Arkansas Reporter
THE
IN S IDE R
Darr, purged As promised, the state IT crew has de-Stalinized the website of the Arkansas lieutenant governor. You’ll no longer find photos or mentions there of Mark Darr, who resigned effective Saturday after being found to have misspent office and campaign money on personal expenses. The history page of the site has a recitation of every person who’s held the office, back to inception in 1927. With ONE EXCEPTION. The history ends at the first of 2011, when Bill Halter left the office and Mark Darr moved in. There is no mention of the Darr era. Is it because it would have to recite the circumstances of his departure? There is a contact link for the office’s fourperson staff, which costs taxpayers $250,000 a year in salary and benefits. Call or write. They might be happy to have something to pass the time, now that the office is vacant and the Republican legislative majority doesn’t intend to let the job be filled this year on the off-chance a special election might give Democratic candidate John Burkhalter a leg up in the general election. Two leading Republican candidates — Charlie Collins and Andy Mayberry — are in the legislature and can’t run to fill out the term because they hold another state office. Office Chief of Staff Bruce Campbell, a hardy Capitol political patronage perennial, also happens to be father-in law of Republican legislator Duncan Baird, a candidate for state treasurer.
FROM SOCIAL STUDIES LESSON: At Lakewood Middle School.
Creationism in the classroom A social studies class at Lakewood Middle School teaches religion with evolution. BY DAVID RAMSEY
Rogers update Last week, FBI agents took numerous boxes from North Little Rock businessman John Rogers’ business and home in North Little Rock. Some, witnesses said, appeared to be sports memorabilia. Rogers is known as a collector. With his business, Rogers Photo Archive, he amassed the largest privately held collection of photographs in the world. The business works out deals to digitize media photo collections and share rights for resale of the images. Generally, the publications have retained copyrights on a lot of the material. The FBI obtained warrants to search Rogers’ property from court approval of sealed affidavits. On Monday, Roger’s attorney, Blake Hendrix, said that the affidavits that led to the warrants are still under seal and finding out why they were issued “will take [legal] activity. They get sealed automatically, and you have to have motions done to try and get them out. That’s all done under seal as well. So there’s no ‘within 14 days’ or anything like that.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 11 10
FEBRUARY 6, 2014
ARKANSAS TIMES
I
n Honnye Athanasiou’s social studies class at Lakewood Middle School, the World History unit on the Stone Age began last week with a presentation on evolution and creationism. The three-day lesson, which presents various arguments expressing doubt about evolution from a creationist perspective, has at least several Lakewood parents alarmed, and according to local civil liberties advocates, it violates the First Amendment. “My [child] told me that the teacher was teaching him about creationism,” said a parent of a student in Athanasiou’s class (the parent asked not to be named out of concern of drawing attention to his child in the class). “He knew what he was being taught was pretty inappropriate. I asked him about it, and it sounded pretty religious to me for a public school. I asked him if he would get a copy of the power point presentation. The teacher said something to the
effect of, ‘Why are you wanting this? Are you trying to get me in trouble?’ ” Eventually the teacher agreed to provide a copy to the parent. The power point, titled “Evolution v. Creation,” is divided into sections — 17 slides each — titled “A Historical Perspective,” “Arguments for Evolution” and “Arguments for Creation.” You can see the full power point at arktimes.com/creationism. Critics say that the presentation essentially amounts to a brief against the theory of evolution, with an inadequate explanation of the science behind evolution on the one hand, and on the other hand, arguments and claims against evolution that have been widely debunked in the scientific community, though students would not know that from the power point presentation. The section on historical perspective is dominated by a history of Christian thought and sprinkled with quotes on the value of religious belief. The “Arguments for
Evolution” section includes a quote from evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins stating that his belief in evolution led him to atheism. “It’s full of misrepresentations and bad science, and the substance of one religious tradition’s creation story is presented as the only objection to the science,” said Anne Orsi, a spokesperson for the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers. “I can see talking about it briefly in a social studies class — to tell the students that there is a controversy among people who are fundamentalist believers in a certain branch of religion. ... They can examine why those people might be upset and why there has to be so much litigation over it. But this presentation goes way too far. It actually attacks scientific theory, and does so without correctly explaining the science behind it. It actually misrepresents the science. The teacher is using a back door method to ‘teach the controversy’ in direct violation of [case law both in Arkansas and nationally].” Rita Sklar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, called the power point “nothing more than a form of Christian apologetics, an attempt to prove the existence of God, the Christian God, with ‘reasoned’ argument. This is not just about evolution versus creation, and it is certainly not evenhanded. I wish more people understood that the reason we have religious liberty here is that we don’t allow government (here, a public school) to teach religion. But the sad truth is that many people don’t want religious liberty: They want their religion to dominate. And that’s what we have to be wary of. That’s how you wind up with a state religion and religious persecution.” The parent with a child in Athanasiou’s class said that according to his child, Athanasiou herself clearly seemed to come from a creationist perspective as she presented the power point. “The power point jumped out at me as edging these kids toward doubting science and thinking there’s debate in scientific areas where there’s really not debate,” the parent said. “I would think the science teacher would have some unteaching to do because of this history lesson.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 18