A religious secondary school in southern California and a group representing 4000 Christian schools across the nation are suing the University of California, claiming religious discrimination in admission requirements.
Several courses at the Calvary Chapel Christian School of Murrieta, about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles, were refused admissions credit at UC, including “an English class, Christianity and Morality in American Literature, and a history course, Christianity’s Influence in America. ”
The schools are claiming viewpoint discrimination.
The university, [Atlanta attorney Wendell Bird, representing the schools] noted, has approved courses from other schools on Buddhism, Islam, Jewish history and the effects of feminism and counterculture on literature but turned down Calvary’s submissions in history and literature, as well as a government class titled Special Providence: Christianity and the American Republic.
The University of California is claiming the academic freedom to set its own admissions standards, and apparently it reviews the content and textbooks of submitted courses.
It seems to me that universities have a right to refuse admissions science credit to, say, astrology courses but not to courses simply because they are taught from a Christian perspective. Since I don’t know anything about the rejected courses, other than that at least the titles and subject matter seem perfectly reasonable and presentable, I don’t really have an opinion about the substance of this dispute.
But I do have a question, suggested by the following defense of UC:
“The idea that the university wants to exclude students from religious schools is just not true,” said UC counsel Christopher M. Patti. “It accepts hundreds if not thousands of students from these schools every year and values the diversity of views these students bring to its campuses.”
Does it really? What are the actual numbers? What would be relevant to this discussion is not simply the number of students accepted from religious schools, but the number of evangelical Christians accepted and enrolling.
My hunch is that such “views” are vastly “underrepresented” at least at Berkeley and UCLA, though I’m open to persuasion that I’m wrong. But if they are “underrepresented” and if UC really does values a “diversity of views,” shouldn’t it want to lower the standards demanded of students from these religious schools, in the same way that it would like to (and may still) lower standards for graduates of predominantly minority schools?
“My hunch is that such “views” are vastly “underrepresented” at least at Berkeley and UCLA, though I’m open to persuasion that I’m wrong. ”
When I was at a liberal east coast ivy league school I was often approached and invited to join bible studies. Much more often than I was invited to join, say, the groups against sweatshops or the local ACLU.
Maybe the three evangelicals on your campus (or two, if you exclude the one townie who joined them) needed company, and thought you looked like you needed saving. Just a thought….
“Maybe the three evangelicals on your campus (or two, if you exclude the one townie who joined them) needed company, and thought you looked like you needed saving. Just a thought….”
There were at least 3 groups.
But like I said, not so underrepresented.
actus,
You don’t suppose that they approached you because their faith makes it a matter of duty to evangelize? I don’t think you can deduce that the fraction of evangelicals on a campus equals or exceeds the fraction in the populace at large just because you run into them often. They see it as their job to be visible, and campus culture makes it rather easier to do so than does life off-campus. Campus Crusade for Christ was pretty conspicuous at UC Berkeley when I was there, but no one would take Cal for an evangelical stronghold. I think if you did a per capita breakdown of evangelical Christians vs. everyone else, the student body of Berkeley would be more or less at the bottom of the state’s rankings for populations of its size.
As a stroll down Bruin walk any day that class in session can attest, at UCLA there are at least half a dozen, and probably more, evangelical Christian student groups. My guess is that this is in part a function of the campus being plurality Asian as many of these groups are specific to different Asian nationalk origin groups.
There are also a fair number of courses here on both religion in general and Christianity in particular, though perhaps not as many as there ought to be (for instance, there’s nothing in English but there are several in Romance literature). When I was an undergraduate, I took the anthropology of religion, a philosphy course on the existence of God, and a history course on the historical Jesus.
The literature and history courses you listed sound plausibly rigorous, but I would need to see the syllabi to be sure. On the other hand, while I’m generally pretty sympathetic to evangelicals, the idea of using a Bob Jones University Press text for a biology course is really sketchy.
Nonetheless, you make a valid point that academia’s concern for diversity is purely cosmetic, and not an attempt to include an array of ideas, including ones of which mainstream scholarship is (justifiably) skeptical.
“You don’t suppose that they approached you because their faith makes it a matter of duty to evangelize? ”
Of course. It was a continuous joke. “hey can you tell me what time it is…. want to come to a bible study.” But Rosenberg’s completely off the mark remark tells me what he thinks underrepresented means. and that, they were not.
As a stroll down Bruin walk any day that class in session can attest, at UCLA there are at least half a dozen, and probably more, evangelical Christian student groups. My guess is that this is in part a function of the campus being plurality Asian as many of these groups are specific to different Asian nationalk origin groups.
As he says — all the UCs have large, prominent (heavily Asian) evangelical contingents.
I don’t know about the University of California, or how relevant this really is to the post, but my experience not too long ago at one of the most liberal of the Ivy Leagues was similar to actus’s: Bible study groups were numerous, active, and popular. Most of the students I knew would have called themselves Christian (or Catholic), Jewish, or Muslim.
At Univ of Penn, I can’t say that there was a great deal of evangelizing. At Purdue, there was more, but it was confined to the Quad, no one actually approached you.
Also, at Univ of Penn, (more than at Purdue) the religious groups were involved in social causes, so there was no great distinction between the two.
Dom
actus, anonymous, JSinger, Nels Nelson,
Look, “underrepresented” wrt an institution means only one thing: The fraction of the people who are X inside here is smaller than the fraction in the general population.
I haven’t any idea whether evangelical Christians are over- or underrepresented on elite campuses, but the mere fact that someone repeatedly runs into evangelical Christians on campus doesn’t prove squat. Underrepresentation, for actus’s benefit, means that there are fewer of a group, percentage-wise, in a cohort than in the general population.
Nels Nelson, I have no idea why the fraction of the students who call themselves either Christian, Jewish, or Muslim has anything at all to do with whether they are evangelical Christians, apart of course from proving that some avowedly aren’t.
I should add, for the record (there is a record, isn’t there?), that I do not believe that academically selective universities have any obligation whatsoever to be racially/ethnically/religiously/atheistically representative of anything, nor would I argue that the particular courses that UC refused to recognize should be recognized just because their titles were O.K.
I do think, though, that people who defend racial preferences with “diversity” arguments approach hypocrisy if they don’t also support preferences for evangelical Christians or Muslims where they are “underrepresented.”
“I do think, though, that people who defend racial preferences with “diversity” arguments approach hypocrisy if they don’t also support preferences for evangelical Christians or Muslims where they are “underrepresented.””
Even more so, I think certain science programs should help those that have been disadvantaged by a too evangelical view of science being given to them by their pre-college education.
actus,
Even more so, I think certain science programs should help those that have been disadvantaged by a too evangelical view of science being given to them by their pre-college education.
Because we all know that Darwinian evolution is the sort of thing that’s constantly called upon in everyday life. It’s a basic skill. Like, you know, calculus, or Haydn, or Proust. Best to strap the kids down and put a good science-textbook-on-tape in their ears in a continuous loop, right? Deprogramming 101.
actus, I don’t actually like bowdlerized science texts much more than you do, but UC’s not crediting courses in history and literature dealing with Christianity is another matter.
actus,
The notion that belief in Christianity deters one from success in a scientific field does not stand up to the experience of my life.
My sister is an evangelical preacher, and a professor of nursing at the University of Hawaii. Her husband is an evangelical missionary, and an OB/GYN. They seem to understand science fine.
“Because we all know that Darwinian evolution is the sort of thing that’s constantly called upon in everyday life.”
I don’t think college teaches things that are constantly called upon in everyday life. But if there was anything that would be that, it would be the scientific method, which in some students might be stunted.
Also, why use ‘darwinian’ ? you know that’s one of the top signs of a creationist.
“actus, I don’t actually like bowdlerized science texts much more than you do, but UC’s not crediting courses in history and literature dealing with Christianity is another matter.”
I know its another matter. I just think the argument is strongest in the case I gave. I don’t know what the argument is on these other cases. Its not like there’s any reason to think that a christian taught about christianity might be taught things that aren’t quite right.
“The notion that belief in Christianity deters one from success in a scientific field does not stand up to the experience of my life.”
Oh no. Just some people get stunted science educations because of when religious fundamentalists wrongly believe that science and religion are incompatible — and end up creating stunted science programs. We should use affirmative action to overcome that disadvantage that these students have.
Shouldn’t UC legimately discredit ‘Intelligent Design’ science courses? Can a line be drawn somewhere?
actus,
i don’t see how the word “darwinian” pegs one as a creationist. i use it and i’m not. Pinker uses the word twenty-three times in “The Blank Slate” and Dawkins forty-three times in “The Blind Watchmaker.” are these two gentlemen creationists?
part of the reason to use the word darwinian is that it has a specific (non-pejorative) meaning, that is a theory of evolution that places great emphasis on the mechanism of natural selection, as compared to genetic drift, inheritance of acquired traits, or divine intervention. the distinction is not entirely unlike that between AA and racial preferences except of course that darwinianism is the best theory of evolution whereas racial preference is the worst form of AA.
“i don’t see how the word “darwinian” pegs one as a creationist. i use it and i’m not. Pinker uses the word twenty-three times in “The Blank Slate” and Dawkins forty-three times in “The Blind Watchmaker.” are these two gentlemen creationists?”
I haven’t read those guys. Its usually something that creationists do, calling contemporary evolution Darwinisnm, etc… But I have heard of scientists using it to refer to some of Darwin’s specific things, which are not thought to be the way that evolution works.
“that is a theory of evolution that places great emphasis on the mechanism of natural selection, as compared to genetic drift, inheritance of acquired traits, or divine intervention.”
Saying evolution distinguishes that. I have never heard anyone propose acquired traits being inherited, or that evolution would include mythological ideas such as divine intervention.
actus,
with all due respect, you’re not very familiar with biology. the word evolution means “descent with modification” and does not specify the mechanism through which this modification occurs. (google the phrase “descent with modification” and you’ll get a lot of biology syllabi at respectable schools). there is a strong scientific consensus that the core mechanism is natural selection, but at times other theories have been more or less popular. the theory of acquired traits being inherited is associated with lysenko and lamarck, though it is now thoroughly discredited. likewise, the (crank) idea of divine intervention influencing modification is exactly what the ID folks seem to be getting at, though they’re so evasive it’s hard to be sure. (you may not have heard anyone you or i would consider credible propose divine intervention, but that doesn’t mean you “have never heard anyone” propose it).
to repeat myself, natural selection is the most important mechanism for evolution, but that does not make evolution a synonym for natural selection. there are other proposed mechanisms for evolution, including actual (but trivial) ones like genetic drift and imaginary ones like ID and lysenkoism. this is why the word “darwinian” is necessary, to clarify that you are speaking about a theory of evolution that emphasizes natural selection.
actus,
Also, why use ‘darwinian’ ? you know that’s one of the top signs of a creationist.
Ummm . . . huh? No it isn’t. Though spelling it with a small “d” when you have taken the trouble to capitalize “also” at the beginning of the sentence might be taken so. (Sorry, copy-editing moment.)
No, I’m afraid you do not know what you are talking about. Most paleontologists in Darwin’s time were “evolutionists,” in the sense that they thought that changes in life forms had taken place over time. The thing disputed was how the change occurred and what caused it. Darwin’s insight was that random variation and natural selection together could be an engine of evolutionary change.
Someone needs a boxed set of Stephen Jay Gould’s books for Christmas — no, strike that, “holidays.” Jeez. If you’ll pardon the term.
Saying evolution distinguishes that. I have never heard anyone propose acquired traits being inherited, or that evolution would include mythological ideas such as divine intervention.
They left Lysenko out of your high-school biology text, I take it. (Your history text, ditto.) And the idea that evolution occurred mostly by Darwinian processes, but was tweaked by God here and there, is also a very old one.
Thank you, anonymous, for just saying what I was attempting to say a good deal more clearly, and with links to boot.
actus, what anonymous said. And I could kick myself for not having mentioned Lamarck, because I’d bet what passes for big money in this household that he, at least, got a passing mention in your high school biology text.
“to repeat myself, natural selection is the most important mechanism for evolution, but that does not make evolution a synonym for natural selection.”
I think that when you talk about evolution today, you are not talking about divine intervention or lysenkoism.
“They left Lysenko out of your high-school biology text, I take it.”
Yes. He’s wrong.
“And the idea that evolution occurred mostly by Darwinian processes, but was tweaked by God here and there, is also a very old one.”
I wonder why that’s not considered a part of science today.
actus,
you are an incorrigible troll.
i know i’m not a creationist and as far as i can tell, neither is michelle. so we’re not trying to play games with you, we’re just trying to clarify why “Darwinian” is a meaningful adjective in mainstream biology and not just a meaningless aspersion used by creationists.
You’ve proven to be as impervious to evidence as the creationists themselves, but here’s some more data. In the JSTOR archive 958 anthropology articles, 207 botany articles, and 2146 evolutionary biology articles use the word “Darwinian.” perhaps the authors, editors, and peer reviewers of these journals are all creationists?
yes, nowadays when people say evolution they are usually thinking of the Darwinian version. but that does not mean that being extra clear is unscientific, just as you can order a “cheese blintz” at a restaurant. given that i’ve read dawkins, pinker, gould, wilson, and a fair amount of other (darwinian) evolution literature, i think you should trust me on this issue before you further embarass yourself.
and as for the high school textbook thing, i’m not sure if my own biology text book mentioned lysenko but i know it mentioned lamarck. how do you know that it wasn’t in your textbook and not that it was but you forgot? and there would be a pedagogical purpose to referring to lysenko since science textbooks often mention discredited ideas in order to illustrate the history of science and the scientific method.
“i know i’m not a creationist and as far as i can tell, neither is michelle. so we’re not trying to play games with you, we’re just trying to clarify why “Darwinian” is a meaningful adjective in mainstream biology and not just a meaningless aspersion used by creationists.”
It can be both.
actus,
It’s very simple: “Darwinian evolution” means “evolution by means of random mutation and natural selection.” As a locution, it has the twin benefits of connecting the concept with the man who originated it, and saving eleven syllables. I don’t believe I’ve ever come across anyone else who took everyone who uses the phrase “Darwinian evolution” to be a creationist. No doubt creationists do use the phrase. They probably also wear clothes and eat breakfast. What’s your point?
if christianity prevents scientific thinking, how did the west manage all the technology, medical advances, etc. muslims, hindus, buddhists, and pagans have not accomplished what christians have.
actus: “Also, why use ‘darwinian’ ? you know that’s one of the top signs of a creationist.”
actus: “‘i know i’m not a creationist and as far as i can tell, neither is michelle. so we’re not trying to play games with you, we’re just trying to clarify why “Darwinian” is a meaningful adjective in mainstream biology and not just a meaningless aspersion used by creationists.’
‘It can be both.'”
You realize you just completely contradicted yourself, right?
Anita – good point.
actus didn’t make the second statement, i did. but yes, it’s stupid of him to admit that “Darwinian” is a legitimate scientific term and not retract his statement that using the word marks one as a creationist.
and anita, i didn’t see anyone deny that Christians can be good scientists. however your statement is worth picking apart. first, Christendom was a scientific backwater during the middle ages and only gained dominance after the Crusades (which exposed Europe to Islamic scholarship and preservation of classical scholarship) and the Enlightenment. So to an extent, Christendom only became scientifically dominant as it became less Christian. Second, to the extent that Christianity does promote science, it does so through the doctrine of natural law, which holds that God has set the universe in motion according to regular principles that are observable through reason and the senses. (In practice this means that on a day to day basis, Christianity is similar to deism, although unlike deism it admits the occasional miracle. In contrast, Islam holds that every moment is an act of divine creation and most pagan religions hold that natural forces are the work of innumerable spirits). By implying that divine intervention is routine, intelligent design rejects that very tendency which made Christianity compatible with science. (Ironically, young Earth creationism is more compatible with natural law doctrine than is ID, as the former holds that God created the Earth all at once, then left it alone, rather than continually tinkering with it).
anonymous,
first, Christendom was a scientific backwater during the middle ages and only gained dominance after the Crusades (which exposed Europe to Islamic scholarship and preservation of classical scholarship) and the Enlightenment. So to an extent, Christendom only became scientifically dominant as it became less Christian.
Well, one could quibble about this. I don’t think the Crusades much came into it. Aquinas knew Aristotle through the Muslim Averroës, but then Averroës was a Spanish Muslim. I don’t think much actual scientific knowledge came directly from the wars against Muslims in the Holy Land.
And at least the practical scientific knowledge of the later Middle Ages was pretty impressive. You do not build something like the (11th-c.!) Durham Cathedral, with its unprecedented massive stone roof, without knowing a considerable amount of materials science, albeit possibly in a way the builders wouldn’t have been able to articulate.
Nor am I sure that the Enlightenment was “less Christian.” Newton, for example, was a Christian and even a rather mystical one IIRC.
By implying that divine intervention is routine, intelligent design rejects that very tendency which made Christianity compatible with science.
Not sure of that either. I don’t get the impression that ID proponents think that “divine intervention is routine.” I do get the impression that they think it (or something like it — they avoid calling the designer “God”) necessary to explain how some things came about, but “God as micromanager” is not the prevailing vibe. None of them deny that natural selection happens; they just don’t think it accounts for everything.
Michelle makes a good point. The way out of the middle ages was through mixing with the moslem world, but most of that mixing came about not through the Crusades, but through trade, especially in Italy. It was the merchants, like, Fibonacci, who accounted for the rise of mathematics in Europe that brought about the end of the Middle ages. Italian merchants and accountants were the first mathematicians in the west.
The role of Christianity in all of this is a mixed one. The Galileo scandel shows that religion could hinder scientific progress, but you should keep in mind that it was the Christian west that brought about the modern age.
the whole point of intelligent design is that life is too complex to be entirely explained as an emergent property of self-regulating natural processes and thus reflects an intelligent designer. since paley “intelligent designer” has in practice meant divine intervention. however unlike the young Earth creationists who see divine intervention as a one time thing, intelligent design allows for evolution to have occurred over the same time-frame as does orthodox science, just through a different mechanism. the continuous tinkering of an intelligent designer over geological time frames sure sounds like routine divine intervention to me, which like i said is contrary to natural law and thus both bad science and bad (or at least heretical) theology.
It was actus who said “it can be both.”.
And I want to make one point about bad science. According to my daughter, they are still talking about the primordial soup in the high school classroom. What did it consist of? Well, for life to have begun the way the textbook says, it has to have had certain concentrations of carbon, sulfur, phosphorus, nitrogen, and so on, very different from our oceans today. How do we know what was in the primordial soup? Well, we can’t know, because there’s nothing left of it to analyze. We can only speculate that it must have been like this and like that for life to have begun the way this hypothesis says. So it isn’t verifiable, and it isn’t falsifiable, and it’s very conveniently posited only because this particular theory of abiogenesis had to have it that way. Therefore it isn’t scientific and should never have been mentioned in a science classroom.
Laura(southernxyl),
Interesting that you should mention the “primordial soup,” since I had been meaning to comment on that myself & never got round to it. I never had any problem with the Darwinian evolutionary mechanism doing all that is claimed for it, but for it to work you need self-replicating organisms first, because before you have self-replication you don’t have natural selection.
The truth is that at the moment no one has any real idea how life began, though we have a plausible, repeatedly-tested, falsifiable theory of where it went afterwards. You are quite right: origin-of-life speculation is just that — speculation, not science. The “primordial soup” goes in the textbooks (along with, in the one I remember from my own school days, the primitive organic sludge being washed up on a rock and then struck by lightning) because no science text writer is really quite comfortable saying “we have no idea how this happened.”
“[N]o science text writer is really quite comfortable saying ‘we have no idea how this happened.'”
True, and that’s a big problem. For science to go forward, scientists have to be honest about what they do and don’t know, and how they know what they know, and be ready to answer hard questions about that. Ego can’t get in the way. Being afraid of not looking cool in front of your peers can’t get in the way.
Of course, high school biology textbooks aren’t “science” in the most rigorous sense. They exist to give the general public a certain basic knowledge; to catch the imagination of kids who will go on to become scientists; and to give them enough background that they don’t have to start from scratch when they study it in college. But no eternal truths are settled in high school biology class; at least, not as part of the curriculum. So I actually have no problem with the primordial soup being mentioned in those sacred, hallowed halls of high school, as long as it’s made clear that it’s only a guess, and I also have no problem with ID being mentioned or even discussed at length. I think the whole thing is vastly overblown.
Actus may be on to something. If Christians get stunted science educations because of their faith surely trolls like him have their education in ethics, justice and tolerance stunted because of their lack of faith.
Times sure have changed. I never saw Christian groups at the University of PA but then again when I attended there were no gay groups, nor Marxists or associated fringe groups. The same applied to the Columbia but the nation has become quite abit more barbaric in 30 years. There was a time when pagans existed only in Africa and the outer regions of the Solomons.