We need to clone James Otero and replace every member of the current SCOTUS with a copy of him:
A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution.
Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC’s review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts – not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking…
Charles Robinson, the university’s vice president for legal affairs, said the ruling “confirms that UC may apply the same admissions standards to all students and to all high schools without regard to their religious affiliations.” What the plaintiffs seek, he said, is a “religious exemption from regular admissions standards…”
[I]n Friday’s ruling, [Otero] upheld the university’s rejection of a history course called Christianity’s Influence on America. According to a UC professor on the course review committee, the primary text, published by Bob Jones University, “instructs that the Bible is the unerring source for analysis of historical events” and evaluates historical figures based on their religious motivations.
Another rejected text, “Biology for Christian Schools,” declares on the first page that “if (scientific) conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong,” Otero said.
(Via Avedon)
Update, 08/13/08, 11:32 AM:
Let’s hold off on that cloning; turns out that Otero is a Bush Junta appointee (h/t). On the plus-side, the American Taliban crowd is no doubt screaming bloody murder at the White House because one of its appointees actually upheld the law, common sense, and fairness.
It is unfortunate for the students that their high school failed to properly teach them and deliberately used textbooks with false ideas in them. Maybe they can take summer courses at a legitimate high school and remediate themselves on science, literature, and history.
Judge Otero certainly did the right thing in not allowing these students an exemption from the established university admission requirements for religious reasons.
I say ‘clone him,’ in spite of his being a Bush appointee.