Submitted to a Candid World

“Christian education” has fallen from its former medieval grandeur - where Christian research of the classics was the only education - to become little more than a way of training the next generation of culture warriors and attaching the appropriate intellectual blinders, rather than broadening students’ minds (intensely footnoted… starting here).¹

The University of California system - wisely sensing this problem - recently refused to give college credit for classes at “Christian” secondary schools that focused .  Unsurprisingly, they (the Association of Christian Schools International, and Calvary Chapel Christian Schools) sued, claiming violations of various first amendment freedoms.  This past week, they lost, to the chagrin of many.

Here’s why, and here’s what the judge got right.²  As always, skip to the rant if you please.

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The Law

Plaintiffs (ACSI and CCCS, respectively) claimed violations of their right to the free exercise of religion, a claim that had been tossed out on partial motion for summary judgment earlier this year.³

The substance of the remaining claim - already colored by typical creationist deception, for which they justly suffered⁴ - revolved around the free speech clause.  Remember, that little clause isn’t just about censorship.  It’s about making sure the government doesn’t advocate a viewpoint above others.⁵

Of course, there’s viewpoints, and then there’s viewpoints.  Government may promulgate “content-neutral,” objective standards of excellence, and only give money to speech acts (art, etc.) that are “excellent,” so long as ideology doesn’t obviously play a role.⁶  Just so, the government can (rationally) promote a curriculum of excellence by its universities and force schools to meet those standards. While government discrimination against political viewpoints are strictly scrutinized, attempts to promulgate content-neutral standards of excellence are upheld so long as they’re rational… with deference to the faculty in academic matters.⁷

Thus, the plaintiffs could argue viewpoint discrimination, or irrational content-neutral discrimination.  They would have argued the former - that the government (the University of California system) impermissibly disfavored the Christian “viewpoint” by punishing learnéd Christians⁸ - …except they accidentally waived that argument (oops!), forcing them to fight the comparatively uphill battle of proving the University’s standards “irrational,” with the presumption going to the faculty.  This is especially problematic, because the Christian classes look more like a blog or a Ray Comfort book than a curriculum:

• English (”Christianity and Morality in American Literature”): lacking any full-length literature in the course syllabus, the class rather drew from “excerpts” and told students the proper conclusion to draw from the readings, “a combination [that] contradicts the emphasis on analytical and critical thinking.”⁹
• History (”Christianity’s Influence on America”): after first portraying the Bible as “inerrant” history - no questions asked! - faculty and expert witnesses concluded that “students will have little opportunity to exercise independent judgment, to sharpen their critical thinking skills, or to consider multiple perspectives of those who made our history.”  That’s right - the history class, oddly, omitted minorities & women.  Huh.¹⁰
• Government (”Special Providence: Christianity and the American Republic”) & World Religions: are we sensing a theme?  The classes comprised of little more than talking points, and in the former, “defendants could not confirm that the proposed text existed.”¹¹  Oops!
• Science (”Biology: God’s Living Creation”): guess the objection here.  Yep.  That’s it.  Let’s jump right to the quote.  The course’s “problem is not…that the creationist view is taught…. but that the nature of science, the theory of evolution, and critical thinking are not taught adequately.”¹²  For creationist Christians, science is not a discipline: it’s a battlefield, where the only discipline is in the footsoldiers.  Brainwashing is not learning.

As you can imagine, where your courses intermittently lack textbooks, or amount to spoon feeding an ideology, it’s hard to argue that your school is being “irrationally” suppressed.  If your students aren’t learning to think for themselves, it’s reasonable for them to be passed over.

The Rant

Over the past eight years, we ought to have grown accustomed to seeing religion pled as a defense to ignorance.  Bush’s no-condom AIDS policy towards Africa, at best, failed to save lives - at worst, it endangered more.  Normally, such incompetence could hardly be tolerated.  But for Bush, it’s excused - nay, lauded! - because his failures rest on faith.

Excusing foolish policy choices because of their foundation in faith is one thing - putting students who objectively know less than others on equal footing with those who’ve studied real, full-length books (fancy that!), just because the former’s objections to the pursuit of knowledge flow from faith, is something else entirely.  To validate Calvary’s classes as appropriately preparatory would amount to affirmative actions to students whose stunted intellectual development is somehow “not their fault,” because their shallow faith demands that they remain ignorant.  If your religion requires you to reject knowledge, you can’t expect praise from the academy for thumbing your nose at it.

Fantastically, this opinion represents a resounding defeat of the idea that religiously motivated ignorance is a protected “viewpoint,” deserving of equal respect, the censorship of which is noxious to the first amendment.  And, based on the plaintiff’s flubs, the inevitable appeal is unlikely to overturn this result.  I for one can’t wait for the Ninth Circuit to laugh this one off.

1. As Hanna Rosin demonstrated in her documentary book on Patrick Henry College, the training of the culture warriors specifically ignores any practical knowledge of the real world. [↩]
2. Read the opinion. [↩]
3. When you see “summary judgment,” read: “the loser either so misunderstood the law that they didn’t have a valid claim, or failed to provide any evidence.” [↩]
4. Before jumping into the substantive law, it’s fair to notice that, as typical of fundamentalists & creationists in lawsuits, this particular instance was rife with no small amount of procedural failures & deceit. While “Dispatches” chose to highlight the copious amount of Behe-bashing, almost as enjoyable is the degree to which it’s obvious the plaintiffs were clearly trying to game the system… and the degree to which they failed.  The ASCI tried to confuse the defendants (UC) by never specifying which classes they thought should have received credit.  So they lost their as-applied claims immediately.  They failed to give advance warning of the substance of their experts’ testimony.  So the experts were excluded.  Litigation fail. [↩]
5. Exceptions like the “government speaks” doctrine notwithstanding. [↩]
6. Finley v. Nat’l Endowment for the Arts, 524 U.S. 569 (1998).  This case is actually almost “redeemed” by this opinion.  It has its origins in a thoroughly illiberal court, and a battle of the culture war that we lost: whether or not controversial art is “excellent” enough for government funding.  “Piss Christ” was not “excellent.”  Lucky for us, the Finley opinion’s focus on excellence prove useful at defending education agains the viewpoint of idiocy. [↩]
7. Regents of University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214 (1985). [↩]
8. The judge called this arguing “animus” - most of us, though, call it arguing for viewpoint discrimination. [↩]
9. Opinion, 12. [↩]
10. Opinion, 14. [↩]
11. Opinion, 16. [↩]
12. Opinion, 17-18. [↩]