I'll
chime in on this.
The
professor, in good conscience, cannot write a letter in support of a student
(applying to grad school in biology) who doesn't accept evolution. And he
makes it known so that students who do not accept evolution do not bother to ask
him to write a letter.
Alternatively, if the professor chose ~not~ to
make that information known, then students who do not accept evolution would ask
him to write a letter, and he would have to turn them down one by one... without
needing to give a reason why.
So,
it's making the information known that's a problem?
In a
similar fashion I could see a member of the clergy choosing not to write a
letter of recommendation for someone applying to seminary if that person did not
accept the existence of God.
We
discriminate all the time. Discrimination isn't a problem; it's unjust
discrimination that's a problem.
--
Sue
Frantz Highline Community
College
Psychology
Des Moines, WA
206.878.3710 x3404 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/
--------Original Message-----Tipsters, given that the subject of evolution and creationism has been discussed at length in this forum, I thought you might be interested in the following article from Tuesday's NY Times. Here are the first few lines of the article.
From: Miguel Roig [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 1:33 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences
Subject: letters of recommendation and 'belief' in evolution
LUBBOCK, Tex., Feb. 2 — A biology professor who insists that his students accept the tenets of human evolution has found himself the subject of Justice Department scrutiny.
Prompted by a complaint from the Liberty Legal Institute, a group of Christian lawyers, the department is investigating whether Michael L. Dini, an associate professor of biology at Texas Tech University here, discriminated against students on the basis of religion when he posted a demand on his Web site that students wanting a letter of recommendation for postgraduate studies "truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer" to the question of how the human species originated.
For the rest of the article go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/03/education/03PROF.html
I've been thinking about this case quite a bit and, frankly, I find it difficult to reconcile the professor's right to not write a letter of recommendation and the apparent discriminatory nature of his policy.
Miguel___________________________________________________________________________
Miguel Roig, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Notre Dame Division of St. John's College
St. John's University
300 Howard Avenue
Staten Island, New York 10301
Voice: (718) 390-4513
Fax: (718) 390-4347
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm
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