An institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or academic support, a faculty member or student based on the faculty member's or student's conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms.
The intent of this bill is clear: protect teachers and professors who exhibit a marked ignorance of the curriculum they are entrusted to teach. It's a back door for Creationists into the classroom after having seen defeat after defeat in trying to get their mythology added to the course curriculum of public schools and universities. With this law in place, should it be passed, a teacher could easily introduce his or her own religious theories to account for the advent of life on this planet without fear of reprisal or sanction.
Hilariously, the bill must be worded in such as a way as to avoid any endorsement of a particular mythology. Thus, a teacher who happens to be a Scientologist can inform students that he personally believes humans are the result of a volcanic explosion in which alien spirits were grafted onto pre-human ape creatures, triggered by the dreaded spacelord Xenu's fleets of space-DC9s.
Heck, biology class could be a rich and diverse land of competing mythologies. Yet, guess what will be getting less class time as a result? Actual biology.
At its root, this bill would undermine the education system, infiltrating it with a brand of religious dogma normally reserved for Sunday morning echo chamber ceremonies in churches. The Creationists childishly counter that pro-evolution curriculum is also a religious dogma, ignoring the fact that it's because of the evidence backing evolution and our resulting understanding of human biology and evolution that they have antibiotics to give to their children.
Then again, religious folks aren't even all in agreement on that.
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