Louisiana School's Evolution Disclaimer Fails At High Court.

In all of the hubbub over the Supreme Court's June 19 ruling about public school football prayer, a second significant action by the high court affecting church-state relations almost got lost in the media shuffle.

The same day the justices struck down the Santa Fe, Texas, school district's prayer policy, they also declined to overturn a Louisiana decision dealing with a new twist on the debate over "creation science." The case concerned a controversial anti-evolution disclaimer that the Religious Right-dominated school board in Tangipahoa Parish decreed that teachers read to students in science classes.

The statement, approved April 19, 1994, asserted that the study of evolution was "not intended to influence or dissuade the Biblical version of Creation or any other concept." It insisted that "it is the basic right and privilege of each student to form his/her own opinion or maintain beliefs taught by parents on this very important matter of the origin of life and matter."

At the behest of the Louisiana ACLU, a federal district court struck down the policy, holding that it lacked a valid secular purpose and thus ran afoul of church-state separation. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals took the same view. But that decision was appealed to the entire 15-judge panel of the 5th Circuit, sitting en banc. Earlier this year, the divided panel voted 8-7 against the disclaimer.

The Supreme Court's militant anti-separationists -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia -- were infuriated by the high court's refusal to hear Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education v. Freiler. In a six-page dissent studded with sarcasm, Scalia and his two allies insisted that the disclaimer was designed "merely to advance freedom of thought" and did not have a religious purpose.

Scalia summed up by taking a parting shot at evolution: "[T]oday we permit a Court of Appeals to push the much beloved secular legend of the Monkey Trial one step further. We stand by in silence while a deeply divided Fifth Circuit bars a school district from even suggesting to students that other theories besides evolution -- including, but not limited to, the Biblical theory of creation -- are worthy of their consideration."

Supporters of church-state separation and the teaching of standard science in public schools were appalled with Scalia's stance. They noted that undermining evolution through disclaimers and other mechanisms is the chief strategy of creationists these days, since the drive to have religious doctrine taught alongside evolution has been rejected by the courts. The leading forces behind this movement are fundamentalist ministries that oppose evolution on religious grounds.

"Scalia ignores the facts and treats scientific theory and religious faith as if they were the same thing," said Molleen Matsumura, network project director for the National Center for Science Education in El Cerrito, Calif. "But they aren't. Unfortunately, so long as even one justice writes as if there's no difference between science and religion, creationists will take it as encouragement to try to get religion into science classrooms."