Wednesday, September 08, 2010

The ICR Gives Up in Texas

As reported a few days ago in Panda's Thumb, the Institute For Creation Research has closed its graduate school after being firmly denied accreditation by the Texas Higher Education Committee. As the NCSE reports:
Information about the graduate school vanished from the ICR's website over the summer of 2010, but writing in Creation Ministries International's Journal of Creation (forthcoming 2010; 24 [3]: 54-55), Chris Ashcraft reported (PDF), "On 25 June 2010 the ICR board of directors voted to close the Grad School," citing a June 30, 2010, e-mail from Henry Morris III. Replacing it, apparently, is the ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics, which offers a Master of Christian Education degree; Creation Research is one of four minors. The ICR explains, "Due to the nature of ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics — a predominantly religious education school — it is exempt from licensing by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Likewise, ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics is legally exempt from being required to be accredited by any secular or ecumenical or other type of accrediting association."
Score 1 for higher education in Texas. Instead, the ICR has opened a new School of Bible Apologetics that may or may not be exempt from licensing from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. NCSE thinks it is not. We may yet see another law suit.

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4 comments:

  1. The ICR is apparently out of the woods after all. The Texas Administrative Code provides, "The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board does not regulate Religious Institutions of Higher Education which offer degrees only in religious disciplines" (19 Tex. Admin. Code 1.7A, sec. 7.9). It appears that THECB failed to clarify the relevant frequently asked questions of its website section in light of the Texas Supreme Court's decision in HEB Ministries, Inc. et al. v. Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (235 S.W.3d 627 [Tex. 2007]), which established that THECB does not have oversight over institutions that offer exclusively religious education and training.

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  2. Thanks for the update. In a way, though, it is a slap in the face to the ICR because it just reaffirms what most people think anyway—that they don't produce any science.

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  3. Anonymous9:12 AM

    Yep, the Darwinists seem to have won this one. Suppression though will come back to haunt them I'm sure.

    jimhuman

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  4. It is not suppression, it is preserving the integrity of science. If I wanted to start a graduate program in astronomy using pre-Copernican cosmological models, it would not get a passing vote—nor should it. The ICR's arguments don't even have that kind of standing in the scientific community.

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