Peloza v. Capistrano Unified School Dist.
| Decision Date | 16 January 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. CV 91-5268-DWW (Bx).,CV 91-5268-DWW (Bx). |
| Citation | 782 F. Supp. 1412 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Central District of California |
| Parties | John E. PELOZA, Plaintiff, v. CAPISTRANO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants. |
Cyrus Zal, Fullerton, Cal., for plaintiff.
Rutan & Tucker by David C. Larsen, Costa Mesa, Cal., for defendants.
Plaintiff alleges violations of federal law, particularly the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and also 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985(3), 28 U.S.C. § 1343 and the Doctrine of Pendent Jurisdiction.
John E. Peloza is a biology teacher in a public high school in the Capistrano Unified School District and he has brought this action for declaratory and injunctive relief and for damages arising out of his contention that he has the constitutional right to teach his students pursuant to his belief in the system of creationism, as expounded in Genesis. Adversely the school system contends that his biology classes should be taught pursuant to an accepted theory of evolution which is defined within the framework of the California Education Code. Pursuant to the code, each school district is required to establish local curriculum for grades 7 through 12. Such a curriculum must include the biological sciences as well as other standard subjects. The curriculum sets forth the subjects that must be covered in the high school biology class. The school district must maintain uniformity so that all students are adequately prepared for college entrance exams and higher education. In the biology curriculum, evolution is one of the main themes to be covered. It is taught throughout two years of science study in the district curriculum.
In his complaint, plaintiff contends that the school district's requirement that he teach the evolution theory is a violation of his constitutional rights because evolution is a religious theory. He cites the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as forbidding "the establishment of a religion." It is his argument that the school district commands him to teach evolution as a fact rather than as a theory. Plaintiff takes the position that forcing him to teach the religious belief of evolution as a valid scientific theory would force him to become an unwilling agent of the school district in the establishment of the religion of secular humanism,1 in violation of the First Amendment. Peloza claims a First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom to teach the truth in the classroom and to teach science.
Peloza further charges the defendants with conspiracy to deny his First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and to destroy his professional reputation and career as a public high school teacher. He contends that the defendants, by reason of issuing letters of reprimand to him, are preparing to seek his dismissal as a public high school teacher. He does not claim that he has been dismissed and in fact he is still pursuing his career in this high school.
Finally, he complains that even if he is not permitted to teach his theory of creationism in the classroom, he should be permitted to privately discuss religion and his theory of creationism in conversations with students during private, non-instructional time on the campus, during lunch, class breaks, and before and after school hours.
The party defendants include the Capistrano Unified School District and its Board of Trustees of the School District, and the Principal, Vice-Principal and certain teachers at the high school.
Defendants ask the Court to take judicial notice of lodged certified copies of the following:
1. The State of California Office of Curriculum Framework and Textbook Development's Instructional Materials and Framework Adoption: Policies and Procedures.
2. California Department of Education's Science Framework for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve.
It is appropriate that such public documents be judicially noticed. Massachusetts v. Westcott, 431 U.S. 322, 97 S.Ct. 1755, 52 L.Ed.2d 349 (1977).
Defendants contend that the Capistrano Valley High School is part of the Capistrano Unified School District ("District") and that the District in turn is a creation of the legislature of the State of California, and is governed by the California Education Code. Cal.Educ.Code § 35000, et seq. That pursuant to the statutory scheme set forth in that Code, every school district is required to establish a local curriculum for grades 7 through 12. Cal.Educ.Code § 51054. That curriculum must include the biological sciences and must conform to minimum curriculum standards for California. Cal. Educ.Code § 51220(e).
The defendants further claim that the State Department of Education has the responsibility of developing a curriculum framework which is formulated by educators with expertise in the area of curriculum following public debate and input. Each local district has the responsibility of either implementing or modifying the state curriculum for its own particular needs (§ 51054).
In this case, the curriculum framework for science was revised and approved by the State Board of Education in 1989 after a public hearing. The district follows this framework for its biology courses.
Within this framework, the principle of evolution is listed as one of the major themes of science. The framework states: "In order to teach life science, earth science or astronomy, evolution should be a fundamental, central concept of the curriculum." The defendants further contend that this concept of evolution as taught in the high school classes today is not the simple, traditional Darwinism theory of man's evolution from lower life forms, but encompasses changes in animal life, plants, geologic and astronomic processes. The defendants further claim that the framework notes that the question of "creation science" was "thoroughly studied by leading scientific societies, and rejected as not qualifying as a scientific explanation."
The defendants further charge that Peloza chooses to ignore the accepted framework for biology classes and to insist upon using his own religious preference in teaching the theory of creationism to his students. Based upon this conflict, there has resulted considerable controversy between the teacher and the school officials resulting in the defendants causing a continuum of monitoring of plaintiff's classes in order to make a determination of the content of his lectures to students. This resulted in defendant Thomas R. Anthony on February 7, 1991 issuing a formal written reprimand to plaintiff accusing him of teaching religion in the classroom. This reprimand incorporated in a letter dated October 11, 1990 from defendant Ross Velderraine to plaintiff. The 1991 letter from defendant Anthony issued a formal written warning to plaintiff in which it was stated:
At the outset it should be understood that my task in this memorandum is not to decide whether the teaching of evolution in the defendant's schools is or is not of itself a violation of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the Constitution. No one has raised this as an issue in this case. The plaintiff in his argument has conceded that this might be a separate issue in another case. Simply put, the issue I must decide is whether Peloza has a constitutional right to conduct himself as a loose cannon in his classroom or on the campus and teach scientific theories of his own choosing despite the fact that they are not authorized by and are prohibited by the State Board of Education curriculum. I conclude that he has not.
In McLean v. Arkansas Bd. of Education, 529 F.Supp. 1255 (E.D.Ark.1982), the court held that teaching creationism is in fact teaching a religion. This undermines plaintiff's notion that he has a constitutional right to teach it because it is religion. It also debunks his idea that he can teach creationism as a part of academic freedom. In Webster v. New Lenox School Dist. No. 122, 917 F.2d 1004 (7th Cir.1990), the court was faced with a teacher who sought to vary the curriculum by teaching creationism to his junior high school social studies students. In ruling that the school board sets the curriculum and that the plaintiff must follow it, the Webster court stated as follows:
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