SQJ Taipei

Arron Chambers at My Lord and My Blog links to this article about the University of California denying course credit for high school students from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution.

The hypocrisy is astounding. As Arron points out…

. . . and Creationists are supposed to be the ones who are close-minded?

Isn’t public education today all about being exposed to a variety of ideas, not about cramming one idea down a student’s throat . . . mind?

Yeah… that’ll be the day…

The funniest part (for me) is the grounds in which the judge ruled against the religious discrimination and free expression charges brought against UC by the students involved…

U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC’s review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts - not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking.

If those are legitimate reasons (the part I made bold in the quote above) for disallowing course credit… I’d venture to say that almost *ALL* high school and most college credit “earned” these days is in danger of being disallowed. lol

Actually… if the reporting is accurate and if the UC review committees are telling the truth about their motivations… rejecting certain texts is probably unavoidable in today’s public education environment. I’m neither bothered nor surprised by the decision although I wish there were more academic freedom regarding origin science.

I’d need to read the specific texts in question to render my own opinion about whether they should be rejected or not… so this post isn’t really about this specific example… but the environment in general.

My prediction: the kids from the schools using the texts in question will take additional courses… make the grade… meet the stricter requirements… head off to university… and have stellar college careers, even excelling in courses covering topics they academically disagree with. You probably won’t hear much complaining from them as they shrug off these small and temporary setbacks on their way to doing good in the world. They’ll be better off for this early exposure to the lack of academic freedom.