID system. As I said, it's a bang-on parallel. Is my astonomy (( forgot the r )) professor engaging in religious persecution?

A quote I heard from Abraham Lincoln goes . . .

no man can be a chronic liar and have enough intelligence to get away with it -- -- --

dini is a wini !