Education
Free Speech
Texas Board Member Censors Citizen Expression at Board Meeting
Apparently Texas Board of Education member Rick Agosto isn’t just content to censor science by removing any criticisms of evolution from the science curriculum. The San Antonio Democrat even wants to prevent citizens from expressing their disagreement with that censorship. This morning Agosto demanded that some citizens quietly holding signs stating “Don’t Censor Science” at the Board meeting take down their signs. He even called on security personnel to forcibly remove the signs, but Board chair Don McElroy intervened to stop that abuse of power. Agosto’s over-the-top behavior toward non-disruptive attendees at the meeting followed his earlier denunciation of intelligent design as not being based on science. Agosto doesn’t appear to have actually read anything by intelligent design proponents, and his comments attacking intelligent design were completely gratuitous since the Board isn’t even considering adding intelligent design to the science standards. Interestingly, at yesterday’s Board meeting Agosto used his right of personal privilege to bring back non-Texan Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education to speak before the Board. Because Scott spoke at the January meeting, she was supposed to be near the bottom of the speakers’ list yesterday in order to allow new people to testify. But Agosto seems to have been more interested in hearing from arch-Darwinist Scott than hearing from his own constituents or other Texans patiently waiting to testify.