Wheat-dogg’s world
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On the recommendations of other science bloggers, I ordered the book, The Devil in Dover: An Insider’s Story of Dogma v. Darwin in Small-Town America, by Lauri Lebo. It arrived Tuesday, and wantonly setting aside more pressing tasks, I put some jazz on and starting reading the book.

Since I already had some familiarity with the court case it narrates, the 224 pages went by quickly, and I finished it in an afternoon. [Yes, I do read fast. It’s how I survived four years at Princeton.] For a readable account of the Kitzmiller v. Dover case of 2005, I can recommend none better. Only the PBS Nova episode on the same case matches it for clarity and, yes, drama.

Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., was a watershed lawsuit involving the teaching of intelligent design in the ninth grade biology classes of the Dover, Penn., Area School District. A conservative, religiously biased school board sought to weaken the teaching of evolution in the schools by requiring teachers (all of whom refused, as it turned out) to read a four-paragraph cautionary statement about the theory of evolution, specifically mentioning Intelligent Design as another explanation for the origin of life.

Lebo’s narrative clearly lays out the religious motivations of the board members, who before hammering out the four paragraphs, had discussed in open meeting the need to bring creationism into the science curriculum. (Those same members later stated, under oath, that they had never used the creationism and accused the two reporters covering the board meetings of fabricating the statements. During the trial, however, it became clear the reporters were in fact correct.)

John Freshwater will burn crosses on students’ arms no more (see picture released by school officials to the AP, at right), at least in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He has been sacked.

On Friday, the Mount Vernon school board reviewed a 15-page investigative report on Freshwater’s actions in the classroom, and voted to dismiss the science teacher of 21 years.

Freshwater had been accused, among other things, of using a Tesla coil to burn a cross in a student’s arm, proselytizing students, teaching creationism contrary to school policy, and refusing to remove a Bible from his desk.

He and school officials still face legal action. The family of the student whose arm was burned filed a civil complaint in US District Court in Columbus last week, naming Freshwater and school officials as defendants. The law suit alleges Freshwater’s religious activities in the classroom violated the civil rights of the student, known only as John Doe.

The complaint also alleges school officials failed to reprimand Freshwater sufficiently after the arm-burning incident, and permitted him to proselytize students in class in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Freshwater, a fundamentalist Christian by all appearances, became a poster child for the so-called “war on Christianity” earlier this year when he refused to remove his copy of the Bible from his desk. Christian students in the school held rallies for his support, and a local right-wing Christianist radio commentator championed Freshwater as yet another victim of the secular war on religion. (See this story at WorldNetDaily, which quotes said commentator.)

The saga of John Freshwater, part XII …

While Freshwater’s superiors at the Mount Vernon schools dither, the family of one of his students have resorted to the all-American method of getting to the root of things — they’re suing him and the school district.

The suit claims that Freshwater violated the student’s civil rights by allegedly burning a cross into his arm with a Tesla coil and and that his superiors were negligent in not disciplining Freshwater.

The school district hired an outsider to investigate the allegations against Freshwater, an otherwise popular seventh-grade science teacher. That report is due Friday, at which time the school board will make some decision about Freshwater’s future, supposedly.

Freshwater made a name for himself earlier last year by refusing to remove his Bible from his desk. Christians loved his “Christ’s warrior” decision, but civil libertarians demurred. It then came out that Freshwater was a bit of a religious nut, proselytizing students, teaching creationism, and on at least one instance, burning a cross on a student’s arm with a Tesla coil.

That apparently woke up his superiors from their overly cautious slumber. They put an observer in his classroom while the independent investigators did their thing, and delayed any disciplinary action until the investigators filed their report.

Anyway, the lawsuit was filed in US District Court in Columbus earlier his week. I don’t have a copy of the complaint, but Ed Brayton over at ScienceBlogs does. He is as aghast at this whole mess as I am. How any teacher could be allowed to get away with this kind of malarkey defies all logic.

Meanwhile, in Mount Vernon, Ohio, a group calling itself the “Minutemen” is pushing the local school board to explain why a 7th grade science teacher cannot keep a Bible on his desk, or it will “recall” school board members.

School officials say the matter is still under consideration.

The teacher in question is John Freshwater, a popular but controversial teacher, who has refused his superiors’ demands that he remove his Bible from students’ view. Freshwater is also under investigation for allegedly burning a cross on a student’s arm, for disseminating religious literature during class, and for proselytizing students.

The Minutemen are undoubtedly affiliated with another Christian nutcase up there, “Coach” Dave Daubenmire, who quickly came to Freshwater’s support after the Bible incident. Daubenmire supports a rightwing Christian group, the Minutemen Unlimited.

In a letter to school officials, the Mount Vernon Minutemen say they will replace the school board if the school system does not announce its supports the Bible.

“Although we do not want this to be taken as a threat, we feel it is only right that we inform you that if a public statement is not made in support of the Bible by June 10 we will have no other choice than to begin a recall procedure on all members of the School Board who voted to ban the Bible from the view of the children.”

It’s easy. Take out any words suggesting a Divine Creator and replace them with words “intelligent agency” or “intelligent designer.” Then insist the new version is in a fact a science textbook that should be used in schools.

Too bad the ID crowd’s feeble attempt at subterfuge failed. Some fine detective work at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) revealed the genealogy of the new ID text, Of Pandas and People, as the center prepared briefs for the 2005 Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District legal case.

This YouTube video explains it all.

Seventh-grade science teacher John Freshwater has his supporters, but his religious agenda in the classroom has clearly not won over everyone in Mount Vernon, Ohio. At a school board meeting Monday night, he had as many friends as foes in the audience.

Freshwater made headlines several weeks ago when he refused to remove his Bible from his classroom desk. Soon, there were allegations that he was preaching religion in class, distributing creationist literature to his science students, and that he allegedly burned a cross on a student’s arm with an electrical device.

The school district has hired an independent investigator to substantiate or refute the allegations. Freshwater was allowed to continue teaching meanwhile, with an administrative observer in the classroom to monitor him.

The device he allegedly used to burn the student is in fact a hand-held Tesla coil, a staple of science education. My students have seen it in action. It can generate high voltage arcs a few centimeters long when held near a ground. While the sparks are not lethal, they can cause pinpoint skin burns that can be pretty painful. I speak from experience.

It boggles the mind why any teacher would subject a student to a potentially painful electrical arc. I tell mine to stay away from the business end of the device, even if they think they’re “tough.”

Besides, the smell of burnt flesh is not all that appealing.

Sometimes you’ve got to wonder if any Christianists have any critical thinking abilities.

Well, nevermind, I know the answer to the question already, but here’s yet more evidence that fundies “just don’t get it.”

The scene is Mount Vernon (Ohio) Middle School, where seventh-grade science teacher and Christianist John Freshwater stands accused of, among other things, proselytizing his students, burning a cross in a student’s skin, and teaching creationism against district policies. His district is investigating the charges.

It seems that some students (and parents, I’ll betcha) assume that if you’re not for Freshwater, you’re not a Christian. Or worse yet, if you’re not Christian, you can’t support him. Witness these quotes from the local newspaper:

Several comments from students and parents indicate that acceptance and religious tolerance is a one-way street for many concerned.

Beth Murdoch, whose daughter attends the middle school, is one of the parents who has expressed concerns about the sometimes hostile environment at the middle school.

“You’re either for Mr. Freshwater or you’re against Mr. Freshwater. There’s no in between,” Murdoch said. “In the kids’ minds, I think, it is just the Bible issue. And who is going to go against the Bible? Nobody. But it seems like the ‘Christians’ are using that as an excuse to gang up on the ‘atheists.’

She did nothing wrong when she outed a gay couple to the school community and their parents, according to the Memphis City schools. It was all necessary to maintain school order.

Ja, mein commandant!

The details are in the local newspaper story here. The district says it is preparing a more formal legal response to a letter the American Civil Liberties Union sent them last week.

Meanwhile, some parents want the board to take some disciplinary action against the principal, Daphne Beasley. A small but vocal contingent of parents confronted the board at its meeting Monday evening.

“I’m disgusted,” Memphis parent Natasha Burnett told Eyewitness News Everywhere. “I’m disgusted by it.”

…

“Firing her may be too harsh,” says Burnett, “but something needs to be done about that. No faculty member should be able to out a student like that.”

The students in question had just started a relationship that they were trying to keep quiet. The parents of the boys were not aware they were gay, until Beasley called the parents, outraged that they had gay children at her school.

Her actions were supposedly to quell “public displays of affection” on campus, but according to one school official students were taking PDAs to new levels.

School Board Commissioner Kenneth Whalum, Junior, says he understands the concerns of these parents, but says the principal had to take action.

“Some kids were engaged in sex acts in plain view on campus,” says Whalum, “and that wasn’t the first time.”

The attempts of the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed to blame the Holocaust on the Darwin and his theory of evolution “is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry,” the Anti-Defamation League said yesterday.

In a press release, the civil right organization accuses the makers of the anti-evolution film of misappropriating the Holocaust and its imagery to support its attempts to discredit evolution, Darwin and biologists that accept the theory.

The movie, which was released April 18, claims that Adolf Hitler used Darwinism as an excuse to murder millions of Jews, gypsies and homosexuals during the Nazi regime. Images of Nazi Germany and the concentration camps appear in the film.

The ADL’s press release says, however, “Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler’s genocidal madness.” Anti-semitism was prevalent in Germany and in Europe generally for centuries before Darwin’s The Origin of Species was published in 1859.

Meanwhile, the “star” of the movie, Ben Stein, who is himself a Jew, had the chutzpah in a recent interview on the Christian Trinity Broadcasting Network to accuse scientists of leading victims of the Holocaust to the gas chambers. Here are some excerpts, courtesy of someone with a stronger stomach than mine to tolerate such shit.

Hot on the heels of the national Day of Silence, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has notified the Memphis public schools that one of their principals violated the rights of two of her students by revealing publicly they were gay.

Daphne Beasley, the principal of Hollis F. Price Middle College High School, in September asked her staff over the school intercom to provide her the names of all “hetero and homo” couples in the school, so she could monitor public displays of affection.

She then posted the names of the students for all to see. In the process, she outed a gay couple to students, teachers and their parents. The two had just started a discreet relationship.

In the letter mailed yesterday, the ACLU charged that Beasley had violated the students’ constitutional rights to equal protection, freedom of expression and association, due process and privacy. The letter demands a response by May 9 to five demands, or the ACLU will pursue legal action.

The demands are (1) that policies be implemented to prevent similar acts in the future, (2) that the boys in question be compensated for the harm they suffered by being outed, (3) that Beasley be reprimanded, (4) that any records pertaining to the outed couple be removed from school districts records, and (5) that apologies be made to all the students on the couples list.

From Eyewitness News Channel 24 in Memphis: