AU complaint as filed

COMPLAINT
I. INTRODUCTION
1. On January 1, 2006, New Year’s Day, after providing barely 24 hours
notice to the community, the El Tejon Unified School District Board of
Trustees (“Board of Trustees”) approved, by a 3-2 vote, a new course —
“Philosophy of Intelligent Design” — to commence only two days later on
January 3, 2006. The class is now in its second week, and is scheduled
to run for the length of the school’s month-long intersession period,
which ends on February 3, 2006. The course was designed to advance
religious theories on the origins of life, including creationism
and its offshoot “intelligent design.” With a single, inapposite
exception, the course relies exclusively on videos that advocate
religious perspectives and present religious theories as scientific ones
— and, because the teacher has no scientific training, students are not
provided with any critical analysis of this presentation. The course
thus amounts to a patent violation of the constitutions of both the
United States and the State of California. Plaintiffs seek a temporary
restraining order and, if necessary, preliminary and permanent
injunctions, to prevent the ongoing violation.

and

On December 1, 2005, students at Frazier Mountain High School were
given, and told to share with their parents, the course descriptions for
the upcoming intersession, to begin on January 3, 2006. Among the
available courses was “Philosophy of Intelligent Design,” which was
described with a plainly pro-creationist, anti-evolution bent, as follows:

        The class will take a close look at evolution as a theory and
        will discuss the scientific, biological, and Biblical aspects
        that suggest why Darwin’s philosophy is not rock solid. This
        class will discuss Intelligent Design as an alternative response
        to evolution. Topics that will be covered are the age of the
        earth, a world wide flood, dinosaurs, pre-human fossils, dating
        methods, DNA, radioisotopes, and geological evidence. Physical
        and chemical evidence will be presented suggesting the earth is
        thousands of years old, not billions. The class will include
        lecture discussions, guest speaker, and videos. The class grade
        will be based on a position paper in which students will support
        or refute the theory of evolution.

Any more questions about the stated purpose/motives?

http://www.au.org/site/DocServer/Final_Complaint.pdf?docID=541
Received on Wed Jan 11 13:03:30 2006