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NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2013/08/02

(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)

Dear friends of RNCSE,

News of the death of the Louisiana attorney general who defended the state's Balanced 
Treatment Act in the 1980s.

WILLIAM J. GUSTE JR. DIES

William J. "Billy" Guste Jr., who served for twenty years as the attorney general of Louisiana 
and who assiduously defended the state's Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and 
Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction Act, died on July 24, 2013, at the age of 91, 
according to the obituary in the New Orleans Times-Picayune (July 25, 2013).

The Louisiana Balanced Treatment Act was signed into law on July 20, 1981, and preparations 
were immediately underway to challenge it as unconstitutional. Consequently, "many of the 
biggest names in creationist legal circles came to the aid of the embattled bill," writes Amy J. 
Binder in Contentious Curricula (Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 142). "Joining Guste as 
legal counsel on the case were Wendell Bird, creationism's top legal mind, and John 
Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute." Guste and his comrades stole a march on the 
opponents of the act by filing suit to force the state's educational system -- whose 
superintendent had adopted a wait-and-see attitude -- to comply with its provisions. When the 
American Civil Liberties Union filed its suit, Aguillard v. Treen, a day later, Guste asked for it to 
be delayed pending the resolution of the prior Keith v. Louisiana. After the Keith suit was 
dismissed, the Aguillard suit resumed. After a complicated detour through the Louisiana 
Supreme Court, a federal judge in New Orleans issued a summary judgment ruling that the act 
was unconstitutional, which was upheld by a panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 
and then, narrowly, by the whole court sitting en banc. Guste and his comrades then decided 
to take the case to the Supreme Court. In a letter to the editor of the New Orleans Times-
Picayune published on August 11, 1985, Guste defended the decision to appeal, emphasizing 
his central argument that the act's purpose was to ensure "academic freedom." When Bird 
argued the case before the Supreme Court, Guste was at his side. On June 19, 1987, on a 7-2 
vote, the Supreme Court ruled, in what was by then Edwards v. Aguillard, that the act was 
unconstitutional, holding that it "impermissibly endorses religion by advancing the religious 
belief that a supernatural being created humankind." Although Bird was indisputably the 
foremost legal defender of the act, Binder writes, "Creationists had been wise to put their faith 
in the Louisiana Attorney General as a committed ally to the Bird and Whitehead team" (p. 144).

Guste was born on May 26, 1922, in New Orleans. He earned his A.B. and LL.B. degrees at 
Loyola University in New Orleans in 1942 and 1943 and was granted a honorary LL.D. degree 
by the same university in 1974. In addition to practicing law from 1943 to 1972, he served in the 
Louisiana Senate from 1968 to 1972 and as the attorney general of Louisiana from 1972 to 1992.

For the obituary in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, visit:
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/07/william_billy_guste_jr_who_ser.html 

For the text of the Supreme Court's decision in Edwards v. Aguillard, visit:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/edwards-v-aguillard.html 

Thanks for reading. And don't forget to visit NCSE's website -- http://ncse.com -- where you can 
always find the latest news on evolution and climate education  and threats to them.

--
Sincerely,

Glenn Branch
Deputy Director
National Center for Science Education, Inc.
420 40th Street, Suite 2
Oakland, CA 94609-2509
510-601-7203 x305
fax: 510-601-7204
800-290-6006
branch@ncse.com 
http://ncse.com 

Read Reports of the NCSE on-line:
http://reports.ncse.com 

Subscribe to NCSE's free weekly e-newsletter:
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NCSE's work is supported by its members. Join today!
http://ncse.com/join 


-- 
Sincerely,

Glenn Branch
Deputy Director
National Center for Science Education, Inc.
420 40th Street, Suite 2
Oakland, CA 94609-2509
510-601-7203 x305
fax: 510-601-7204
800-290-6006
branch@ncse.com 
http://ncse.com 

Read Reports of the NCSE on-line:
http://reports.ncse.com 

Subscribe to NCSE's free weekly e-newsletter:
http://groups.google.com/group/ncse-news 

NCSE is on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter:
http://www.facebook.com/evolution.ncse 
http://www.youtube.com/NatCen4ScienceEd 
http://twitter.com/ncse 

NCSE's work is supported by its members. Join today!
http://ncse.com/join