HIGHER EDUCATION
Lawmaker backs creation institute
Coordinating board had rejected group's master's degree proposal.
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Institute for Creation Research couldn't get its proposal to offer an online master's degree in science education approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board last year.
Now, an East Texas lawmaker has come up with an alternative: Exempt the institute from the coordinating board's rules.
 Brad Smith/ASSOCIATED PRESS Rep. Leo Berman  Deborah Cannon/AMERICAN-STATESMAN Steven Schafersman says unscrupulous firms would flock to Texas. |
Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, said his proposed legislation is intended to allow the Bible-oriented group to proceed without the coordinating board's blessing.
"Why are people who call themselves scientists afraid to hear two sides of a debate?" Berman asked Friday.
His proposal would exempt private, nonprofit educational institutions that do not accept state funding and state-administered federal funding from coordinating board rules.
Members of the coordinating board, who are gubernatorial appointees, voted 8-0 in April to reject the proposal by the Dallas-based institute.
Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes said at the time that the institute's program, based on a literal interpretation of biblical creation, falls outside the realm of science and therefore could not be designated "science" or "science education."
De Juana Lozada, a spokeswoman for the coordinating board, said Friday that the agency could not comment because the Institute for Creation Research has appealed the board's decision and because the proposed legislation could have ramifications for the case.
Lawrence Ford, a spokesman for the institute, said in an e-mail that Berman's measure "is not limited to a particular viewpoint, either creationist or evolutionist, theist or atheist, Jewish or Muslim or Christian or Buddhist or Hindu, rich or poor, or any other viewpoint."
Steven Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science, said the measure promotes a right-wing religious agenda.
"It would make Texas a magnet for unscrupulous private 'educational' companies that will want to offer students the opportunity to pay for bogus advanced degrees," Schafersman wrote on his group's Web site. "If H.B. 2800 became law, it would be a gold mine to every fly-by-night, degree-granting outfit in the country."
Berman said his proposal encourages different viewpoints and debate.
"Personally, I don't believe in evolution," he said. "I don't believe I came from a salamander that came out of a pond."
rhaurwitz@statesman.com; 445-3604
