Ball State University’s investigation of professor Eric Hedin continues. Hedin, you’ll recall, was accused of teaching creationism as well as proselytizing for Jesus in an undergraduate science course, and newspapers and websites continue to report and discuss the issue.
To me, the case is important because the issue of whether public universities —as opposed to public grade schools and high schools—can teach creationism or push a particular religious view has never been properly adjudicated by U.S. courts. Such proselytizing, and the teaching of intelligent design creationism (ID), has been ruled out of court in “lower level” schools as a violation of our Constitution’s First Amendment. Nevertheless, many of my fellow academics claim that the First Amendment doesn’t apply in this way to public universities. That’s because, they say, issues of academic freedom (“a professor can teach what he wants”), and the elective nature of many college courses, make the First Amendment inapplicable at the university level.
I find that opinion baffling. Many high-school courses, such as advanced placement courses, are optional too, and one can always get home schooled, yet the First Amendment still applies. It also applies at public high school sporting events, where public or student-led prayers are unconstitutional even though attendance at the games is optional.
As for academic freedom, that is not enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, nor does it mean what people like P. Z. Myers and Larry Moran think it means. It’s not a license to teach anything you want in the classroom, including astrology, spiritual healing, and creationism. Rather, it’s a license to do what research you want—a license to inquire freely in your academic career. And even that “freedom” is circumscribed, for you’re not going to get tenure at a good university doing research “proving” creationism or the efficacy of telekinesis. (Once you have tenure, of course, you can pretty much do what you want without fear of being fired.) Academic freedom is about inquiry, not about teaching. Finally, professors at public universities are, like those in all public schools, employees and agents of the state, and their speech in the classroom can be construed as government speech.
Tomorrow I’ll discuss a reviewed and published article by a legal scholar that makes exactly these points with respect to public universities. It may be an eye-opener for those who claim (without legal training or knowledge) that First Amendment principles are trumped by academic freedom in public universities.
But let me once again give my take on what I think Ball State should do. The university should 1. Remove Hedin’s honors symposium as a science class, 2. Move it, if he still wants to teach it, to a philosophy or religion curriculum, 3. Tell Hedin he has to offer more balance in his course, giving viewpoints of nonreligious scholars like Sean Carroll, Victor Stenger, or Lawrence Krauss, and 4. absolutely prohibit Hedin from pushing his personal religious views (Christianity) on his students. For the record, I do not think Hedin should be fired, but his classes should certainly be monitored. If I pushed atheism on my students the way Hedin pushes Christianity, I would deserve similar treatment.
In the meantime, writers continue to give their opinions. One is by the former Official Website Uncle™, Dr. Karl Giberson, who lost that title through dogged and unreasoning adherence to evangelical Christianity. In his new HuffPo piece on the Hedin case, “Teaching students about God and science,” he demonstrates once again why he lost his title to Eric MacDonald.
Giberson, a critic of ID, teaches classes similar to Hedin’s at his own school, Stonehill College in Massachusetts, feels that Hedin’s course is unbalanced and not a good cause célèbre for academic freedom. Giberson’s take on this is, then, reasonable:
I can hardly agree with the intelligent design folk at the Discovery Institute that this is an academic freedom case. Academic freedom is a noble, if ambiguous, concept that can be invoked in support of many things but one of those is not the freedom to tell students things that are not true. If, as the syllabus suggests, Hedin’s students are learning that the ideas of the intelligent design movement are the cutting edge of science and heralding a major revolution, there are grounds for concern. If the students leave Hedin’s class believing that the scientific community is wrestling with the proposals that have come out of the intelligent design movement, then they have been misled and poorly served. Most practicing scientists understand that their disciplines have unanswered questions and “boundaries” of some sort. But virtually none of them are looking to an external “designer” to answer these questions.
Hedin’s assigned readings and bibliography are somewhat unbalanced, although one of the two required texts is a solid popularization of conventional big bang cosmology, unadorned by theological speculation. However, were students to infer that the extensive bibliography list covers the bases for the discussion of the “Boundaries of Science” they would be mistaken. Of the roughly 20 books listed, half advocate basic intelligent design with the remainder divided evenly between books by Christians sympathetic to raising constructive questions about God in the context of science — like Keith Ward and myself — or non-theists with minority viewpoints that resonate in some way with traditional theism — like Roger Penrose and Paul Davies. Noticeably absent are genuinely critical books of the sort written by Vic Stenger, Steven Weinberg and even Jerry Coyne that address the same issues but offer informed atheistic responses.
Good for ex-uncle Karl. But he goes off the rails in two ways. First, he says that there’s no evidence that Hedin engaged in Christian proselytizing in class:
No evidence whatsoever supports Jerry Coyne’s claim that Hedin is “proseletyzing for Jesus” in his Boundaries of Science class. Coyne is notorious for pretending not to understand the difference between a philosophically motivated theism and Christian fundamentalism and has waded into this controversy with his usual blinkered culture war mentality.
That’s simply not true. There are at least three published “complaints” on RateMyProfessors.com (out of 15 total) noting Hedin’s pushing of Christianity. Note that the 15 are from of all of Hedin’s classes—and he teaches several—not just from the honors course at issue. I’ll reproduce them again for Karl’s delectation (he mentions just one of these):
Further, there are at least two other students who have written detailed complaints about Hedin’s proselytizing in the Honors class (his statements are worse than you can imagine), but haven’t yet decided whether to go public with their complaints. (You can imagine the ostracism they’d face!) I’m not at liberty to publish their statements yet, but hope that I can soon. I’ve mentioned at least one of these other complaints on my site, and I’m not lying about it, so Karl is just wrong.
As for Karl’s statement that I’m “notorious for pretending not to understand the difference between a philosophically motivated theism and Christian fundamentalism and has waded into this controversy with his usual blinkered culture war mentality,” well, that’s just mean-spirited, un-Christian for a Christian, and, worse, wrong. I certainly understand the difference between fundamentalism and “philosophically motivated theism” and have never pretended otherwise. The problem is that the latter isn’t any more respectable than the former. Indeed, in some ways it’s worse, since “philosophically motivated theism” is usually espoused by smart people who should know better and by those who, like Giberson, have science training and should know how to distinguish evidenced from nonevidenced beliefs. Really, Karl, if we’re getting personal here, let me respond that you’re a smart guy, so how can you believe all that crap?
As for “blinkered culture war” mentality (and yes, it is a culture war, involving superstition versus reason), Giberson ends with this:
Eric Hedin is an assistant science professor, popular with most of his students. He needs to get promoted to associate and then full professor. If he works hard, he will get tenured along the way. And my guess is that his interdisciplinary explorations, like those of many thinkers inclined to consider the larger context of their fields, will become more sophisticated as time passes. If not, his colleagues won’t vote him tenure. In the meantime, Ball State doesn’t need external culture warriors telling them how to run their university.
Hedin’s been an untenured professor for over a decade, and was at a religious college before that. There’s no sign of him becoming more sophisticated. His Christian-soaked syllabus in 2013 is pretty much what it was in the past.
As for BSU not needing culture warriors to oppose them, of course they do—that is, if that school wants to retain any credibility of being an academically sound institution. Were we supposed to sit back and let Hedin shove Jesus down his students’ throats, as well as presenting creationism in his science class? Well excuse me for informing Hedin’s chair (and then, when the chair did nothing, the Freedom from Religion Foundation) about his course. None of us, including the FFRF told anyone what to do—we simply informed the university of the dangers of its present course. And if they let Hedin continue his religious proselytizing in science class, they’re fools.
And if Hedin gets away with this, so can anybody else, and then it’s Christianity in science classes everywhere. As Clarence Darrow said on the second day of the Scopes trial:
Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lectures, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind.
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Here’s a lovely editorial by the benighted Ron Coody in the the Fort Wayne (Indiana) News Sentinel : “Intolerant critics of BSU prof lose scientific objectivity to an ideology.” Coody favors the “science is a religion” trope:
On the other hand, Coyne and many others in the secular academy have made science into a religion. They brazenly assert that science proves atheism. Their religion is atheism and they use their classrooms to spread their religion.
When a physicist like Dr. Hedin dares to suggest that science does not prove atheism and furthermore surmises that there are questions about truth it might never answer, the atheists assemble their inquisition.
Like the outspoken atheist biology professor at my son’s university who mocked a student one day in class for saying, “Bless you” to a friend who sneezed, they will resort to shaming, bullying, intimidation and sometimes outright deceit to promote atheism. They want to engineer an Orwellian world where no one can question the myth that modern physics and biology have proven there is no God.
These kinds of people are not only intolerant. They have lost scientific objectivity to an ideology.
I dare Coody to show where I have ever said that science proves atheism. And I dare him to show that I’ve tried to spread atheism in my classroom. Frankly, Coody is an outright liar. What I have said—and on this site and in my writings, not in my class—is that science (and rationality) has given no evidence for the existence of gods, and so I choose not to believe in them.
And what “deceit” have I, or any other BSU critic, practiced? Coody again is lying here. I always wonder if Coody and others who denigrate science for being “like religion”, or a “nonobjective ideology” have ever pondered the implications of that view for religion itself. By trying to drag science down to the level of religion, they’re implicitly criticizing religion.
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Finally, a neutral piece from The Christian Post on the Hedin affair, “Ball State University Professor Awaiting Decision for Teaching Creationism.” It does include a new quote from the Discovery Institute (ID Central):
Dr. John G. West, vice president of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, told The Christian Post that the investigation of Hedin was a matter of academic freedom.
“Prof. Hedin is an outstanding professor who has published many peer-reviewed technical articles in his field,” said West. “Contrary to published reports, there is absolutely no evidence that he teaches or even believes in ‘creationism,’ the idea that the earth was created just a few thousand years ago in 6 literal 24-hour days.”
West also told CP that he hoped Ball State would decide to “be fair and courageous and stand up for Professor Hedin’s rights.”
“State University [sic] needs to allow Prof. Hedin the same freedom it gives every other faculty member on its campus. Unfortunately, we’ve seen universities and other institutions intimidated in the past on this issue,” said West.
Three things wrong here. First, intelligent design is creationism, just not young-earth, literalist creationism. Second, and again, “academic freedom” refers to freedom of inquiry, not freedom to tell your students anything you want. And it’s also a matter of First Amendment rights. Third, I don’t know if any other BSU professor gets away with touting Jesus in the class, so West’s statement that other professors have the same “freedom” is misguided.
h/t: SGM, Amy
(Once you have tenure, of course, you can pretty much do what you want without fear of being fired.)
As Michael Behe has proved. It may well be the only thing he has ever proved.
I love the disclaimer on Behe’s departmental page. If Ball State decides to stick with Hedin, perhaps they could add a definition of science to the front page of the Physics department site.
As of yet, the dept. chairman’s views are questionable. He doesn’t seem to think there is any problem.
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.
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Frankly, Coody is an outright liar.
Yes he is, and it is unfortunate that Christians do not have some sort of moral guidance telling them that lying is wrong. If such guidance existed, perhaps posting it in all courtrooms and classrooms would educate the Christian masses about the wrongness of lying.
Yeah, something like a commandment would straighten them out!
The Coody article is a nice example of the olde ad hominem attack which is poor form even for editorials. ‘When (our side) does (something that seems reasonable and agreeable), the (other side) responds by doing (something intolerant and universally objectionable)’. No, we are not trying to engineer an Orwellian world!
Well said! Grist to begin discussion at my adozenseconds.com. I refer to such exchanges, and declarations, as “snickercrit.” –former science writer & full prof of English at SUNY.
“Academic freedom”. This is being thrown about as an argument without any understanding of what it actually means. Your definition is spot on.
Inquiry is a necessary freedom but polluting minds with patently false garbage is not.
Those who oppose this case based on “academic freedom”, have argued that if this professor is prevented from teaching a biased Christ infected course as science, we will quickly slide down a slippery slope where the state will start kicking universities around and professors will inevitably be forced to research and teach only what the state approves of.
This is the wrong slippery slope.
The evangelical (and ID) agenda is to get ID (gussied up creationism) into as many institutions as possible. As Jerry rightly points out, if Hedin is allowed to continue, what is to prevent falsehoods being taught anywhere? This is the real slippery slope!
That is one of the slopes I worry about. If this class is ok, then Pandora’s box will start to open
I think this class is proof that we are already there . The question is how many more classes like this one there are.
I’d even be fine with academics using their academic freedom to pursue the truths of religious claims…so long as their investigations are held to the same standards as everybody else’s.
Of course, they never, ever will do this — for the obvious reason that religious claims instantly vaporize the instant you investigate them with even a hint of rigor.
Hell, your garden-variety perpetual motion machine scammer puts on a more believable show than even the most sophisticated of theologians.
Cheers,
b&
Time to sue Coody for libel or defamation?
Well it will be interesting to see what David Klinghoffer quote mines next. I suspect something to the effect of “Jerry Coyne announces verdict of case before it is tried: 😀
“By trying to drag science down to the level of religion, they’re implicitly criticizing religion.”
I’ve noticed this phenomenon quite a bit during debates. It’s an unintended slip of admission involving expertise envy and the desire to have all disciplines reduced to unfalsifiable relativism.
I ‘ve heard the ‘science changes all the time therefore what is “true” now will be false in the future’ argument to make similar points a thousand times.
You can keep asserting this, but that does not make it true. It’s an opinion, and other opinions differ.
The AAUP certainly differs.
Not sure if you’ve seen or linked this opinion piece in Inside Higher Ed that also disagrees with your take.
A quick scan of that piece from the AAUP suggests that they and Jerry are on the same page.
ID most emphatically is not accepted within the discipline of astronomy (let alone biology).
Woah…major blockquote fail there…sorry!
b&
“an easy class”
I think I would have been deeply disappointed if I got a review like that.
What is sad is I’d be tempted to take the course to boost my GPA because the work seems super easy but then I’d have to work at not remembering anything from the course so as not to let it seep into actual facts.
Would you be able to keep quiet and hide your disgust? How long before you quit or were expelled?
No, no I probably wouldn’t and it would have been worse for me when I was young (as I would be if taking such a course).
Even at the community college level, I figure the proper approach is to push the students to achieve Ivy League standards and to do everything possible to get them to that level of achievement…
…but then be gentle when assigning letter grades.
Not, “be gentle when grading them.” You still want to mercilessly rip everything to shreds — how else are they supposed to know what to fix for next time?
Really, no academic class in higher education should ever be easy. If you’ve got a student who’s breezing through, at least get her to help students around her get up to her speed, and get her doing some advanced work (for extra credit or whatever). Especially the bright students deserve their full money’s worth, and that only happens when they’re working as hard as they can.
Cheers,
b&
The latest higher-ed travesty being pushed by Republicans in Wisconsin is to grant university credit for “life experience”. How’s that for easy?
These would be the same folks who argue in other contexts for more traditional learning and standardized testing, right?
They would, indeed. And the same folks who are now spreading the “voucher” system across the state so that taxpayers can foot the bill for private religion-infused schools.
They are not interested in education as you or I might understand the word.
One assumes that the “life experience” in question is not an internship or residency or the like?
Hell, I could even see giving credit for a stint in the Peace Corps or the like…so long as it was part of a well-structured course of study, preferably with something not unlike a master’s thesis as the end result. “Socio-political impacts of municipal plumbing improvements in modern agrarian societies” or the like.
But please, deer cheeses please, not “Me fall down go boom get owie.”
Cheers,
b&
The legislature just demanded that it be done in a vague way. The Universities are now trying to figure out how to comply.
“Credit for life experience” is attractive because then these bastards don’t have to pay any taxes to support public education. The right-wing think-tank members who work for the same people who own Rick Perry in Texas want to privatize the state universities there – basically, they want to hand over the publically-financed infrastructure of the state universities and the hard-won academic reputations they’ve built to “entrepreneurs” who hope to make a quick killing while cheating the students out of an education. Vulture capitalism comes to academe.
Exactly.
This could be a back-door way for Wisconsin Governor Walker to get that college degree that has always eluded him, before he runs for POTUS.
Hadn’t thought of that.
Has Hedin been interviewed or quoted in any of this?
He has refused to comment.
Such a coward… I don’t like those “hit-and-run” creationists, who are not willing to take responsibility for their actions.
Hi Jerry –
I really wish you would stop referring to nasty statements and nasty behavior as “un-Christian”.
That stuff may be contrary to what they SAY they believe, but those behaviors are actually how Christians act in the real world.
When the whole Jessica Alquist thing was going on, I just kept thinking that I couldn’t understand why the Christian kids wanted that banner to stay. It clearly wasn’t having any effect on their behavior. The outpouring of hatred and threats of violence are the REAL Christianity. L
…or, at least, dress it up in a healthy dose sarcasm.
b&
I do believe Jerry’s tongue was firmly in his cheek.
Angles and layers…
Jerry made a comment early on that helped me realize an issue about this that I had not considered before. In K-12 there are clear (but leaky) prohibitions against religious invocations during school, or at school sporting events and graduation. What about universities? Do universities routinely invoke prayer events at graduation? I am an academic, but it has been over 15 years since I have attended the ceremony.
Btw, I am formally known as ‘Marcoli’. The picture there is what I really look like with my ape mask off.
Sadly, convocation prayers occur. I don’t recall prayers at mine (and I’d remember because I would’ve been annoyed) but looks like University of Windsor in Ontario had some and they were stopped: http://ubyssey.ca/news/cup-wire-atheism564/
Canada doesn’t count. 😉
Ha ha because we’re Soviet Canukistan. 😀
Someone actually once said to me (not in jest) during a political argument, “Go back to France, commie!” Which is funny on many levels.
But Ontario – birthplace of Neil Young – does (:
The new Chancellor at UW-Milwaukee had magic prayers included as part of his installation ceremony.
I’d be all for that sort of thing…
…if it was the SCA doing the praying, and if they picked the deities being prayed to by throwing darts at a wall.
And, no, of course not. The deities wouldn’t be limited to those popular in Europe in the middle ages….
Cheers,
b&
See, this is what can be a concern. Universities have various established practices where religious observances are openly allowed to occur. One can count the various precedents for why the Hedin course is a first amendment violation, but that needs to be balanced by evidence that, in precedence, universities are allowed to be an exception.
but that needs to be balanced by evidence that, in precedence, universities are allowed to be an exception.
An invocation at an installation ceremony is hardly the equivalent of a college course evangelizing Christianity under the guise of science. Invocations are permissable at all sorts of public ceremonies, up to and including the installation of the President of the United States. It has nothing to do with universities being allowed an exception to the First Amendment.
Indeed, they’re not unlike all sorts of other colorful anachronisms we live with, especially inside academia, especially this time of year. There’re the robes, the funky hats, the blackletter text on diplomas, lots of “whereas”es sprinkled throughout proclamations, all that sort of stuff.
But college credit for an elaborate denial of biology so basic it’s as fundamental as heliocentricism? That’s a whole different matter, and not at all ceremonial.
Cheers,
b&
Equivalent? Certainly the scale is different. But it is no less wrong. Public officials, and the Chancellor of a state university certainly is one, should not insert their religion into their official activities.
Nor should the President of the United States.
At some point, scale matters.
You might find it objectionable to the President closing an address with, “…and may God bless America.” But would you object to “…so thank you, America, and goodbye for now”? Probably not, and yet “goodbye” is but a contraction for “God be wi’ ye.”
Reflexive social utterances like that are homeopathic dilutions of religion. With one or two notable exceptions, a President closing a speech with “God bless America” is no more asking for YHWH to help him get his wife pregnant than you’re wishing a divine walking companion upon those departing your presence.
The actual prayers before legislative sessions are a bit more troublesome, some more than others. They’re especially problematic when one sect monopolizes them or when some class of citizens gets excluded. But those sorts of problems tend to get corrected, and most of the rest of the time they’re not much different from singing Christmas carols in december or exchanging candy in the springtime.
Cheers,
b&
“Goodbye” does not, in modern English, have a religious component. The principle here is not that we need to change our language but that it is inappropriate in a secular society for believers to roll their deities into their official public activities.
Having a priest come in to bless you and all present when you take on a new job in the public sector is out of line. It is not a reflexive event. It is not equivalent to a believer blurting out “Jesus Christ” when you hit your thumb with a hammer.
Again, it’s a matter of scale and context.
If you have the local high school marching band playing something, and if you have a poet reading something, and if you have a local businessman giving a speech, and other members of the community doing their things…well, religious people are members of the community and, in principle, I don’t object to them doing their thing as part of the general community celebrations that accompany the installation of a new administration.
It’s when the preachers start talking on behalf of the state, or that the state starts talking on behalf of the churches, that you get into real trouble.
What we tend to see are abuses of privilege. I wouldn’t on absolute grounds object to public student prayers in schools. The problem is that such are so transparently an effort to do an “end run” around the official school prayers that had just been banned. If there had been a long tradition of schools giving an open microphone to some deserving and / or random student at the start of class, it wouldn’t be a problem when the Jesus freak students freaked on Jesus, so long as sane students also got their turn and didn’t get their Jesus freak on. But we know that even that sort of thing would quickly get perverted in today’s environment into an official state-ordered religious exercise, so the godbots have spoiled that for everybody.
There are similar problems with the practice of prayers at public functions, but the worst of such abuses have, for the most part, been tamed to the point of reflex baroque ceremony.
Cheers,
b&
You surprise me here, Ben. I see all the Christian incursions into civic & political life as indefensible privileging.
Some say that since we’re now all so used to it, the very recent addition of God to the pledge of allegiance and on our currency is too pro forma to worry about. But the fundies seize on every bit of this as proof of our Christian-nation status. The same is true of “ecumenical” invocations, prayer breakfasts, etc. We need to oppose the little stuff because it adds up to the big stuff. I thought you were always the Overton window guy…
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Diane, I’m trying to squeeze the Window from both ends, actually.
Of course, I’d oppose any expansion of religion into secular life.
But we also have a great deal of religion already present in secular life. Realistically, that’s not going away.
But it is being increasingly marginalized. How much of Christmas is about the Nativity, and how much is about getting malled? How much of Easter is the glorification of the crucifixion, and how much about overdosing on chocolate?
The more we can de-fang the religion we’re stuck with, the better.
When “Christmas” as the name of a day carries little more significance of “Christ Jesus” than “Thursday” does of “Thor” or “January” of “Janus,” we’ve won.
If we can just get to the point that Rep. Smith is in the regular rotation for the Arizona Legislature’s opening “prayer,” that’s basically a Pareto solution. The religious purpose of the “prayer” is gone, and it’s just an opportunity for members to offer some personal contemplative words at the start of the session — hardly anything anybody can object to, and also nothing to do with state establishment of Jesus.
Cheers,
b&
Well, I can object to it. I’ve no need for anyone else’s pieties, just because people like to hear themselves talk.
I get you, I just disagree with you. But not about that endpoint being far more likely than the one I’d prefer.
You know what?
Our best chances for success probably lie in people who feel like you objecting outright and people like me trying to marginalize into banality that which is objectionable.
Cheers,
b&
P.S. Ask me again next week and I may well object. No promises about the week after, though…. b&
Integrated Pest Management works for me. 😀
And yes, some days I’m a bit more tolerant myself. I talk a good game, though.
Mom’s second degree from UC Berkeley was in IPM, actually….
b&
Interesting and impressive.
(Srsly!)
Yeah…I’m pretty proud of her. She did it when I started school, myself, too….
b&
… it is inappropriate in a secular society for believers to roll their deities into their official public activities.
Of course, this is exactly right. Unfortunately, though, America is a secular society in name only. Religious privilege pervades this society, backed by the state with the legal system, to an astonishing degree. For a secularist, about all that’s left is to fight these backwater skirmishes, to keep the ten commandments out of our face, for instance, or to keep religion from being taught as science. Beyond that, we have to look generations down the road.
“Philosophically motivated theism” is the undercover name for fundamentalist Christianity. The Ball State professor is evangelizing, pure and simple. He is using his course to get around the restrictions against preaching in the public classroom. Yes, a rose by any other name is still a rose.
It is the same as calling creationism “intelligent design”, only “philosophically motivated theism” sounds less stupid.
However, the whole concept is (philosophically) dubious. If we would take literally, it’s a meaningless phrase. What is not-philosophically motivated theism? Although I realize that theism is mostly psychologically motivated, one should present rational argument for this particular position, which would make in essence all theism philosophically motivated.
The only reason I can came up with, to use this term, is to emphasized it is not politically motivated. However, this would be Orwellian.
Jerry, I think your characterization of PZ’s argument about academic freedom is not completely correct. He doesn’t argue that “academic freedom” legally trumps the First Amendment, and thus that, as you post above, “issues of academic freedom […] make the First Amendment inapplicable at the university level”.
He does argue that this is not a First Amendment issue because of “the elective nature” of the course, but the issue of academic freedom is separate from whether this is actually a First Amendment violation.
In all this kerfluffle, I think it’s important to be precise in the arguments, as relevant specifics can get lost in the shuffle.
PZ is smart enough to know that the elective nature of the course is entirely irrelevant.
It’s hard to get more elective than after-hours sporting events, and even there students aren’t permitted to volunteer to pray over the PA system.
A paid professor teaching inelegant design creationism in a for-credit astronomy class is so far to the other side of that spectrum that PZ really makes himself look as idiotic as the Hamster himself in taking that position.
b&
Perhaps, but that wasn’t my point, which instead was that saying PZ argues that the First Amendment doesn’t apply because of “academic freedom” is a mischaracterization.
In high schools — as far as I know, these issues have never been adjudicated for universities and colleges, where individuals are presumed to have far more choice as to where they attend. I’m not saying that there aren’t FA issues in university, just that there may indeed be real legal differences between the two situations.
I don’t get this argument, either.
Can you (or PZ if you’re just playing Cthulhu’s advocate) name even one other instance where the voluntary nature of the religious endorsement is in any way relevant to First Amendment considerations? It’s sure not part of the Lemon test.
Indeed, the only ones I generally hear saying, “well, stick your fingers in your ears if you don’t like what you’re hearing” on First Amendment issues are those advocating for state religious endorsement. Blows my mind that PZ would find any more merit in that bullshit than in “teech teh contr0v3rsi!
Cheers,
b&
Well Ben, I’m not defending PZ’s argument, merely pointing out that Jerry’s characterization of it is incorrect.
That said, with regards to your question, I wonder if military chaplains are an example? They are government employees who promote an explicitly religious viewpoint, but presumably are acceptable precisely because military staff are not required to use their services.
(To be clear, I don’t think it’s an example that’s directly relevant to the Hedin case.)
It was my understanding that military chaplains are required to be pan-denominational and are forbidden from proselytizing, and that they’re there to provide a service to those in the military who seek them out.
Are there abuses of the chaplaincy? I’m sure.
But we guarantee the free exercise of religion, and many religions require an authority figure of some kind for proper expression. Since those in the military have no other alternative — they can’t just pop down to the corner godhouse for regular self-abnegation — it’s not an unreasonable accommodation to provide for such access for those who require it in the pursuit of their own First Amendment expression.
Cheers,
b&
Speaking of military chaplains…. the subject was recently in the news because Congress blocked efforts to allow humanist chaplains.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/atheist-chaplains-worm-food_n_3393122.html
I wonder if military chaplains are an example?
There are strict regulations governing military chaplains, for instance, proselytizing is forbidden. Discussing and sharing religious faith with a willing audience is allowed, but pushing religious beliefs on a captive audience or on those who don’t want to hear it is a form of harassment and is forbidden. Punishments can range up to and including court martial. Chaplains take an oath to defend the Constitution, including no government establishment of religion.
One of the reasons that we have long had military chaplains on the Armed Services’ payroll — despite Madison’s objections — is that General Washington started the practice during the Revoluntary War . . . before we had the Constitution or a Bill of Rights. Never underestimate the power of bad habits or one-off, ad hoc decisions once they have calcified or petrified into “traditions.”
IMHO, Jerry has a much better understanding of the legal issues and the very limited relevance of “academic freedom” than PZ does here.
If Ball State’s actions in permitting Hedin to teach an elective “science” course full of Christian proselytizing and apologetics (and with a stacked deck of creationist or ID “resources”) were a violation of the Establishment Clause – and, and as a lawyer, I remain unconvinced that it is a violation – then Hedin’s “academic freedom” would not be a legal defense.
“Academic freedom” tends to come up in cases where the public university does what is clearly within its rights – to exercise some quality control over what professors teach through employee discipline and decisions about hiring, firing and promotion. The professor waves the flag of “academic freedom” in defense, and as noted in previous threads here on WEIT, the universities have won in the few cases that have culminated in published court opinions or orders (Bishop v. Aronov and the Hawaii District Court case mentioned, I think, by Victor Stenger).
The “First Amendment” is multi-part and multifaceted. University teachers can have considerable “academic freedom” and religious liberty under the Free Exercise Clause, but still be constrained, as their university employers are constrained, by the Establishment Clause and by the right of private, public, and quasi-governmental actors to put reasonable time-place-and-manner restrictions on the “free speech” of teaches, students, or others.
The content or presentation of an elective university-level course can be legally wrong without being unconstitutional, and without raising a constitutional or Bill-of-Rights issue. I don’t see an Establishment Clause violation here – yet – and as I’ve commented before, I think it would be a mistake for any student or organization to sue Ball State and rely heavily or solely on an Establishment Clause violation claim. It should be easier to demonstrate that Ball State has recklessly or perhaps knowingly misrepresented the content of Hedin’s course, and thereby misled and damaged students who have taken the course.
The best result here would be for Ball State to do what Jerry and the FFRF have urged the University to do, and keep this “case” out of federal court . . . unless Prof. Hedin were to be foolish enough to sue for “violation” of his “academic freedom.” Then, I expect that Ball State would pull out all the stops and prsent a vigorous defense.
Sorry about the italic close-formatting fail.
We already know that Hedin’s course would be blatantly unconstitutional in pre-college schools; it’s exactly the same as what was going on in Dover.
Since none of the age limits in the Constitution are even vaguely applicable to this case, I am completely at a loss to see how it could therefore be concluded that it’s constitutional to preach religion in the public university but not in the public high school.
And if you’re going to again raise the “voluntary participation” canard, may I remind you of all those other cases where even students are prohibited from volunteering to pray at voluntary after-school events for voluntary non-credit extracurricular activities? “Voluntary participation” is perhaps the reddest herring in this whole can of kippers.
Cheers,
b&
Ben,
The legal tests (and the sporulating case law that attempts to apply the tests) are a mess . . . especially the Lemon test. That test was originally formulated to analyze state statutes, other state and local laws, and state and local government agency actions for Establishment Clause violations. The Lemon test doesn’t mention compulsion or coercion, but in cases involving state statutes or state or local agency action, some coercion or compulsion is presumed. Example: In successful cases involving public courthouse displays of the Ten Commandments (e.g., ACLU v. McCreary County), citizens who must enter the courthouse for jury duty or other public business could not avoid encountering and seeing the display.
It’s unfortunately a fact that there are no reported court decisions (and I’ve looked, believe me) in which a state-supported public university has been held to be an “arm of the state” or a state actor to the same degree as a public primary or secondary school for purposes of Establishment Clause violations. This is at least as important a consideration as the elective or non-elective nature of a university course (Elective vs. non-elective should not dispose of the issue either way).
I’m looking forward to reading the article or analysis from a legal scholar (which Jerry has said he will post), and I’m prepared to learn something new, as always. But I’ll be surprised if this scholar presents any existing, clear authority for the idea that Ball State’s refusal to act (to make Hedin change his course content or move his course out of the science school) would be unconstitutional state action in violation of the Establishment Clause.
One has to wonder if the same “academic freedom” argument would be made in the case of a faculty member relying on Shakespeare sonnets to teach biochemistry.
First, I think Hedin’s “easiness” rating is very disconcerting. Giving student “extra credit” just for “showing up” is an inane practice. Student are not well-served by instructors who literally grease the student up to slide through their course.
Secondly, I believe JC’s third point(“Tell Hedin he has to offer more balance in his course, giving viewpoints of nonreligious scholars like Sean Carroll, Victor Stenger, or Lawrence Krauss..” is ill-advised. Like the wording of the Lemon Test, this stipulation sets up an innate number of problems that pollutes everything and ultimately benefits only the lawyers.
Lemon Test points #2 and #3:
2. The government’s action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
3. The government’s action must not result in an “excessive government entanglement” with religion.
The arguments about what is “primary” and “excessive” are endless and have done little other than keep an endless stream of morons cluttering the courts with an endless number of attempts to tear down the Church/State wall.
” Giving student “extra credit” just for “showing up” is an inane practice.”
I find that disturbing, too. It may have been the Friday before Spring Break, but it’s still a scheduled class session that ALL students should show up for.
Ex-uncle Giberson flunks it again. He says that this is not a question of academic freedom. He says that Hedin’s colleagues won’t allow his academic promotion unless he sophisticates (sexes) up his message that science provides evidence of the existence of his Creator God. Mmm, isn’t that a self-contradiction? Why, yes, so it is. It’s OK for his colleagues to tell him he’s going nowhere fast if he doesn’t stop teaching that junk is science. But it’s not OK for outsiders to ask serious questions of Ball State as to what they are up to. Giberson does admit that he is just guessing, however.
That just sucks.
Coody is free to initiate an action to get educational authorities to obey the Constitution and stop foisting religion on students… yeah, that science religion stuff. Unconstitutional and all.
And so to the merry old Institute for Taking the Micky, aka Intelligent Design Institute, aka Discovery Institute. There is evidence that Hedin has let it be known to his students that he doesn’t believe in evolution. There’s also a number of old earth creation sources in his reading list. These two facts lead one to conclude that Hedin is very likely seriously misleading his students about evolutionary science as understood by the scientific world outside of young and old world creationism and the DI itself. Which is to say the real scientific world.
Much to think about here, as in all cases of delimiting behavior.
I tried to come up with a scenario where some fringe subject (i.e. potentially viable, as opposed to creationism) could be lectured on under academic freedom in order to support research, but I couldn’t think of any. So the above seems like a robust definition.
Whatever you think about what science have or haven’t shown in relation to what religion claims empirically, it is only by making a theological claim that you can assert that.
Either you claim that somehow showing something on religious empirical claims specifically makes something else a religion. But that privileges religion, on no ground whatsoever.
Or you claim that something other than religion can never show something on religious empirical claims, i.e. NOMA. But again that privileges religion, on no ground whatsoever.
Every time we see a theological claim, we can see that it doesn’t pass the smell test. Simplest by exchanging the subject with “astrology” (if it is negative to science) or “smoking” (if it claims science is negative to religion):
‘On the other hand, Coyne and many others in the secular academy have made science into a religion. They brazenly assert that science proves astrology is wrong.’
‘On the other hand, Coyne and many others in the secular academy have made science into a religion. They brazenly assert that science proves smoking is dangerous.’
Dear religion, what is your evidence? What makes you so specially privileged? And do you really think it is healthy to think of yourself in that way?
As a grad student I have oft been reminded about academic integrity. This is an aspect of Hedin’s instruction that is being overlooked. Most institutions that I have looked at refer to academic integrity in the context of student behavior. That position is skewed rather badly.
Academic integrity is a TWO-WAY street. Ball State seems not to have embraced that idea. There is an unspoken trust in professors, by students, that the information we are exposed to is accurate, and the best interpretation of current information.
Dear University Professors, academic freedom does not discharge your responsibility to me and my fellow students to provide current, accurate, and the best interpretations of current information. As a student I am appalled that any of you would argue that academic freedom trumps integrity. What you forget is with that freedom comes the responsibility to uphold the high ethical standards of academic conduct. That includes the honest and truthful presentation of information by you, to your students.
There are institutions whose definitions I think are more balanced and relevant to Hedin’s classes. Let me offer just one.
University of California, Davis-
Hedin’s courses, from what I can glean, violate student trust and corrupt academic integrity.
Apologies for the length, but I had to say it. This has been bugging me from the beginning.
+1
Surprised this even needs to be said; but apparently it does, and you said it very well.
So, evolution will be taught in church, along with fallacies, logical thinking and a definition of science including theory!
Also all the above will be Compulsory before being accepted as Tutor.
“… science (and rationality) has given no evidence for the existence of gods, and so I choose not to believe in them.”
Choose? Surely not: there you stand, you can no other.
In that case your complaint is invalid as there was also no way to not choose the word “choose” either.
Do you dislike the thought of no free will because it is uncomfortable to you or do you know of a mechanism that would generate free will within the brain but haven’t been able to discuss it yet?
The workings of the brain can theoretically access and evaluate all the stored information that it has been exposed to but, the output would be the result of the state of the brain, not the state of the brain plus some unaffected self.