Teaching Intelligent Design: Does It Violate the Establishment Clause?
December 6, 2006
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued a blistering opinion ruling that Pennsylvania’s Dover Area School District had violated the Establishment Clause by requiring that a statement about Intelligent Design (ID) be read in all high school biology classes. Katzmiller v. Dover Area School District. ID is a theory that points to complexity in nature as evidence that an “intelligent designer” created nature. The Dover Area School District’s statement provided that while the Pennsylvania Academic Standards required students to learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, it was only a theory, not a fact and ID provided another explanation for the origin of life.
The Third Circuit held that the controversial statement violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because the reading of the statement constituted school sponsorship of a religious message. The Supreme Court has noted that “School sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members of the audience who are nonadherents ‘that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.’” Here, the court found that ID was a religious explanation, not a scientific one, and that the actions of the school board in supporting ID showed its support of a religious view. Two tests, the Endorsement Test and the Lemon Test, were used to evaluate whether support of ID violated the Establishment Clause.
Endorsement Test
The Endorsement Test has been used by the Supreme Court and the Third Circuit in Establishment Clause cases, particularly in cases involving religion in public schools. The Establishment Clause “preclude[s] government from conveying or attempting to convey a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred.” The Endorsement Test is used by courts to determine if a reasonable, objective observer who knows the policy’s language, origin, legislative history and history of the community would think that the government policy sanctions a particular religious viewpoint.
The Third Circuit began its examination by first considering whether the beliefs of ID supporters had religious or scientific origins. The court found that ID supporters “cloaked” their religious beliefs in scientific language but that an objective observer would conclude that ID was a religious idea. Witness testimony and background information about the movement and its supporters led to this conclusion. One witness noted that ID proponents believed that “the designer postulated by their argument [was] God of Christianity.” The founder of the ID movement had written “God is objectively real as Creator and recorded in the biological evidence.” He also wrote that the “Darwinian theory of evolution contradicts not just the Book of Genesis, but every word in the Bible from beginning to end.” Another publication supporting the ID movement, the Wedge Document, stated that one of the ID movement’s goals “is to replace science as currently practiced with ‘theistic and Christian science.’” Further, a book that was recommended in the required statement being read to biology students, Panda, suggests that there is a supernatural designer and was published by a self-described Christian group. Based on these factors, court concluded that the ID movement is a religious one.
Further, the wording of the statement and the manner in which it was presented suggested the School’s endorsement of religion. The statement itself discredited the theory of evolution and presented ID in a much more favorable light. In addition, due to teachers’ refusals to read the statement, school administrators came into the classroom to read it. The special reading by individuals not usually in the classroom could lead an objective student to think that the school endorsed religion. Further, although students could “opt out” and leave the classroom when the statement was read, the opt-out feature could make students uncomfortable about having to choose between staying and listening to religious instruction or leaving and becoming outsiders to their classrooms. Thus, due to the wording and delivery of the statement, the court concluded that a reasonable student would view the statement as official endorsement of a religious view.
The court also found that an objective adult would believe that the ID policy was endorsement of religion due to the actions of the board in supporting the policy. During board meetings in which the policy was discussed, board members advocated for the policy in religious terms. The Board also issued a newsletter about the policy to the entire Dover community in which it discussed evolution scornfully and stated that “before Darwin, we thought a benevolent God had created us. Biology took away our status as made in the image of God.” The community clearly saw the policy as a religious one, as the large majority of letters and editorials discussing the policy addressed it in religious terms, with many community members expressing their belief that ID was a religious concept. Therefore, the court found that an objective adult would also view the school board policy as an endorsement of a religious view.
Lemon Test
In addition to the Endorsement Test, the court considered the Lemon Test and similarly found that the policy violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Lemon test finds such a violation if (1) the policy does not have a secular purpose; (2) its principal or primary effect advances or inhibits religion; or (3) it creates an excessive entanglement of the government with religion.
The court focused on the first prong, taking the history of the board’s encouragement of creationism and opposition to evolution as evidence that the policy had no secular purpose. The court found that the policy did not have a secular purpose, but instead was developed in order to advance strongly held religious views of board members. Board notes showed that at least one board member had recommended teaching creationism along with evolution in biology classes and met with teachers to express his concern about the teaching of evolution. Additionally, a biology textbook that faculty members recommended be purchased for students was not initially approved by the board because of the book’s discussion of evolution. Further, a board member burned a classroom mural depicting evolution and “demanded that the teachers agree that there would never again be a mural depicting evolution in any classroom.” In exchange for the promise, the teachers could order the desired textbook. The same board member threatened that if the ID-promoting book, Panda, was not purchased for students, “the district would not get the biology book.” The Panda books were finally donated by the Institute for Creation Research. The court concluded, due to these facts and other evidence of the religious-proclivity of the Board, that the defendants had no secular purpose in development of the ID policy. Based largely on this prong, the court held that under the Lemon Test, the ID policy violated the Establishment Clause.
In its opinion, the court issued an in depth discussion of the nature of science in order to demonstrate that ID and any “creation science” were not scientific disciplines. The court stated that it did so to “prevent the obvious waste of judicial and other resources which would be occasioned by a subsequent trial involving the same question.” Critical of the ID policy adopted by the Board, the court concluded its decision with a blistering attack on the School Board, stating that the “breathtaking inanity of the Board’s [policy] is evidence….[and resulted in] utter waste of monetary and personal resources.” The court hoped that through its lengthy discussion, future waste could be avoided.
For more information, e-mail Elizabeth Sanghavi at elizabeth.sanghavi@hklaw.com or call toll free, 1-888-688-8500.