Textbook Censorship and Creation Science in Perspective. Revised.

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14

Academic Freedom; Censorship; Course Content; Creationism; Elementary Secondary Education; Evolution; Intellectual Freedom; Moral Issues; Public Schools; Religious Discrimination; Religious Factors; State Church Separation; Textbooks

The New Christian Right (NCR) has long wanted to impose fundamentalist Christian virtues and values on the United States. This paper discusses fundamentalist movements since the Scopes trial and assesses their impact on public school education. The NCR holds that traditional God-centered Christianity has been replaced in U.S. society and schools by a humanity-centered secularism, and that this reliance on man instead of God has caused many of our modern ills. NCR has challenged the constitutional separation of church and state and has often won short-term skirmishes. Evolution/creation science controversy, including the Scopes trial of 1925, and the decline and subsequent revival of evolution teaching in the following years is examined. In 1969, California enacted a requirement that creation science and evolution receive equal teaching time. Textbook censorship in West Virginia and Alabama is outlined and calls for schools to come under church control are presented. The use of "secular humanism" by the religious right is examined, as is the "secular humanist conspiracy." Finally, the removal of religion from textbooks and its recent re-emergence as an important topic of public school study is explored. The persistent danger of the New Christian Right is in the fundamentalists' absolutism and their pursuit of long-term goals. Eternal vigilance alone can safeguard that delicate constitutional balance which allows any religion to rise and flourish but not to dominate U.S. society and schools. A 37-item bibliography is included. (GEA)

1989

ED306144