Victory For Religious Freedom! Lawsuit Decided in ICR's Favor

Acts & Facts
Vol. 22 No.3, March 1992

What made this case so interesting involved the profound implications of the complaint that the ICR Graduate School (ICR/GS) had lodged against the California Department of Education and its superintendent, Bill Honig. The school contended, in essence, that it had constitutional rights as a private school to teach science and to offer graduate degrees in science in the context of creationism. Superintendent Honig and his advisers, on the other hand, insisted that only evolution was science, and that any school of science, public or private, must teach either from the world view of evolutionism or else label its degrees as degrees in religion.

Thus, when Judge McCue heard the settlement terms read by the Counsel for the State, Mr. Greg Roussere, he was very pleased with the negotiations that had led to the settlement. Federal Judge Rudi Brewster, of the U.S. District Court of Appeals in San Diego, signed the settlement agreement as a Declaratory Judgement, applicable, in effect, to all private Christian schools.

	Dr. John Morris Announcing Victory in Lawsuit at News Conference

The Declaratory Judgment not only confirms full State approval to the ICR Graduate School, but also effectively stipulates that the State Department of Education has no further jurisdiction over the curricula or courses of any private Christian School (K-12 schools as well as postsecondary institutions). In particular, it stipulates that any postsecondary school may teach that the creation model is true, if it also informs the students about evolution.

The controversy actually started in December of 1988, when lCR/GS was informed;by the New York Times (not the Department of Education) that the State visiting team's report of August 1988 had been changed from a 3-2 "Approved" vote for the school to a 3-2 denial of approval. Mr. Honig, Superintendent of Public Instruction, did not like the outcome of the Department's official visit in August of 1988, and, in an unprecedented move, sought to have committee members change their votes. One did yield to his persuasion, and the battle was on.

Both sides fortified their positions with legal counsel, realizing that this was actually a national battle for philosophical supremacy in the sciences. Would the Honig group be able to declare by fiat (as it had done with its new Science Framework, which now requires public schools to teach that evolution is a fact), that private schools likewise must bend the knee to this false god of humanism?

Honig soon involved his entire legal defense team to seek the total defeat of ICR. ICR/GS, in the meantime, had engaged the services of constitutional attorney Wendell Bird, state education specialist attorney Loren McMaster, and outstanding trial lawyer Tom Anderson—all seasoned defenders against bureaucratic discrimination. No suit was filed at that time, hoping that Honig would still apply the education law in a fair and equitable manner.

ICR, therefore, agreed to a second review of its school, with the understanding that the new committee would review only the deficiencies noted by the first team in the original visit, assuming that adequate remedies would be in place and the potential denial removed. However, Honig and company had other designs, as recent depositional records clearly show. He was determined to send an elite team of evolutionary scientists to destroy the school once and for all. By the summer of 1989, four scientists of his choosing, along with one permitted to be chosen by ICR/GS, were selected and ready for the verification visit. The names were (improperly) withheld up to the week before the visit, but once revealed to the school, it was apparent that Honig had recruited four renowned evolutionists already strongly biased against ICR. ICR/GS's protests were ignored, and the siege was on, starting with the August 1989 verification visit.

The 48-page visiting committee report was merely a highly biased tirade against the school, and this was submitted to the State Council for Private Postsecondary Education at its winter meeting. ICR was not permitted to appear before the Council, which then voted to sustain the denial of approval (March 1990). In their haste, however, the Department of Education had forgotten to get any of their changes in policy and procedures approved by the Office of Administrative Law. These changes had been designed to eliminate any chance for ICR to plead its case before the Council took a vote on the issue. This mistake turned out to be the Department's Achilles' heel.

ICR/GS had the right to have the case reviewed by an administrative judge, but his verdict could still have been overturned by Honig, as final decision maker. ICR/GS, therefore, decided first to file a federal lawsuit in April 1990, alleging violation of constitutional rights, among many other complaints.

In the meantime, lCR/GS also filed a State Superior Court suit, claiming that the State acted illegally in processing the school's case.

By the fall of 1990, the Department of Education could see the handwriting on the wall and decided not to press for an administrative hearing. Its officials agreed to give the school's approval back, hoping this would make the Superior Court and Federal Court complaints moot. However, the Superior Court decision also was settled in the school's favor (November 1990), and the senior judge on the federal case, Judge Rudi Brewster, refused to dismiss the federal case. With all this pressure and more exposès with each deposition, the State soon wanted to settle out of court (starting in the summer of 1991). The Agreement as presented above gave the school an unprecedented victory on all points sought in the original complaint. The Declaratory Judgment is reproduced in full in the cover letter enclosed with this issue of Acts & Facts.

The victory is far-reaching, in that its principles apply to all private schools in California (K-12s, colleges, and graduate schools). By inference, the outcome also applies nationally. Private schools do have constitutional rights to protection from state intimidation in matters of curriculum and course content. In particular, they have a right to teach that the creation model is the correct model of origins, even in science classes, with any needed curriculum or materials to support that world view, without being penalized for so doing. This was truly a victory given to lCR/GS by God, in answer to the prayers of many people all over the nation. The attorneys did a masterful job, and the ICR staff also worked diligently to achieve this result.