A recent federal appeals court decision has cemented a policy that Texas education and science advocates call ignorant and unconstitutional. For the last three years, Chris Comer, former science curriculum director for the Texas Education Agency, has been fighting a “neutrality policy” she says advances religion over sound academic studies.

Comer first filed a lawsuit against the TEA and state education commissioner Robert Scott in 2008, saying she was fired illegally for “contravening an unconstitutional policy at the TEA,” according to Fort Worth Weekly. According to Comer and her lawyers, the TEA’s policy requiring employees to be neutral on creationism is unconstitutional because it violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution by promoting religion and treating a religious belief (creationism) as science.

In 2007, Comer resigned over an e-mail she forwarded to friends and colleagues about an upcoming lecture on evolution. She was reprimanded for violating the state’s neutrality policy, which forbids TEA employees from taking a position on subjects like evolution and creationism.

“I sent the e-mail as an ‘fyi,’ not as something formally endorsed by TEA,” Comer told Fort Worth Weekly. Comer believed in would be acceptable let her know her colleagues know about upcoming events relating to science education.

According to Fort Worth Weekly, Lizzette Reynolds, Gov. Rick Perry’s appointed TEA commissioner for statewide policy and programs, deemed the e-mail both offensive and in violation of TEA policy. Comer was told to send out a second e-mail as a disclaimer, and TEA administrators also told her to choose between being fired and quitting her job.

The recent July 2 court decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit resulted in the denial of Comer’s appeal. “Because we find no evidence to support the conclusion that the principal or primary effect of TEA’s policy is one that either advances or inhibits religion,” Circuit Judge Fortunato Benavides wrote, “we conclude that the policy does not violate the Establishment Clause. As such, we affirm the decision of the district court…”

But education and science advocates around the state still say there is some legitimacy to Comer’s claim that the neutrality policy is unconstitutional — if not plain wrong. “That kind of policy promotes ignorance,” said Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit critical of socially conservative and religious policies in public schools. “Neutrality is just a way to get around doing what [the TEA is] not supposed to be doing, which is promoting ideology that is not science.”

For Quinn and others working against what they call religious extremists, the neutrality policy requires employees to be neutral on something that is not neutral, because, as Quinn said, “It’s sort of like saying the TEA should be neutral on whether the sun revolves around the Earth or the Earth revolves around the sun…Elected officials should not use the government to promote their own religious beliefs.”

Benavides wrote in the judges’ decision, “[W]e cannot conclude that TEA’s neutrality policy has the ‘primary effect’ of advancing religion…but rather, serves to preserve TEA’s administrative role in facilitating the curriculum review process for the Board.”

Republican State Board of Education member Pat Hardy agrees with the neutrality policy since TEA staff help board members with policy recommendations and expert opinions. “It’s a good policy because the TEA staff may favor something that Texas board members don’t. It’s good to stay neutral,” she said. “We depend on their neutrality for non-biased explanations.”

She does not believe the policy violates the Establishment Clause.

Comer’s resignation occurred in the context of controversial changes by the SBOE to science and social studies curricula.

Saying the negative national attention over social studies curricula was brought about by “misinformation” among the media, Hardy defended her and other board members’ actions.

“I did it for the people in the state of Texas,” she said.

Hardy believes the policies approved by the SBOE would be accepted and taken in positively by Texas voters.

Others disagree. “[Texas voters’] views probably do reflect about 40 percent of what the state board is doing – but that doesn’t make it ethical or right,” said Steven Schafersman, a friend of Comer’s and president of Texas Citizens for Science, an organization that works to defend the accuracy and reliable of Texas science education. “They are negatively affecting academic standards.”

Schafersman, who started his organization in 1980, said there has been “a constant struggle between educators and radical religious Republicans who want to keep the misinformation continuing to students. Texas still has very poor education scores.”

(Photo: Flickr Creative Commons/dave_mcmt)