The Dance of the Louisiana State Science Fair, Or: Notes from the War on Science in Louisiana

When the most recent LSU budget cuts were handed down by the Louisiana governor a couple of weeks ago, one of the items that went on the chopping block was the Louisiana State Science and Engineering Fair, which has long been sponsored and hosted by the university. In a state with a creationist governor, and a state that recently became a national embarrassment by passing into law one of the Discovery Institute's new pseudonyms for teaching creationism, it is extraordinarily frightening that the State Science Fair might be canceled. Although it was indirect (the governor just forced the budget cuts, he didn't actively target the science fair), it does, however, make it a lot easier to push for creationism if you hinder the ability of the students in your state to become scientists.

Thankfully, after a couple of weeks of scrambling, the Science Fair is now back on. But it was not a direct route.

During those two weeks, it was on again, off again, on again, as the Fair moved from being officially canceled, to being picked up by a group called the Pelican Educational Foundation, to discovering that the private foundation didn't have the proper Science Fair accreditation to sponsor the Fair (i.e. winners of this version of the State Fair would not have been qualified for higher level fairs), to finally arriving at a joint LSU-Pelican Educational Foundation rescheduled fair on a new date in a new location. Whew.

It's been like a battlefield in Louisiana over the past year and a half. Our self-proclaimed "intellectual" governor has systematically handed down more and deeper budget cuts to the university - now, of course budget problems are being dealt with in every state - but Governor Jindal is making deeper and deeper cuts while also continuing to refuse federal stimulus money because it might hurt his chances of becoming the next Sarah Palin. (A few days ago the LSU Faculty Senate even officially wrote the Secretary of Education to try to work around the governor's most recent stimulus money roadblock).

Furthermore, as much of the scientific community knows, the governor and the Louisiana legislature pushed for and then signed into law the "Louisiana Science Education Act," (aka the "Louisiana Academic Freedom Act") drafted by the Discovery Institute and basically saying that "academic freedom" protects the right of science teachers to choose to teach creationism as a scientific theory.

The passing of the "Louisiana (Non) Science Education Act" was and is a national embarrassment for Louisiana, and it makes all real scientists in Louisiana burn with indignity and anger simply by virtue of where we live and work.

Despite these best efforts of our self-proclaimed "intellectual" governor, LSU has successfully clawed its way into US News and World Report's list of "Top Tier" universities for two years running. But it's tough to feel loved when your state government wants to get rid of that pesky little nuisance called "science". I mean, the State Science Fair almost disappeared! This is not a big budget item. What kind of message is being sent to the students in Louisiana from all these events? What will happen to the Science Fair next year? (Will it be forced to become the "Academic Freedom Fair" to insure state support?) Where will Louisiana's next generation of scientists come from, and how will all of this affect their desire to become scientists? It's simply a sad, sad shame for Louisiana that we even have to ask such questions. Is this really 2010?