Topic: WorldNetDaily
An Aug. 12 WorldNetDaily article misleadingly claims that a court ruling means that the University of California "discriminate against coursework done by high school students that includes a Christian viewpoint," further claiming that the ruling "concluded the UC system was correct to reject courses from major book publishers, including Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books, a Florida publishing powerhouse, because they include a Christian perspective."
In fact, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, "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."
The unbylined WND article goes on to misleadingly assert: "According to the lawsuit, a variety of textbooks with supplemental perspectives were accepted – just not those with a Christian perspective." In fact, according to the Chronicle (and not mentioned by WND):
[T]he university has approved many courses containing religious material and viewpoints, including some that use such texts as "Chemistry for Christian Schools" and "Biology: God's Living Creation," or that include scientific discussions of creationism as well as evolution.
UC denies credit to courses that rely largely or entirely on material stressing supernatural over historic or scientific explanations, though it has approved such texts as supplemental reading, the judge said.
[...]
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.
He also said the Christian schools presented no evidence that the university's decisions were motivated by hostility to religion.
The WND article also failed, as did a previous article, to explain or justify a biology textbook that does not put science first.
