Francis J. Beckwith - Baylor Controversies

Baylor Controversies

In 2003 shortly after his appointment as associate director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor, twenty-nine members of the J.M. Dawson family called on Baylor University to remove Beckwith as associate director. In a letter the Dawson family members questioned the appointment of Beckwith, accusing him of holding church-state positions contrary to the strong stand for separation advocated by J.M. Dawson: "We are troubled because Dr. Beckwith is a fellow of the Discovery Institute. The activities of this organization are widely recognized in the academic community as engaging in political activities that contravene the fundamental principle of the separation of church and state for which J.M. Dawson stood." ... "The Discovery Institute works to get the concept called 'intelligent design' into the science curriculum of public school textbooks, claiming that intelligent design is a scientific, not a religious, concept. In our judgment and in the judgment of the scientific community, this is a ruse for getting a religious notion into the public schools--clearly a violation of the separation of church and state."

According to a March 31, 2006 BPNews article Beckwith stated that he was following an appeals process in hopes of having the decision reversed. In early September 2006 stories concerning the reasons for Beckwith's denial of tenure and the political intrigue behind it were published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. On September 22, 2006, Beckwith won his appeal and was tenured by Baylor University. The Discovery Institute, where Beckwith served as a Fellow, lobbied extensively on his behalf during the controversy, comparing him to others connected to the Institute who have alleged academic or employment discrimination due to their advocacy of intelligent design such as Richard Sternberg and his peer review controversy. Beckwith also received support from an opponent of intelligent design, Ed Brayton, on his blog Dispatches from the Culture War.