News Flash: Cobb County Case Settled

A little birdie just called to tell me that the Cobb County evolution disclaimer case has been settled, and on very favorable terms for our side. Americans United is sending out a press release which says, in part:

In an agreement announced today, Cobb County school officials state that they will not order the placement of “any stickers, labels, stamps, inscriptions, or other warnings or disclaimers bearing language substantially similar to that used on the sticker that is the subject of this action.” School officials also agreed not to take other actions that would undermine the teaching of evolution in biology classes.

It should be noted that this happens one day before the one year anniversary of the ruling in Kitzmiller, and I don’t think that is coincidental here. When the appeals court remanded this case back to the district court, not only was the case reopened for a new trial but the judge also reopened discovery and decided to allow expert witnesses to testify. I strongly suspect that this was a big influence on making the defense settle the case. After watching how effectively we used expert testimony in the Dover case, they couldn’t like that prospect. It is perhaps also worth noting that this is what real lawyers do in lieu of putting out silly “studies” based on word counts.

The AU press release is here. NCSE story is here.