Boston Sunday Globe

W.Va. teachers OK’d to answer questions about origin of life

New law opens door to religion, critics contend

- By Leah Willingham

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Republican Governor Jim Justice signed a law Friday that supporters say promotes the free exchange of ideas in science classrooms, despite objections from opponents who said the vaguely worded measure could allow for the incursion of religion into public schools.

The legislatio­n allows public school teachers to answer student questions "about scientific theories of how the universe and/or life came to exist.”

It was proposed after Republican Senate Education Chair Amy Grady, a public school teacher, said fellow educators have told her they don’t feel comfortabl­e answering questions about theories outside evolution because they don't know if doing so is permissibl­e.

Speaking to the bill on the Senate floor in January, Grady said the bill is meant to clarify how teachers can approach these situations.

“This says, ‘If a student asks you questions about a theory that they’ve read about or they’ve heard about — maybe it’s not a popular theory, but a theory — you can discuss it,’" she said.

She said the bill is “encouragin­g our students to think, encouragin­g our students to ask questions, encouragin­g our teachers to be able to answer them.”

What is unclear is what kinds of teaching would be protected by the bill, which does not define what a “scientific theory” is.

Grady proposed a bill last year that would have specifical­ly allowed intelligen­t design to be taught in public school settings. This year’s bill contained similar language when it was first proposed. It was reworked early in the legislativ­e session to remove any direct mention of intelligen­t design before even being put in front of lawmakers.

After the bill was altered, two high school students speaking in support of the bill in front of Grady’s committee said they wanted it passed so educators could have the option of offering teaching on intelligen­t design in addition to evolutiona­ry theory — not as a requiremen­t or a replacemen­t for it.

Teaching about intelligen­t design in public schools has been controvers­ial for decades.

Proponents of intelligen­t design contend that many features of life and the universe are too complex to have evolved from natural selection and must have been created by an intelligen­t designer. That designer could be, but does not have to be, identified as God. They also claim that intelligen­t design is a scientific theory.

Others have argued that intelligen­t design is just creationis­m in a new package. A federal court in Pennsylvan­ia ruled in 2005 that a public school could not require the teaching of the concept because intelligen­t design “is not science” and that it “cannot uncouple itself from its creationis­t, and thus religious, antecedent­s.”

Hurricane High School juniors Hayden Hodge and Hunter Bernard, both 16, said they are both religious but that intelligen­t design is not a religious argument and does not mention anything about God.

“I am not advocating for biblical creationis­m, or Adam and Eve, or the Muslim and Jewish narrative. This is not a biblical narrative,” Hodge said, adding later: “Why not allow teachers to offer students multiple views? Students deserve to hear multiple theories and then follow which is more reasonable.”

The National Center for Science Education said in a statement that the legislatio­n is “threatenin­g the integrity of science education in the state’s public schools.”

Aubrey Sparks, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, said the organizati­on would be watching the law’s implementa­tion closely.

If the wording of the legislatio­n is ambiguous to her, she said, it’s going to be ambiguous for teachers, students, and parents, too.

Staff is in the process of creating a portal for families to report concerns if they do see instances of religious teaching in public schools, Sparks said.

“They pass things like this to try and institutio­nalize the place of religion in public schools,” she said. “If they wanted to keep religion and public schools separate, then they wouldn’t pass laws like this one.”

When the bill passed the Senate in January, Democratic Senator Mike Woelfel said he has no problem with anyone’s religious beliefs and that as a Catholic, he thinks God created life. But he said he doesn’t think that’s something that should be taught in public schools and expressed concern that the legislatio­n could be used as a backdoor approach to do so.

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