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As I noted before, the Undiscovery Institute is trying to make hay out of the case of David Coppedge against the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for his allegedly being demoted for promoting his religion by talking about Intelligent Design with his coworkers and giving them ID videos.

I've now had an opportunity to review Coppedge's complaint.

A preliminary matter:

It seems I may have been wrong before in presuming that JPL employees are government employees. At least according to the complaint, all JPL personnel are employees of CalTech, which is a private university. This does not help Coppedge's case, at least insofar as he is basing it on the California Constitution, which prohibits government action to curtail speech but has no application to private persons or corporations.

As far as a claim under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, Casey Luskin, Gofer General of the DI, is half-right (a higher percentage than usual). It is, at least arguably, "unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee based on what they [the employer] deem is religion" under FEHA. Under Section 12926(m):

But Luskin is utterly wrong to say that "whether courts have or have not 'viewed intelligent design as a religious belief' is irrelevant to Coppedge's lawsuit."

In fact, California courts have recognized that FEHA does not prohibit employers from restricting religious proselytizing at work. In the case of Ng v. Jacobs Engineering Group, the California Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's determination that, under FEHA, it would constitute an "undue burden" on an employer to "accommodate" an employee's religious creed that she must attempt to convert her coworkers.

Thus, if ID is a religious belief (and there is ample evidence, not only that it is, but that Coppedge thinks it is), and he was generating complaints from his coworkers because of his efforts to proselytize his beliefs, then the JPL would have been within its rights to stop him. It is interesting to note that Coppedge's own complaint states that "he would not violate his conscience" by stopping discussing ID at work (paragraph 43). Why would discussing a scientific theory involve "conscience"?

It's still possible that the JPL didn't handle the problem correctly, perhaps not documenting their actions sufficiently or exaggerating the complaints of Coppedge's coworkers, who may, for example, have reacted more with ridicule than annoyance. But if the JPL defends this suit vigorously, the religious content of ID could well be in for another going over in the courts.

Can you say "Dover II" boys and girls?
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