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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.

John G. West

Senior Fellow, Managing Director, and Vice President of Discovery Institute
Dr. John G. West is Vice President of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and Managing Director of the Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Formerly the Chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific University, West is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker who has written or edited 12 books, including Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society, and Walt Disney and Live Action: The Disney Studio’s Live-Action Features of the 1950s and 60s. His documentary films include Fire-Maker, Revolutionary, The War on Humans, and (most recently) Human Zoos. West holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University, and he has been interviewed by media outlets such as CNN, Fox News, Reuters, Time magazine, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post.

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