Press release: Rutherford Institute asks Ohio Supreme Court to affirm right of science teacher to urge students to think critically about evolution

The following press release was provided Wednesday by The Rutherford Institute:

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio—In filing a merits brief with the Ohio Supreme Court in Freshwater v. Mount Vernon, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have asked the Court to hold that the Mount Vernon City School District violated the academic freedom rights of teacher John Freshwater and his students by firing Freshwater for encouraging public school students to think critically about the school’s science curriculum, particularly as it relates to evolution theories. The Ohio Supreme Court agreed to The Rutherford Institute’s request to hear the case, which arose after the Mount Vernon City School District’s Board of Education suspended Freshwater, a 24-year veteran in the classroom, in 2008 and officially terminated him in January 2011. The Board justified its actions by accusing Freshwater of improperly injecting religion into the classroom by giving students “reason to doubt the accuracy and/or veracity of scientists, science textbooks and/or science in general.” The Board also claimed that Freshwater failed to remove “all religious articles” from his classroom, including a Bible.

The Rutherford Institute’s merits brief to the Ohio Supreme Court is available here.

“Academic freedom was once the bedrock of American education. That is no longer the state of affairs, as this case makes clear,” stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “What we need today are more teachers and school administrators who understand that young people don’t need to be indoctrinated. Rather, they need to be taught how to think for themselves.”

In June 2008, the Mount Vernon City School District Board of Education voted to suspend John Freshwater, a Christian with a 20-year teaching career at Mount Vernon Middle School, citing concerns about his conduct and teaching materials, particularly as they related to the teaching of evolution. Earlier that year, school officials reportedly ordered Freshwater, who had served as the faculty appointed facilitator, monitor, and supervisor of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes student group for 16 of the 20 years that he taught at Mount Vernon, to remove “all religious items” from his classroom, including a Ten Commandments poster displayed on the door of his classroom, posters with Bible verses, and his personal Bible which he kept on his desk. Freshwater agreed to remove all items except for his Bible. Showing their support for Freshwater, students even organized a rally in his honor. They also wore t-shirts with crosses painted on them to school and carried Bibles to class. School officials were seemingly unswayed by the outpouring of support for Freshwater. In fact, despite the fact that the Board’s own policy states that because religious traditions vary in their treatment of science, teachers should give unbiased instruction so that students may evaluate it “in accordance with their own religious tenets,” school officials suspended and eventually fired Freshwater, allegedly for criticizing evolution and using unapproved materials to facilitate classroom discussion of origins of life theories. Freshwater appealed the termination in state court, asserting that the school’s actions violated his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and constituted hostility toward religion. A Common Pleas judge upheld the School Board’s decision, as did the Fifth District Court of Appeals, without analyzing these constitutional claims. In appealing to the Ohio Supreme Court, Institute attorneys argued that the Board through its actions violated the First Amendment academic freedom rights of both Freshwater and his students.

Additional information:

"Attorneys ask Freshwater be reinstated as teacher" by Pamela Schehl, Mount Vernon News

"Firing of Bible-toting teacher under review: Ohio Supremes asked to restore John Freshwater to classroom" by Bob Unruh, WND

John Freshwater v. Mount Vernon City School District Board of Education, case information and documents, Supreme Court of Ohio

See the articles in the archive for additional coverage of the Freshwater controversy.

Freshwater files brief with Ohio Supreme Court

John Freshwater, through his attorneys, filed a merit brief with the Ohio Supreme Court on Friday. The brief presents the basis for his claim that he was wrongfully terminated from his job teaching at Mount Vernon City Schools.

(See here for a copy of the brief.)

In firing Freshwater, the Mount Vernon Board of Education took the position that a public school teacher could not present evidence both for and against evolution, allow students to question material in the textbooks or encourage students to think critically about science in general.

The school board’s resolution firing Freshwater also stated that the teacher failed to remove some unspecified “religious articles” from his classroom. (The only documented item that Freshwater was told to remove but didn’t remove was his personal Bible.)

 “As an eighth-grade science teacher,” the brief says, “Freshwater sought to encourage his students to differentiate between facts and theories or hypotheses, to question and test theories and hypotheses, and to identify and discuss instances where textbook statements were subject to intellectual and scientific debate. This teaching methodology—fostering critical thinking and the challenging and evaluation of a variety of postulated theories—is particularly appropriate in a science classroom.”

The school board’s resolution characterized this teaching methodology as being religious. In laying out the board’s reasons for the firing, the board used a hierarchical outline, divided into two sections, with the section about teaching methodology leading with the statement: “Freshwater injected his personal religious beliefs into his plan and pattern of instructing his students. In doing so, he exceeded the bounds of all the pertinent Bylaws/Policies of the Mount Vernon City School District.”

Freshwater’s brief rebuts the idea that it is improper for teachers to present material that coincides with religious beliefs:

“Academic freedom would be an empty platitude if it provided no protection from censorship of ideas that have religious connections or implications. The impact of the loss of academic freedom on the development of science, technology, and the pursuit of learning in general would be profound and tragic. Consider that while today’s science class may discuss modern theories of origins of life first espoused in the Bible (and censored on that basis alone), yesterday’s classes considered theories about the Hydrologic Cycle or the spherical Earth—also enshrined in religious texts long before accepted by science. The advancement of knowledge demands that students and teachers be free to consider, discuss and debate ideas of all kinds rather than forced to discard any due to the government’s disdain for its source.”

The brief concludes with the following statements:

 “The Board’s actions are nothing less than the censorship of ideas. As such, they eviscerate the First Amendment academic freedom rights of Freshwater and his students, and they transgress the neutrality requirement of the Establishment Clause. As the United States Supreme Court has instructed, ‘students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding.’

“Here the Board has ignored these essential principles and attempted to transform students into ‘closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate.’”

Freshwater is seeking monetary damages and reinstatement to his position teaching eighth-grade science.

The brief was filed on behalf of Freshwater by his attorneys R. Kelly Hamilton and Rita M. Dunaway, both affiliated with The Rutherford Institute.

Note: Internal case citations were omitted from the quotes from the brief. 

Additional information:

John Freshwater v. Mount Vernon City School District Board of Education, case information and documents, Supreme Court of Ohio

“Press release: Ohio Supreme Court agrees to hear Rutherford Institute’s case of science teacher fired for urging students to think critically about evolution”

“MV school board: Firing of Freshwater not of public interest”

“Press release: Rutherford Institute appeals to Ohio SupremeCourt on behalf of science teacher fired for urging students to think critically about evolution”

“District court rules against Freshwater’s appeal”

“Freshwater appeals to 5th District Court”

“County judge rules against Freshwater’s appeal”

“What does MV school board’s statement mean?”

“School board votes 4-1 to fire Freshwater”

“Freshwater’s Closing Arguments: Allegations Unsubstantiated”


See the articles in the archive for additional coverage of the Freshwater controversy.

The Columbus Dispatch takes a leap of faith, declares evolution a ‘fact’

Editorial

The Columbus Dispatch editorial writers have been at it again. This time, while writing about the John Freshwater case, they have taken it upon themselves to solve the hotly debated topic of origins.

It turns out, according to the gurus at the Dispatch, that the evolutionists have been right all along. We did evolve from the cosmic ooze.

The Dispatch said, “While there are scientific debates about the specific mechanisms of evolution, evolution itself is a scientific fact.”

In other words, the Dispatch doesn’t have a clue how life got from the first self-replicating molecule to highly complex human beings. It just happened. Believe.

Far be it from me to doubt a Dispatch editorial, especially one with the religious sounding title “Judgment day.”

However, I am having trouble reconciling the Dispatch’s claim that evolution is a scientific fact with the Dispatch’s own definition of science:

“Science, by definition, is the study of natural processes, not supernatural ones. Any theory that invokes supernatural explanations for natural phenomena is not science, it is religion, and therefore is inappropriate in a science class.”

Wouldn’t that mean that evolution is religion?

If the “specific mechanisms” (the natural processes) of evolution are unknown, then evolution has not invoked any explanation. To accept evolution as fact is a “leap of faith.”

That’s so religious of the Dispatch.

Related coverage:

“School Board’s Expert Witness: Debating Is for Politics, Not Science”

“Evolution – Is It More Speculative Philosophy than It Is Science?”

“Shame on The Columbus Dispatch”

See the articles in the archive for additional coverage of the Freshwater controversy.