Texas Education Agency Forces Science Curriculum Chief To Resign In Continued War Over ‘Intelligent Design’
It should come as no surprise that officials with the Texas Education Agency this week forced out the agency’s science curriculum chief claiming she was critical of the teaching of “intelligent design.”
Chris Castillo-Comer, who was in charge of supervising science curriculum for the agency, was, quite simply, terminated because she forwarded an email alerting colleagues that a controversial speaker would be in Austin to discuss Intelligent Design. That’s hardly an earth-shattering offense, especially since it was really more of just a scheduling advisory.
The Austin American-Statesman & New York Times have more; a video from News 8 Austin is below:
Although Capitol Annex does not yet have the actual email sent by Comer, we have obtained, through the National Center for Science Education, a copy of the email as it was sent to Comer:
This is the entire substance of the email sent to Comer, which she then forwarded:
I thought that you might like to know that Barbara Forrest will be speaking on “Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse” in Austin on November 2, 2007. Her talk, sponsored by the Center for Inquiry Austin, begins at 7:00 p.m. in the Monarch Event Center, Suite 3100, 6406 North IH-35 in Austin. The cost is $6; free to friends of the Center.
In her talk, Forrest will provide a detailed report on her expert testimony in the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board trial as well as an overview of the history of the “intelligent design” movement. Forrest is a Professor of Philosophy in the Department of History and Political Science at Southeastern Louisiana University; she is also a member of NCSE’s board of directors.
Of course, TEA claims that Comer’s forwarding of the email might give people the idea that the officials at the Texas Education Agency are (gasp!) against Intelligent Design and creation science–which the good folks in the Texas Legislature and at the State Board of Education have seen fit to ensure are two theories that appear in textbooks.
In reality, all Comer did was simply forward on a piece of information to educate her colleagues. Not too novel, since she did work for the Texas Education Agency.
Of course, in some of the worst TEA sour grapes I’ve ever seen, TEA tries to paint Comer as some kind of insubordinate who disobeyed superiors on a daily basis. In the memo recommending her firing, a TEA official claims Comer attended various events without TEA’s authorization and even did things as a private citizen that the higher-ups did not approve of. All of that, of course, is a smokescreen for the real issue: TEA is afraid of anyone in its science curriculum division who actually believes in real science and refuses to swallow the intelligent design/creationism argument.
Comer (resignation letter) has retained an attorney and will probably end up with a nice lawsuit against TEA.
Written by Vince Leibowitz
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