If you’re a graduate student who dares to question Darwinian evolution good luck on defending your dissertation.

OSU graduate student, Bryan Leonard, is suffering a vicious attack from Darwinist who seem bent on keeping him from earning his doctoral degree, precisely because he does not adhere to a strictly Darwinian viewpoint. (see here for more details)

Fortunately there are some who see these attacks for what they are — threats on academic freedom. Charles Mitchell at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has posted his insightful take on the situation:

“First, to my knowledge at least, Leonard’s Ph.D. is not actually on evolution or intelligent design or anything else. It’s about pedagogy, period. Its concern is not scientific analysis of which theory on the origins of the universe is right, but rather how teaching about the controversy itself affects students’ attitudes. So they’re not really objecting to a dissertation that “question[s] evolution” in any meaningful sense, but rather one by a person who does. By this line of logic, universities don’t have to give degrees to people who hold views (however unrelated to the degree in question) that those in power don’t like. Imagine a communist student, or an anarchist, or an evangelical, or an atheist being denied a graduate degree on the grounds that some hostile professors thought it would “legitimize” such a worldview.

More importantly, though, even if Leonard’s thesis did question evolution, what would be the problem? Shouldn’t the dissertation be judged on its reasoning and analysis, not its point of view?”