Shirts worn by the Smith-Cotton High School Band were confiscated by the school administrators because they portrayed the evolution of brass instruments. Some parents were upset that the t-shirts made reference to evolution and complained, and rather than defend the creative license of their students, the school administrators demanded that the t-shirts be confiscated. What makes this story more ridiculous is that the school administration justified their decision by claiming that the shirts violated the establishment clause of the first amendment, because they promoted evolution, which they proclaimed as a religious belief.
If the high school is unable to distinguish between school-promotion of religion and a t-shirt that makes a vague reference to the evolution of man (which is science and not religion, for the record) then it has a serious problem with understanding and implementing academic and constitutional standards inherent in running a public school. Any admissions official at a university who is looking over the transcript of an applicant from this Missouri high school has to give serious consideration as to exactly how to weigh an “A” in a biology class from a school district which cannot distinguish between promoting religion and vaguely referencing evolution. In case any readers from the Smith-Cotton High School administration are reading this, science is not a religion, and evolution has served as the keystone of biology for well over a century.
High school marching band can’t wear evolutionary T-shirts,; Tonya Fennel; The Sedalia Democrat; 29AUG2009.
Image Credit: Hal Smith/ Sedalia Democrat
Thank you for your encouragement.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me very likely that the administration is:
A) Spineless, and will not stand up for the academic and creative freedom of their students in the face of parental complaints.
or
B) Conservative Christians who do not believe in evolution and are abusing their power by letting their religious dogma control their decision.
In any case, the explaination given is completely indefensible. To hear supposedly educated people claim that a widely-accepted scientific theory is a religious belief makes me very sad for the students of that school. That those whom are given the awesome responsibility of overseeing the education of a generation of high school students in that town could be so ignorant is appalling.