Gull Lake Situation
stcynic | December 21, 2005The Detroit Free Press has a report on the Dover decision that includes this tidbit:
The next court test on whether public schoolchildren can be taught that some intelligent force set the universe in motion could move to Michigan now that a federal judge has barred a Pennsylvania district from teaching intelligent design...
In Michigan, the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor has threatened to sue Gull Lake Community Schools in the community of Richland for refusing to allow two middle school science teachers to teach intelligent design. Representatives from the center have said they are also…
stcynic | December 16, 2005I somehow missed this article from the Chicago Tribune on December 6th, about the possible outcomes of the Dover trial and the long term impacts on the larger dispute those outcomes would be likely to have. The article notes the three possible ways the judge could rule (and the ruling is expected next week):
First, he could rule broadly that ID is a religious belief, not a scientific theory. If so, the introduction of ID in a public school science class would be unconstitutional.
"And that, of course, is the option we are asking the court to take," said Witold Walczak, legal director of the…
stcynic | June 14, 2005Last evening I attended the Gull Lake school board meeting on a sweltering night when they were to decide whether or not to allow two 7th grade science teachers to teach ID as they had been doing for the last couple of years. I am happy to report that after about a year of effort and controversy, the school board voted unanimously that ID could not be taught in science classes in that district, nor could the book Of Pandas and People be used in the 7th grade class where it had been used as a supplemental text for the past couple years by two teachers there. They did so in the face of a…
stcynic | May 18, 2005My colleague Howard Van Till attended the school board meeting in Gull Lake on Monday. The superintendant announced there that the internal committee had completed its work and would announce a decision on whether they would allow ID to be taught by two junior high school science teachers in the district. That decision will apparently announced to the faculty before being announced publicly, presumably by the time of the next school board meeting. This comes as the Thomas More Law Center is threatening them with a lawsuit if they do not allow the teachers to teach ID. Conversely, if the…
stcynic | May 3, 2005The Gull Lake School Board has essentially decided to brush off a threatened lawsuit from the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of two teachers who say they have a right to teach intelligent design creationism in their science classrooms. Lisa Swem, attorney for the school district, is saying that the school will continue with its current policy of having a committee meet and decide on how to proceed regardless of the TMLC's threats. That committee, as I previously reported, has already met and ruled against the teachers on a 5-2 vote, which should have ended the whole thing according to what…
stcynic | April 26, 2005Timothy Sandefur has a post at the Panda's Thumb about the Gull Lake situation and the Thomas More Law Center's citing of Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No 26 et al v. Pico in its letter to the Gull Lake school board. As he points out, Pico does not support their case at all.
stcynic | April 25, 2005The attorneys on both sides of the Gull Lake issue seem to be playing hard and fast with the facts on the "internal committee" that was formed to decide whether to allow the teachers to teach creationism in science classes. When we first became involved in the situation, the school board treated it like a hot potato, not wanting to make any decision that would open them to criticism from either side. So they formed an internal committee made up of the two teachers, two other science teachers, the principals of the junior high and high school, and the superintendant. Lisa Swem, the attorney…