Public schools must give balanced treatment to creation-science and evolution-science, and they may not punish or criticize students or teachers for these positions in the ways described here.
NOTE: This provision of law was included in the Unconstitutional Statutes Biennial Report to the Legislature, dated March 14, 2016. §286.4. Authorization for balanced treatment; requirement for nondiscrimination A. Commencing with the 1982-1983 school year, public schools within this state shall give balanced treatment to creation-science and to evolution-science. Balanced treatment of these two models shall be given in classroom lectures taken as a whole for each course, in textbook materials taken as a whole for each course, in library materials taken as a whole for the sciences and taken as a whole for the humanities, and in other educational programs in public schools, to the extent that such lectures, textbooks, library materials, or educational programs deal in any way with the subject of the origin of man, life, the earth, or the universe. When creation or evolution is taught, each shall be taught as a theory, rather than as proven scientific fact. B. Public schools within this state and their personnel shall not discriminate by reducing a grade of a student or by singling out and publicly criticizing any student who demonstrates a satisfactory understanding of both evolution-science or creation-science and who accepts or rejects either model in whole or part. C. No teacher in public elementary or secondary school or instructor in any state-supported university in Louisiana, who chooses to be a creation-scientist or to teach scientific data which points to creationism shall, for that reason, be discriminated against in any way by any school board, college board, or administrator. Added by Acts 1981, No. 685, §1. NOTE: The Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act, R.S. 17:286.1 to 286.7, was held unconstitutional in Edwards v. Aguillard, La. 1987, 107 S.Ct. 2573, 96 L.Ed.2d 510.