Things You Can't Say in School

A decision came down this week from the U.S. District Court in Central California in the case of Farnan v. Capistrano Unified School District. There are a few emerging news reports on what happened; the best article I found so far is in the Orange County Register. Apparently a student (Farnan) recorded a number of statements made in a AP course on European history taught by James Corbett, and the student felt that the statements made by the teacher violated his First Amendment rights under the establishment clause. Among the twenty or so statements made by Corbett about which the complaint was made, the court found that only one, where Corbett referred to creationism as "religious, superstitious nonsense" violated the student's constitutional right not to have a "government official" in effect establish a secularist religion. The statement arose, apparently, because another teacher, Peloza, was, in Corbett's view, teaching religious, superstitious ...