David Coppedge, a 14-year (Jet Propulsion Lab) JPL veteran and team lead computer administrator on the Cassini Mission to Saturn, was reprimanded and demoted after lending ID-related DVDs to coworkers. By contrast, anti-ID workers at JPL faced no similar restrictions on expressing their views. After Coppedge filed suit to protect his free expression rights, JPL terminated him.
"Evidence shows that taxpayer-funded JPL harassed, demoted and terminated Coppedge after he expressed a pro-ID scientific viewpoint disliked at JPL and wrongly labeled as 'religion' by JPL decision-makers," said Dr. John West, Associate Director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture.
"Whatever your views on intelligent design, you should be concerned about the pervasive culture of discrimination that appears to exist at this NASA facility," added West.
Last November, a California Superior Court judge ruled there "are triable issues of fact as to whether Plaintiff's demotion, written warning, negative performance evaluations, and ultimate termination were adverse employment actions" which involved discrimination. That ruling allowed the case to proceed to trial.
Coppedge is represented by William J. Becker, Jr. of the Becker Law Firm, who has been supported in the case by Alliance Defense Fund. The case number is BC435600.
Since 2011, the California Science Center, University of Kentucky, and the journal Applied Mathematics Letters each paid settlements ranging from $10,000 to more than $100,000 to avoid trial for suppressing Darwin-doubting viewpoints.
According to West, "Open discussion in science is under growing attack by the Darwin lobby, which wants to impose a gag order on anyone who dares to raise criticisms of Darwin's theory. This kind of persecution and censorship cannot be allowed to prevail in a free society."
Why the Coppedge Trial Matters
David Coppedge's case against his former employer, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab,
goes
to trial in Los Angeles on Wednesday. This will open yet another window on
the culture of free-speech suppression that exists across academic and
para-academic institutions.
David Coppedge, it sure looks like, was denied his free expression rights when he accidentally stepped on a land mine: Darwinian evolution. We've documented a variety of other instances where variants of this general scenario have played out: Gonzalez, Sternberg, Sewell, Gaskell. Don't forget the California Science Center affair. In each instance, a loosely organized Darwinian Guild sought to intimidate internal critics and doubters and chill their freedom to write and speak openly. Then courts and lawyers got involved. Emails were disclosed. The facts came out, all properly documented and vetted. Sometimes, significant sums of money were dislodged from Darwinian coffers. Now it's set to happen again, with NASA, JPL and CalTech in the hot seat.
The reason that courts and testimony are important is that they add tangible evidence of a phenomenon that otherwise tries to keep a relatively low profile. The Darwin Guild doesn't advertise its inquisitorial services, though that doesn't make it any less effective in maintaining the illusion of a "consensus" on evolution. Each Sternberg affair, each Gaskell case, each Coppedge trial is like a tile in a mosaic. Considered by itself, it might not tell you very much. But as each tile is added, the picture of how a culture of intimidation actually works gradually emerges, in greater clarity and enhanced vividness.
Most folks in scientific fields, faced with the fear that Darwinists seek to instill, keep quiet about their Darwin doubts. They know where the land mines are buried and so successfully avoid them by staying silent. Then you get a fellow like Coppedge who, for whatever reason, never got the memo and didn't realize the danger in merely sharing a few pro-ID DVDs till he already fell under the threatening shadow of a Human Resources investigation. Before he knew it, he was out of a job.
Someday, enough tiles will have accumulated that any fair-minded person will see the image, without ambiguity. For the Darwin Guild, which needs the public to think that scientists are actually free to reach any conclusion on evolution, that will be an unmitigated disaster.
Stand for the truth and remember...
Have an Intelligent Faith!!!
- Nelis
David Coppedge, it sure looks like, was denied his free expression rights when he accidentally stepped on a land mine: Darwinian evolution. We've documented a variety of other instances where variants of this general scenario have played out: Gonzalez, Sternberg, Sewell, Gaskell. Don't forget the California Science Center affair. In each instance, a loosely organized Darwinian Guild sought to intimidate internal critics and doubters and chill their freedom to write and speak openly. Then courts and lawyers got involved. Emails were disclosed. The facts came out, all properly documented and vetted. Sometimes, significant sums of money were dislodged from Darwinian coffers. Now it's set to happen again, with NASA, JPL and CalTech in the hot seat.
The reason that courts and testimony are important is that they add tangible evidence of a phenomenon that otherwise tries to keep a relatively low profile. The Darwin Guild doesn't advertise its inquisitorial services, though that doesn't make it any less effective in maintaining the illusion of a "consensus" on evolution. Each Sternberg affair, each Gaskell case, each Coppedge trial is like a tile in a mosaic. Considered by itself, it might not tell you very much. But as each tile is added, the picture of how a culture of intimidation actually works gradually emerges, in greater clarity and enhanced vividness.
Most folks in scientific fields, faced with the fear that Darwinists seek to instill, keep quiet about their Darwin doubts. They know where the land mines are buried and so successfully avoid them by staying silent. Then you get a fellow like Coppedge who, for whatever reason, never got the memo and didn't realize the danger in merely sharing a few pro-ID DVDs till he already fell under the threatening shadow of a Human Resources investigation. Before he knew it, he was out of a job.
Someday, enough tiles will have accumulated that any fair-minded person will see the image, without ambiguity. For the Darwin Guild, which needs the public to think that scientists are actually free to reach any conclusion on evolution, that will be an unmitigated disaster.
Stand for the truth and remember...
Have an Intelligent Faith!!!
- Nelis
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