ADF attorneys seek to supply missing link in intelligent design curriculum case

Publisher files intervention action to prevent ACLU censorship of textbooks
Published
School Locker

HARRISBURG, Pa.—Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed a motion to intervene Monday on behalf of the Foundation for Thought and Ethics in a federal lawsuit that seeks to label the scientific theory of intelligent design as “religious” and therefore eliminate student access to information on the subject.

FTE argues that it will be financially injured if the ACLU is successful in censoring its publications from the Dover Area School District and other districts.  According to the motion to intervene filed today, “FTE primarily will focus on plaintiffs’ purpose to destroy both intelligent design theory as a viable scientific explanation to the origins of life and FTE’s ability to market textbooks such as Pandas and Design of Life.”

Attorneys with the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit Tammy Kitzmiller, et al., v. Dover Area School District, et al., in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.  The suit seeks to overturn the district’s policy of allowing students access to information on the theory of intelligent design along with the theory of evolution.

“The ACLU and their allies are using the courts to further the preposterous notion that no other theories on the origins of life are scientific,” said ADF-allied attorney Jeff Mateer, with the Dallas law firm Mateer & Shaffer, LLP.  “Students clearly have the right in a public school setting to have access to materials on all competing scientific theories on the origins of life.”

“The ACLU’s goal is to ban these books,” explained ADF Chief Counsel Benjamin Bull.  “FTE produces the textbooks on intelligent design that are at the center of this litigation.  FTE objects to the notion that intelligent design is an ‘inherently religious’ theory, as the ACLU has illegitimately stated in this case.”

“The publisher needs to be in this litigation to prevent the ACLU from censoring its books and damaging its financial interests,” Bull added.

ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.