In my last post, I noted that the Los Alamitos Unified School District has put in place a policy to "teach the controversy" over climate science. (News report here.) If this was evolution rather than climate science, such an action might draw a First Amendment, church-and-state lawsuit. But as I pointed out,
Last I checked, libertarianism does not qualify as a religion that cannot be imposed due to the separation of church and state. So what I’m wondering is, when a school district acts this way, what can one do?
Since then I've caught wind of an interesting legal theory. The notion is that if a teacher--global warming's equivalent of John Scopes--were to teach good science in the classroom, refusing to engage in phony "balance" or teach a nonexistent "controversy," and was then reprimanded/censored by a school board, you might wind up with a free speech claim, rather than an establishment clause claim. I have no idea if this is a colorable legal theory. I am no First Amendment lawyer--but what do others think? Given the mounting number of conflicts around climate science teaching, I think it is worth asking what kinds of legal risks a school board may face if it tries to mandate the teaching of bad science--but not religion--in the classroom.
