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An Arlington lawmaker has filed a bill aimed at protecting Texas college professors and students from discrimination because they question evolution.
The measure from Republican state Rep. Bill Zedler would block higher education institutions from discriminating against or penalizing teachers or students based on their research into intelligent design or other theories that disagree with evolution.
Zedler said he filed the bill because of cases in which colleges had been hostile to those who believe that certain features of life-forms are so complex that they must have originated from a higher power.
"We can have the academic freedom to have all kinds of ideas and philosophies but, lo and behold, even mention intelligent design and there are people that want to run you out of town on a rail," Zedler said.
Zedler said fear of workplace discrimination is preventing evolution critics in colleges from speaking their minds.
"I do believe there are people that want to say something but ... they're afraid to because there are people around the country that have been discriminated against," Zedler said.
Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, a watchdog group that opposes religious influence in public education, described the bill as an effort to push an ideological agenda into colleges by suggesting that intelligent design theorists are subject to persecution.
"It's kind of a broad and cynical strategy to undermine sound science at a time when our state and nation's economy depends on science to thrive," Miller said.
In January, the University of Kentucky paid $125,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit with Martin Gaskell, an astronomy professor who claimed that he was passed over for an observatory director job in part because of statements he made that were perceived as critical of evolution.
Gaskell, who recently worked in the University of Texas at Austin's astronomy program, wrote in an e-mail Thursday that he is now an astrophysics professor at Valparaiso University in Chile. Although he doesn't study intelligent design, he said those who do deserve to be protected.
"I think that it is important that the state of Texas stands firmly behind academic freedom," Gaskell said.
Aman Batheja, 817-390-7695
Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/03/17/2930659/arlington-lawmakers-bill-would.html#ixzz1HOy9isc1
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