A group of scientists from a respected Cleveland university is endorsing a candidate for the Ohio state board of education because the incumbent he’s opposing has voted against teaching evolution in the state’s schools.
Seventy-five faculty members at Case Western Reserve University wrote in an open letter to voters that incumbent Deborah Owens Fink “has continued to sideline important issues associated with improving public education in her effort to debase and distort the teaching of science in high schools while attempting to cast controversy on biological evolution in favor of an ill-defined notion called intelligent design that courts have ruled is religion, not science.”
The group endorsed Tom Sawyer, a former Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, in the Nov. 7 contest to represent the regional district, which includes Akron and other areas of northeastern Ohio, on the state board.
Ms. Fink was unavailable for comment.
