ELA Update: Court says Roseville school officials treated evolution critic fairly

School board members and administrators with the Roseville Joint Union School District were vindicated earlier this month when a federal judge threw out the lawsuit filed by a local parent who claimed the district violated his free speech and other constitutional rights by unfairly limiting his challenges to the district’s high school evolution curriculum because he is a Christian.

U.S. District Court Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. granted the motion for summary judgment requested by the district. The judge’s Sept. 7 ruling concluded that high school parent Larry Caldwell failed to produce any evidence that the district was biased against him because of his “actual or perceived religious beliefs” or that district officials prevented him from speaking publicly at school board meetings, putting items on the agenda or participating in other district processes.

In fact, Damrell said, the district went to extraordinary lengths to accommodate Caldwell, who spent more than a year in a fruitless attempt to convince the district board, science faculty and administrators to change the way evolution is taught at Granite Bay High School by adopting supplemental materials that critique the theory.
Even when Caldwell failed to follow district procedures for challenging curricular materials or placing items on the school board agenda, the judge noted, district officials permitted him to speak at length about his complaints concerning the district’s high school science curriculum.

When Caldwell objected to established district complaint procedures, Damrell wrote, the district crafted a special procedure for Caldwell and convened a meeting of more than 20 district science teachers, who listened to a presentation from Caldwell and his guest expert, Cornelius Hunter—a fellow at the Discovery Institute.  The institute is a Seattle-based think tank that supports research by scientists and other scholars who are critical of Darwinism and believe that intelligent design is a scientifically sound explanation for the emergence of living organisms on earth. After reviewing and evaluating Caldwell’s and Hunter’s materials, teachers unanimously voted against using them. Instead, teachers reaffirmed their support for the district’s newly adopted textbook, which they concluded was “accurate, objective and current.”

Caldwell, an attorney who represented himself with assistance from the Pacific Legal Foundation, filed suit in January 2005 against the district, two individual school board members and four administrators after the board rejected the materials.
The judge made it clear that the case was about Caldwell’s allegations that the district violated his constitutional rights because of his religious beliefs, and “not about how biology, including discussions of evolutionary theory, can or should be taught in public schools,” Damrell wrote. “More specifically, this case is not about whether a theory of intelligent design can or should be included in the science curriculum for schools in the district.”

Roseville school board member Jan Pinney said he is gratified that the judge ruled for the district. “My biggest concern all along has been that this dispute has required us to spend so much time, effort and money,” he said. “This has been a costly distraction that’s made it more difficult to focus on what our kids need.”
Pinney said district insurance covered some $350,000 in legal fees. “But the cost to the district was far greater than that,” he said, “in terms of the time and energy that key people took to counter and fight this.”

Pinney estimated that he spent several hundred hours in hearings and giving depositions. A devout Christian, he said he found it strange to be accused of being anti-religious. “We bent over backwards trying to accommodate him,” he said of Caldwell. “We wanted to make sure he had a fair airing of his concerns.”

Roseville’s procedures for placing items on the school board agenda, participating on the curriculum instruction team and for challenging instructional materials are typical of most districts in the state. CSBA Education Legal Alliance Director Richard Hamilton said the case indicates that the importance of adhering carefully to such policies, as Roseville did. “This case proves that when consistently applied, courts will uphold district policies,” Hamilton said.