Academic Freedom: Where 'Science' Is Up for Debate

The first time he testified before a committee of Louisiana legislators, Zack Kopplin was just 17 years old. In November 2010, he stood in front of a semicircle of state senators, all seated behind tables at the front of a cramped room. They were buried in the bowels of the state’s department of education building in Baton Rouge

Kopplin was there to speak against a bill that would ban biology textbooks from Louisiana classrooms — specifically, any that claimed evolution as the only theory for species diversity.

The new legislation followed the Louisiana Science Education Act, which had passed in March, 2008. That act was an “academic freedom” law, the first of its kind to pass in the United States. It allowed teachers to use “supplemental materials” alongside the textbook versions of politicized issues, such as evolution Read more...

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