Committee to decide fate of textbooks

Friday, February 4th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A member of the State Textbook Committee said this morning that he disagrees with an attorney general's opinion that the committee has no authority to place a disclaimer concerning evolution on biology textbooks. Committee member John Dickmann hinted that the committee might take legal action to challenge the opinion during a series of sharp exchanges with Assistant Attorney General Gay Tudor over the disclaimer and the committee's authority to require it.

"An attorney general's opinion is binding on this body," Tudor said. The opinion, handed down on Wednesday, said the committee has no authority to require biology textbooks to carry the disclaimer and that the committee violated the Open Meeting Act when it voted for the disclaimer. The opinion is law unless it is challenged in court. "The public should have been made aware that the committee was considering that action," Tudor said. "I'll just go on the record as disagreeing with that," Dickmann said.

He said conservative state Rep. Bill Graves, R-Oklahoma City, is willing to represent the committee if it chooses to challenge the opinion. But Tudor said the committee has no authority to hire outside counsel. The opinion said that the agenda for the Nov. 5 meeting where the disclaimer was approved "gave no indication that a disclaimer or any other statement or pronouncement for textbooks would be considered by the committee."

But Dickmann said adoption of the biology books was on the agenda and that the disclaimer was part of the adoption process. Dickmann also said that the committee required the disclaimer as part of its authority to accept a textbook on a provisional basis if a book is dated or contains inaccuracies.

The disclaimer stated that evolution is a "controversial theory" that can refer "to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced a world of living things." But Tudor said the disclaimer does not fit into the committee's provisional authority. "You don't get to add and editorialize and change," she said. "This body is not a curricular body."

Tudor said science textbooks should be solely for teaching science "and we teach our religion elsewhere." "This is not a religion item," Dickmann replied. The committee was scheduled to consider approving 16 textbooks it withheld at the November meeting and decide whether to include them on the list. But it approved a motion by Dickmann to postpone consideration for two weeks to give committee members more time to consider the attorney general's opinion.

Meanwhile, State Superintendent Sandy Garrett said if committee members don't approve enough science textbooks, districts will have to scramble to find money to pay for them. Districts can only use state textbook money for books approved by the committee. "It might be a train wreck," she said Thursday. "If we don't have books, I'm going to be real concerned."

At their November meeting, committee members voted to accept only a few books, saying they didn't like the way the rest of the textbooks presented evolution. Dickmann then introduced the disclaimer, which was to be pasted in the front of all science textbooks.

Committee members must decide what they want to do with the books with which they disagree. According to state law, the committee must provide a "sufficient" supply of textbooks in each subject. But the law does not say how many that is. If they pick too few, Edmondson could be asked to interpret the law again.