Fort Hays State University Faculty Senate Resolution 9900-02:

Recent Actions of the State Board of Education

Approved by Executive Committee Aug 27, 1999
Passed by Faculty Senate, September 7, 1999

The Faculty Senate of Fort Hays State University, noting that recent action of the State Board of Education fails to provide statewide assurance of instruction in evolution, ecology, the geologic time scale, and other major subjects held to be central to science by the clear consensus of the overwhelming majority of scholars in the affected fields, believes that academic freedom is threatened by the State Board's action in the following ways:

  1. It willfully ignores the overwhelming consensus of scholarly opinion on subjects almost universally recognized as of central importance to scholarship.
  2. It exposes individual local teachers, principals, and school boards to pressure from comparatively well-financed and well-organized advocates of views held by minority groups.
  3. It may result in irreparable harm to schoolchildren who will be deprived of education in major areas of science.

Accordingly, the Faculty Senate of Fort Hays State University respectfully urges the State Board to reconsider its action and to adopt standards which assure that instruction in all areas of science will accurately and fully reflect scholarly consensus wherever it exists.

The Faculty Senate respectfully reminds the State Board that academic freedom properly extends not only to the protection of minority views, but also to the protection of majority views, and that fair presentation of all views is the foundation of academic freedom. The Faculty Senate believes that it is essential that the State Board adopt standards and other guidelines which assure that all subjects have instruction consistent with the generally-accepted findings of each scholarly field.

The Faculty Senate recommends that, for all fields of study, instruction in minority views with substantial support be provided where appropriate, but that such minority views should be clearly identified as minority views, and that the reasons for minority status should be explained.