** NEWS RELEASE ** Provided as a public service. ICR UNDER CONTINUED ATTACK BY BILL HONIG (Santee, California) - A graduate school of science that refuses to teach evolution as a fact but as an unproved theory is rejecting the findings of an evaluation team sent by Bill Honig, California's Superintendent of Public Instruction. Honig's panel has recommended that state "Approval" be withdrawn from the Institute for Creation Research Graduate School, which would effectively shut down the nine-year-old school. This violation of academic freedom is being watched closely by all Christian schools who fear more governmental interference in their operation and curricula. Strangely, ICR was notified of the panel's findings through the news media and not Honig's office. A San Francisco Chronicle writer called ICR on Tuesday, January 16, for ICR's response to the report, a document that ICR has yet to see. On that day, Honig himself told a Los Angeles Times reporter that the panel's recommendation "seems reasonable," and he will act on the report in a month or so. In the times interview, Honig said that the panel's findings were unanimous, but in truth, as the Times reporter revealed, one of the five members dissented and argued that the school should be allowed to continue to operate as an "Approved" institution. Honig has been threatening to deny the Institute for Creation Research Graduate School its license to operate unless either the creationist content is removed from courses or the degrees issued by ICR be labeled as theological rather than scientific. Honig has maintained that science can only be taught in a framework of evolution, even in private Christian institutions. The Institute for Creation Research has rejected any such compromise, and is investigating the possibility of legal appeal if Honig persists in his determination to eliminate creationism from ICR's graduate programs. Dr. Henry Morris, President of the Institute for Creation Research in Santee, California, declared that "as a non-public institution, we have the constitutional right to teach science as we understand it, not as the state defines science and commands us to believe." Dr. Morris also asserted that Honig's efforts go "contrary to the California Education Code, and are contrary to freedom of speech and academic freedom. Such an action is clearly unconstitutional and unconscionable." Dr. Morris noted that the Supreme Court in its 1987 decision on creationism in public schools declared that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind...might be validly done." The ICR Graduate School has been offering masters' degrees in four areas (biology, geology, astro-geophysics, and science education) since 1981. Approximately 20 students have received degrees and about 40 others are currently enrolled in the program. In previous years, the Graduate School had received unanimous recommendation from two state review committees, and a visit in August of 1988 by another evaluation panel came back with a 3-2 majority vote that ICR continue to operate with an "Approval" rating. However, on e of the committee members who was strongly opposed to ICR even before he visited the Graduate SChool later filed a "minority report," and Superintendent Honig then successfully persuaded one of the other committee members to change his mind and vote for disapproval. ICR attempted to negotiate with the Department in 1989, which led to a compliance visit. In early August of 1989, a new state panel visited the Graduate School - over strenuous objections by ICR who had learned that a majority of the committee members had expressed in print and in public lecture a bias against creationism - and verbally informed ICR that it would be denied "Approval" to operate. The Graduate School intends to exhaust all feasible methods of appeal of this attack on its academic freedom. ICR's graduate programs are strictly scientific with courses taught by scientists who have doctorate degrees in science from such respected institutions as Harvard and Berkeley. In its own thorough study, ICR's graduate program was shown to be comparable in content to other graduate science programs - it is the small amount of creationist interpretation to which Mr. Honig takes exception, and which he used to persuade one committee member to change his vote in 1988. "The future of academic freedom and free speech in Christian schools is at stake and must be defended," declared Dr. Morris. Honig's enforcement of the doctrinaire teaching of evolutionism in all schools, including Christian and other private education is in jeopardy everywhere if Honig and his backers succeed in their heavy-handed maneuvers. ICR's address is: Institute for Creation Research P.O. 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