Saturday, December 01, 2007

Guillermo Gonzalez, Iowa State and the First Amendment: New Evidence On Monday?

Did Iowa State violate the First Amendment rights of Guillermo Gonzalez? If he sues, it seems that he can potentially have a "First Amendment Double Play": he may be able to show that Iowa State violated his Free Speech rights and his Establishment Clause Rights. It appears that his denial of tenure was a form of punishment for speaking out in favor of intelligent design. In addition, I think a good case can be made that Iowa State had established philosophical naturalism as the official religious/metaphysical worldview of the university, and Gonzalez was punished for taking a philosophical position that was perceived as threatening this established metaphysical belief system.

I think that there is good evidence of this already. It appears that there may be new evidence made public on Monday at a scheduled press conference. News article here.

For further reading:

My previous discussion on whether Iowa State violated the Establishment Clause.

My previous discussion of the statement signed by many Iowa State faculty endorsing philosophical naturalism as a mandatory metaphysical viewpoint.

My previous discussion of John Hauptman's virtual admission that his vote against tenure was based on his disagreement with Gonzalez's philosophy of science.

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