The war on science is a war on democracy itself. And the special weapons and tactics are rhetorical. The enemies of democracy use the language of tolerance to attack it from inside. Why, they ask, are we "censoring" the evidence for "intelligent design"? Why do we deny our teachers the "right" to use their "academic freedom" to teach "critical analysis" of evolution. Isn't it only fair to teach both the evidence for and against evolution? All these clever ploys play well in the media on this issue and many, many others, and we will see these word games more and more in coming years. Patricia J. Princehouse - Science and the First Amendment

In America, one of the aims of the creationist movement is to undermine the teaching of evolution in their schools. They would like to be able to teach their religiously motivated criticisms of evolution regardless of the fact that such criticisms are scientifically baseless.

As there is no academic justification for such changes the creationists have come up with yet another twisted little ploy to enable them to force themselves onto American schoolchildren.

It works like this: if the law says that teachers shouldn't be teaching (preaching) their personal (religious) beliefs in class, then simply force a change in the law to ensure that they can do. And to help things on the way, throw a smokescreen around the whole process by making something motivated by hard-line authoritarian right-wing fundamentalists, sound all liberal, intellectual and well-meaning.

Hence, the term, academic freedom.

The days when the creationists could (legally) call the tune in American schools is long past. The courts have been clamping down on their activities for decades now. They know that they cannot include religious based alternative views to evolution in science lessons anymore, even intelligent design is out of the window. So they are forced to dress up their attacks in secular clothes, concentrating on attempts to encourage states to pass legislation that would incorporate covert creationist ideas into the science curriculum. For example, requiring schools to Teach The Controversy about evolution or insist students learn about its Strengths And Weaknesses.

In Louisiana (below) this would entail teaching critical analysis of evolution (amongst other things) in order to foster, “critical thinking skills” (a favourite creationist term). Of course such critical thinking never seems to extend as far as critical thinking about the role of the fundamentalists in American society. See:

Louisiana passes first antievolution "academic freedom" law

As part of this process, creationists require legislation that would give teachers the “academic freedom” to disregard the syllabus and inject their own personal opinions into the lessons, and therefore, the academic freedom language is found in many of the bills.

It doesn't require much forethought to understand that such changes have the potential to create chaos within the educational system. Teachers would be free to express views and beliefs that openly conflict with the course material (regardless of how sound it is) they are supposed to be teaching. This could damage educational standards, undermine the authority of the school management, confuse students and potentially expose them to a whole range of idiotic beliefs besides creationism.

Therefore, “academic freedom” is just a fancy euphemism for riding roughshod over established academic standards by teaching lies about evolution, without any comeback from the educational authorities, who would then be powerless to stop it.

Students would be deprived of their right to an education free from political interference and backward religious dogmas. Clearly, such an outcome is the very antithesis of academic freedom, but then that's the creationists for you - just one slimy, odious misrepresentation after another.

More on Louisiana.

"Academic Freedom" Creationism's New Smoke Screen

The Christian Right's Got a New Stealth Tactic to Smuggle Creationism into Science Class