Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has promised to defend the Kansas state board of education should it choose to place stickers in textbooks stating that evolution is a theory and not a fact.
According to Mr. Kline’s spokesman, Whitney E. Watson, the attorney general met with two separate groups of three board members earlier this month and expressed his opinion that a federal court ruling in Georgia last month declaring such stickers an unconstitutional endorsement of religion would be overturned. (“Judge Orders Removal of Evolution Disclaimers,” Jan. 19, 2005.)
Mr. Kline met with the group’s six conservative members, who make up a majority on the 10-person board. Conservatives held a similar majority in 1999, when the board approved science standards that virtually excluded the teaching of evolution. The policy was overturned in 2001.
The board is reviewing the state science standards again this year.
