Darby School Board prepares for potential lawsuit; meeting set with lawyer:
Tuesday's meeting is 7 p.m. at Darby Junior High School
By JENNY JOHNSON Staff Reporter
With a potential lawsuit looming, the Darby School Board will meet Tuesday with attorneys who might defend the district in the event that it is sued over recent policy changes.
Lawyer Bridgette Erickson of Lincoln will talk to the board about the possibility of representing the school district should it be sued over its adoption of an objective origins policy, which encourages teachers to question the theory of evolution in science class.
Erickson is affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Ariz., which was founded to "keep the door open to the spread of the Gospel."
Erickson said she is meeting with the board to let trustees know more about the organization's services.
Bitterroot Valley pastor Harris Himes read a letter on the final night of debate over the objective origins policy that offered the fund's assistance in defending the Darby School District should it be sued.
The organization, which "provides the resources that will keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel through the legal defense and advocacy of religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and traditional family values," according to it's Web site, offered its services directly in a letter in early February. It said the fund is committed to defend the district in state or federal court.
Despite the recommendation from Montana School Boards Association attorney Elizabeth Kaleva, trustees adopted the policy 3-2 in January. Kaleva said the board should first submit any proposed curriculum to the state Office of Public Instruction for approval. Otherwise, the district may face accreditation and, in turn, funding problems because it will no longer be in line with state teaching standards, which require evolution to be taught.
Kaleva, who is also expected to be at the meeting, also told the board it opened up itself to a lawsuit if it passed a science curriculum that may blur the lines between religion and science.
Proponents of the objective origins policy say that evolution is debatable.
The policy is driven by a push to teach intelligent design - a biological origins theory that assumes there is a designer of the biological world but stops short of saying who or what that designer might be.
Critics of the policy argue it is a back-door approach to teach Christian creation in the classroom. Generally dismissed by the science community, intelligent design is being promoted by a Seattle organization, the Discovery Institute.
Courts have long quashed attempts to teach creation science in the classroom, striking them down as violations of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
Reporter Jenny Johnson can be reached at 363-3300 or by e-mail at jjohnson@ravallirepublic.com
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