Richmond Magazine Article

Dick Lessard has just posted at the Alliance for Science's web site an article called "Rumblings of Intelligent Design in Chesterfield County, VA"--an excellent commentary on Richmond Magazine's recent article on the Intelligent Design movement in Chesterfield (the text of the article is not yet available on RM's web site).

Dick does an especially fine job of explaining why the "teach all views on all issues" policy--this is really the heart of the CCSB's statement--will wreak havoc in the classroom:

One has to wonder what the average working teacher would say about letting students speak their minds about any subject in school. If a student in history class were to expound that the Holocaust was a fiction perpetrated by liberal media and the worldwide Zionist conspiracy, would the teacher be reprimanded if he or she attempted to contradict or censor that student’s speech? If, in geography class, upon studying the cattle industry in South America, should a teacher accommodate a lengthy diatribe on animal rights and allow distribution of PETA literature? Given the limited time and the demands of covering the extensive material required by the state Standards of Learning (SOL), it’s safe to say that most teachers would insist on maintaining order. It seems, however, that Chairman Doland may be encouraging students to engage in just this sort of disruptive behavior. Or does this doting on students’ rights only apply in biology class?

What can we add to Dick's shopping list of problematic debates? Should students who are Christian Scientists be allowed to develop arguments against the germ theory of disease? Should students who are Scientologists be allowed to rebuke psychology? Should discussions of HIV/AIDS be balanced by the view that the virus is really God's way of punishing homosexuals? Should students also be advised that God creates floods in order to punish immorality?