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121 Penn Statim 1 (2018)

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121 PENN STATE LAW  REVIEW PENN  STATIM 1


When  I Left the Darwin Day Committee


                       Bruce Ledewitz*

I did not quit the Darwin Day Committee at Duquesne University
over its plans for Darwin Day 2008. I did not really quit at all. Nor
was I actually asked to resign. I just sort of drifted away by mutual
consent. The Committee was celebrating a Pennsylvania victory
over reactionary creationism. I saw that victory too-I really did.
But, at the same time, I was mourning a tragedy of confused
parents trying to maintain a meaningful world for their children.
The Committee  could not see the harm they were doing. They
thought they were doing the right thing.

It was a long time ago now. But, today's supporters of Donald
Trump  are some of those same parents, and the Darwin Day
Committees of the world still don't understand them.

The Darwin Day  Committee is an informal group of professors,
mostly from the science departments, mainly biology, who meet
every year to decide how Duquesne will celebrate International
Darwin Day, around the date of Charles Darwin's birthday,
February 12. Usually, the programs are scientific and technical. In
2016, for example, the title of the program was African
Evolutionary Genomics, A Modern Look at Human Genetic
Diversity.

But for Darwin Day 2008, the Committee decided to go in a
different, more policy-oriented direction. The Committee decided
to highlight the public controversy concerning the teaching of

* Professor of Law, Duquesne University School of Law. A portion
of this article appeared previously in a different form in The Five
Days in June When Values Died in American Law, 49 AKRON L.
REV. 115 (2016).

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