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Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), was a unanimous landmark United States Supreme Court case that invalidated an Arkansas statute prohibiting the teaching of human evolution in the public schools. The Court held that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits a state from requiring, in the words of the majority opinion, "that teaching and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any religious sect or dogma." The Supreme Court declared the Arkansas statute unconstitutional because it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. After this decision, some jurisdictions passed laws that required the teaching of creation science alongside evolution when evolution was taught. The Court also ruled these laws were unconstitutional in the 1987 case, Edwards v. Aguillard.
The status of creation and evolution in public education has been the subject of substantial debate and conflict in legal, political, and religious circles. Globally, there are a wide variety of views on the topic. Most western countries have legislation that mandates only evolutionary biology is to be taught in the appropriate scientific syllabuses.
Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins is a controversial 1989 school-level supplementary textbook written by Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon, edited by Charles Thaxton and published by the Texas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE). The textbook endorses the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design – the argument that life shows evidence of being designed by an intelligent agent which is not named specifically in the book, although proponents understand that it refers to the Christian God. The overview chapter was written by young Earth creationist Nancy Pearcey. They present various polemical arguments against the scientific theory of evolution. Before publication, early drafts used cognates of "creationist". After the Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court ruling that creationism is religion and not science, these were changed to refer to "intelligent design". The second edition published in 1993 included a contribution written by Michael Behe.
The "Teach the controversy" campaign of the Discovery Institute seeks to promote the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design as part of its attempts to discredit the teaching of evolution in United States public high school science courses. Scientific organizations point out that the institute claims that there is a scientific controversy where in fact none exists.
Educational Research Analysts is an organization based in Longview, Texas, United States, founded by Mel and Norma Gabler to monitor public school textbooks. The organization reviews books to locate factual errors and to promote a conservative Christian point of view, offering preference to textbooks which, for example, promote sexual abstinence rather than contraception and firearms safety rather than gun control. They launched the organization in 1961 from their kitchen table in tiny Hawkins in Wood County in east Texas, after having begun to review textbooks assigned to their son. Many of the books that the Gablers have given high ratings have been adopted by the Texas State Textbook Committee. If a school district wishes textbooks with other viewpoints than those approved by the state committee, it must fund such materials from its own resources.
Christian Heritage Academy (CHA) is a private Christian school located in Del City, Oklahoma, United States. Established in 1972, CHA instructs its students in an American Christian philosophy of education through the Principle Approach methodology. Enrollment includes students from grades pre-Kindergarten through twelve.
The intelligent design movement has conducted an organized campaign largely in the United States that promotes a pseudoscientific, neo-creationist religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes centering on intelligent design.
A controversy in the US state of California concerning the portrayal of Hinduism in history textbooks began in 2005. The Texas-based Vedic Foundation (VF) and the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF), complained to California's Curriculum Commission, arguing that the coverage in sixth grade history textbooks of Indian history and Hinduism was biased against Hinduism; points of contention included a textbook's portrayal of the caste system, the Indo-Aryan migration theory, and the status of women in Indian society.
Anti-Hindu sentiment, sometimes also referred to as Hinduphobia, is a negative perception, sentiment or actions against the practitioners or religion of Hinduism. It exists in many contexts in many countries, often due to historical conflict. There is also scholarly debate on what constitutes Hinduphobia in the Western World.
The Kanawha County Textbook War, also known as the Kanawha County Textbook Controversy, was a violent school control struggle in the 20th century United States. It led to the largest protests ever in the history of Kanawha County, West Virginia, the shooting of one bystander, and extended school closings. The controversy erupted in 1974 when new, multicultural textbooks were introduced that some parents considered blasphemous.
The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS) is a conservative nonprofit organization that promotes the use of its 300-page Bible curriculum, The Bible in History and Literature, in public schools throughout the United States.
Islam is the largest religion in Morocco, with more than 99% of the population adhering to it. The largest subset of Muslims in Morocco are Maliki Sunni; other numerous groups include practitioners of Zahirism and non-denominational Muslims. Islam is the nation's state religion. Blasphemy against Islam is a punishable offense.
Pakistan studies curriculum is the name of a curriculum of academic research and study that encompasses the culture, demographics, geography, history, International Relations and politics of Pakistan. The subject is widely researched in and outside the country, though outside Pakistan it is typically part of a broader South Asian studies or some other wider field. Several universities in Pakistan have departments and research centers dedicated to the subject, whereas many independent research institutes carry out multidisciplinary research on Pakistan Studies. There are also a number of international organizations that are engaged in collaborative teaching, research, and exchange activities on the subject.
This timeline of intelligent design outlines the major events in the development of intelligent design as presented and promoted by the intelligent design movement.
Christina Castillo Comer is the former Director of Science in the curriculum division of the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Comer spent nine years as the Director of Science until she resigned on November 7, 2007. Comer's resignation has sparked controversy about agency politics and the debate to teach evolution in public schools versus creationism or intelligent design.
"Strengths and weaknesses of evolution" is a controversial phrase that has been proposed for public school science curricula. Those proposing the phrase, such as the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), Don McLeroy, purport that there are weaknesses in the theory of evolution and in the evidence that life has evolved that should be taught for a balanced treatment of the subject of evolution. The scientific community rejects that any substantive weaknesses exist in the scientific theory, or in the data that it explains, and views the examples that have been given in support of the phrasing as being without merit and long refuted.
Abeka Book, LLC, known as A Beka Book until 2017, is an American publisher affiliated with Pensacola Christian College (PCC) that produces K-12 curriculum materials that are used by Christian schools and homeschooling families around the world. It is named after Rebekah Horton, wife of college president Arlin Horton. By the 1980s, Abeka and BJU Press were the two major publishers of Christian-based educational materials in America. Its books have been criticized for lack of academic rigor and misinformation on scientific and historical subjects.
The Pakistani textbooks controversy refers to claimed inaccuracies and historical denialism. The inaccuracies and myths promote religious intolerance and Indophobia and lead to calls for curriculum reform. According to the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Pakistan's school textbooks have systematically inculcated anti-Indian discrimination through historical omissions and deliberate misinformation since the 1970s.
Book censorship is the removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary, artistic, or educational material on the grounds that it is objectionable according to the standards applied by the censor. The first instance of book censorship in what is now known as the United States, took place in 1637 in modern-day Quincy, Massachusetts. While specific titles caused bouts of book censorship, with Uncle Tom’s Cabin frequently cited as the first book subject to a national ban, censorship of reading materials and their distribution remained sporadic in the United States until the Comstock Laws in 1873. It was in the early 20th century that book censorship became a more common practice and source of public debate. Throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries there have been waves of attempts at widespread book censorship in the US. Since 2022, the country has seen a dramatic increase of attempted and successful censorship, with a 63% rise in reported cases between 2022 and 2023, including a substantial rise in challenges filed to hundreds of books at a time. In recent years, about three-fourths of books subject to censorship in the US are for children, pre-teenagers, and teenagers.
In American schools, the Genesis creation narrative was generally taught as the origin of the universe and of life until Darwin's scientific theories became widely accepted. While there was some immediate backlash, organized opposition did not get underway until the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy broke out following World War I; several states passed laws banning the teaching of evolution while others debated them but did not pass them. The Scopes Trial was the result of a challenge to the law in Tennessee. Scopes lost his case, and further U.S. states passed laws banning the teaching of evolution.
References
- ↑ Provenzo, Eugene F. (1990). Religious Fundamentalism and American Education: The Battle for the Public Schools. SUNY Press. pp. 32–. ISBN 978-0-7914-0217-7.
- 1 2 3 History, Katie Gaddini / Made by (November 13, 2024). "The Woman Who Gave Today's Book-Banning Moms a Blueprint". TIME. Retrieved November 30, 2024.
- 1 2 Holley, Joe (December 23, 2004). "Textbook Activist Mel Gabler, 89". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved November 18, 2021.
- 1 2 Martin, Douglas (August 1, 2007). "Norma Gabler, Leader of Crusade on Textbooks, Dies at 84" . New York Times . Retrieved November 18, 2021.
