By Bob Allen
The Supreme Court of Louisiana has upheld lower court rulings that judges cannot resolve a lawsuit alleging academic freedom violations at a Baptist school without delving into issues of theology and church governance, an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.
Louisiana College issued a news release announcing the high court’s recent refusal to hear arguments by four former professors at the Louisiana Baptist Convention institution who filed a lawsuit in 2005 claiming administrators violated the school’s academic freedom policy and broke conditions of an earlier defamation lawsuit settled out of court in 1997.
The lawsuit filed by former faculty members Carlton Winbery, Fredrick Downing, James Heath and Connie Douglas stemmed from a dispute that began shortly after Joe Aguillard became president of Louisiana College in 2005.
According to media reports at the time, The Road Less Traveled, a book on psychology and spirituality by psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, had been used for years in a Christian values class at Louisiana College. Peck, who died in 2005, considered himself a non-denominational Christian, but Aguillard said he would allow the book to be taught only if it was labeled as Buddhist. Faculty members filed a grievance that eventually grew into the lawsuit.
The 9th Judicial District Court dismissed the case in March 2012, saying issues involved “will necessarily turn upon competing interpretations of religion, thus resulting in the court becoming entangled in an ecclesiastical dispute.”
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in November 2013, finding the dispute “centers on the nature of Baptist theology and church governance over how theology is taught at Louisiana College and would, thus, require the court to impermissibly entangle itself in deciding ecclesiastical matters.”
The Louisiana College press release said the dispute “centered on whether or not the Bible is the inerrant Word of God Himself.”
“Louisiana College, a Southern Baptist institution, proudly operates in accordance with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, which articulates the Bible’s truths and whose foundation is Biblical inerrancy,” officials said.
“The reason Louisiana College and institutions like ours exist is because the Bible is truth without any mixture of error,” said Tommy French, Louisiana College board chairman. “Louisiana College is lashed to the inerrant Word of God and is an academic lighthouse to lost mankind of the eternal hope we have through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The former professors argued unsuccessfully that their claims were based on a contract and could be decided on neutral principles of tort law without excessive entanglement between church and state.
LC officials called the case “a landmark decision for Louisiana College, religious institutions everywhere that stand upon Biblical truth, and for Louisiana Baptists who have proudly supported their only Biblically based higher education institution.”
Louisiana College recently voted to name Aguillard president emeritus and begin a search for a new leader. Argile Smith, associate dean of the Caskey School of Divinity, was named interim president.
That followed months of controversy that began when Aguillard allegedly set out to rid the school of faculty who teach Calvinist theology and escalated to whistleblower reports, wrongful termination lawsuits, release of secretly taped conversations and reportedly calls for his resignation.
A press release said the “emeritus” designation, an honorary title typically used in academia to recognize distinguished service, was in recognition of Aguillard’s “diligence, fortitude and Christian commitment” in leading Louisiana College.
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