– According to World Magazine they have two professors at Iowa State on record saying they voted against tenure for Guillermo Gonzalez based partly upon his assocation with the Intelligent Design movement.
– According to Federal Judge John Jones in the Dover case ID is religion not science and thus cannot be taught in a public school as doing so violates the first amendment establishment clause.
– According to Guillermo Gonzalez he never taught ID in any Iowa State classroom. Thus he kept his religion apart from the school where he teaches. Indeed Guillermo has 68 papers on astronomy published in refereed journals, over 1500 citations to those papers, co-authored an article that made the cover of Scientific American, was featured in Science Magazine, and co-authored an advanced astronomy textbook last year used by at least a half dozen major universities that I know of today including Iowa State. Guillermo’s work in his field is nothing short of outstanding.
Connecting the three dots above leads inevitably to the conclusion that Guillermo is a victim of religious discrimination by a publically funded institution. A clear violation of the first amendment establishment of religion clause counterweight – the freedom of religion clause – as well as the first amendment freedom of speech clause – both of which protect Guillermo in his personal life outside the school against this very kind of discrimination.
Judge Jones handed us a lemon when he ruled that ID was religion. Someone once told me “If God gives you lemons, make lemonade!” I suggest we start rallying our legal talent now and prepare to teach Iowa State a very expensive lesson that will make other universities think twice about sternberging anyone else. Two can play the Dover game.