Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Will the ACLU and the Discovery Institute Team Up On Behalf of Guillermo Gonzalez?

There is an article in the Des Moines Register that indicates that the ACLU is also concerned about the treatment of Guillermo Gonzalez:
R. Ben Stone, executive director of the American Civil Liberties of Iowa, said the organization will be "very interested observers" in the Gonzalez tenure case.

He stopped short of saying whether or not Gonzalez is being treated fairly.

"We believe fervently in academic freedom, and professor Gonzalez is entitled to a procedurally fair and objective analysis of his academic abilities and achievements, and if he doesn't get that, then that's a problem," said Stone, who was in attendance at the press conference. "We're obviously expressing no view expressing whether or not that's happened."

Why is it OK when Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Owen Gingerich, Simon Conway Morris, Paul Davies, Robert Jastrow, Francis Collins and many, many others explore the questions Gonzalez is exploring, but it is not ok when he does it? Seems like a strong case of viewpoint discrimination.

The Discovery Institute blog posts on this issue, with details of the incriminating emails, can be found here and here.