Parents of Cobb County, Georgia school students have won a victory in a settlement reached yesterday in their long-running federal lawsuit challenging anti-evolution stickers placed in biology textbooks. The stickers read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered." The case was awaiting retrial in Georgia federal district court after the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals last May reversed the original trial court decision in favor of the parents, largely on evidentiary grounds. (See prior posting.)
Yesterday's consent judgment and order (press release and full text) in Selman v. Cobb County School District, prohibits Cobb County schools from restoring the disclaimer stickers (which have already been removed) or similar warnings in science textbooks. It also prohibits any other oral or written disclaimers, or the redacting of material on evolution in science textbooks. The school district has also agreed to pay a portion of plaintiffs' attorneys fees, amounting to $166,659. The settlement is discussed in a release from the National Center for Science Education.
Today's Atlanta Journal Constitution reports on rections from both sides. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State praised the settlemen. On the other hand, Cobb county parent Larry Taylor said: "It's terrorist organizations like the ACLU that are hijacking our country's educational system by imposing their own secular agenda on the rest of us."
The settlement comes as today marks the one-year anniversary of the widely-publicized Kitzmiller decision in which a Pennsylvania federal judge held that a disclaimer read to public school students promoting intelligent design as an alternative to evolution violates the Establishment Clause. A release by the Discovery Institute-- the chief proponent of intelligent design-- tries to put the best face on the anti-evolution movement's losses.
