Fundamentalists to Challenge State Guidelines for Evolution in Texts

SACRAMENTO —  As the first step in a legal campaign to invalidate new textbook guidelines governing the teaching of evolution, conservative religious groups announced Thursday that they will challenge the procedures used to adopt the new policies.

The Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, said his group will ask the office of administrative law to determine that the guidelines are in fact a state “regulation” that should have been adopted according to strict procedures.

By seeking an opinion from the office of administrative law, Sheldon said he hoped to gain ammunition for further legal action against State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig and the State Board of Education. The administrative law office can only issue advisory opinions, but these are often given great weight in lawsuits.

Sheldon said his ultimate goal is to wrest away from the state some of the authority that it has over textbooks and return it to local school districts. He said he thought his group would be more successful in persuading local officials that teachers should be allowed to present alternative views, such as creationism.

“It’s the first effort in attempting to offer school districts, teachers and students the right to have freedom and flexibility in presenting alternative theories to the origins of life,” he said.

Honig, who pushed for the adoption of the guidelines by the board as part of his effort to make California students more “scientifically literate,” predicted the latest challenge from the religious groups would be rejected. He said the guidelines are a “general philosophy” stating how science would be taught in California and could not be considered a regulation.

“The framework (guidelines) is not legally vulnerable to this attack,” he said. “I think what they (religious groups) will do is they’ll look for all the potentials and try and get as much attention as they can and try and use whatever procedures are around, but this one is not a threatening attack.”

Honig said the state board clearly has the constitutional authority to adopt textbooks. And its decision to approve the textbook guidelines--including the provisions governing the teaching of evolution--was made after lengthy public hearings and public meetings, he said. He acknowledged, however, that the board did not follow all the procedures for adopting a state regulation.

“They (religious groups) obviously are not happy with the fact that (the guidelines treat) creationism as outside of science,” he said,

People for the American Way, the anti-censorship group that supported the adoption of the guidelines, announced that “to the extent possible” it will attempt to defend the state against any legal action filed by the religious groups.

“These far-right groups won’t be satisfied until evolution is replaced in science classes by their narrow sectarian dogma,” said the group’s Western director, Michael Hudson.

Sheldon announced legal plans first at a press conference in Anaheim and then in Sacramento. In Anaheim, he was confronted by gay rights activists who have questioned his groups’ tax-exempt status.

John Duran, a gay activist attorney in Orange County and a longtime foe of Sheldon on gay rights issues, said he is planning to file a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against Sheldon. He charged that Sheldon has repeatedly abused the tax-exempt education status of his California Coalition for Traditional Values by using the group for political purposes.

Sheldon refused to answer questions about the tax charges at the press conference, saying he was there to talk about public school issues. Later, however, he repeated past assertions that he has kept the finances for his Sacramento lobbying separate from the work of his educational organization in compliance with tax law.

BACKGROUND

Pressed by Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, the State Board of Education last month approved new guidelines for science textbooks requiring that evolution be taught as the only theory on the origin of man. Many fundamentalists religious groups opposed the guidelines because they make no provision for teaching creationism, or the biblical version of the origin of life.