One of the biggest news stories in the week before Christmas was the announcement of a decision in
Kitzmiller, et al v. Dover School District. The lawsuit filed by 11 parents in Dover, Pennsylvania challenged the local school board's decision to include intelligent design and criticism of evolution in the high school biology curriculum.
The judge in the case, John E. Jones III, is a Dickinson alumnus, class of 1977. In his ruling, Judge Jones found that the board's actions represented an unconstitutional introduction of religion into the public schools.
Judge Jones' blunt and comprehensive decision is being praised by many. In an editorial, for example, the Boston Globe, said that "federal judge John E. Jones III restored faith both in rational thinking and in the independent judiciary yesterday when he struck down a Pennsylvania school board's requirement that intelligent design be taught in public school science classes."
Prior to the decision, an article in the New York Times described Judge Jones' "discipline, decorum and quick wit." Judge Jones was also the subject of a major article several weeks ago in The New Yorker which similarly praised his handling of this important case.
"Judge Jones is praised by people on both sides of the aisle as a man of integrity and intellect who takes seriously his charge to be above partisanship," the Times article notes. "He appears to define himself less by his party affiliation than by his connection to the Pennsylvania coal town where he still lives, and to a family that grabbed education as a rope to climb out of the anthracite mines, and never let go."
Dickinson president William Durden characterized Judge Jones as "an individual who is a true Dickinsonian whose accomplishments embody the aspirations we have for all our graduates as they engage the world.
By willingly and enthusiastically taking on this case, Judge Jones is exhibiting a defining disposition of a Dickinsonian-engaging the fray with issues that matter nationally and internationally."
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