In 2008, Louisiana passed the first "academic freedom" laws meant to protect teachers from discipline should they introduce unscientific ideas when teaching topics like evolution and climate change. At the time, Zack Kopplin was a student in Louisiana public schools; he's been campaigning to have the law, called the Louisiana Science Education Act, repealed ever since.

As part of those efforts, Kopplin has started sending Freedom of Information requests to schools, asking for any documents that might pertain to creationism or the LSEA. While Kopplin told Ars that most of his requests were simply ignored, he's received a number of rather striking documents.

In one, which appears to contain a set of PowerPoint slides, there's a page titled "Creationism (Intelligent Design)" that refers students to the Answers in Genesis website, along with two other sites that are critical of that group's position. In another, a parent's complaint about a teacher who presents evolution as a fact is met by a principal stating that "I can assure you this will not happen again."

That same principal also received an e-mail from a teacher that stated:

You wanted me to let you know when I was planning the Creation point of view. I will be doing this on Monday 3/21. The students will actually be doing most of the presenting. We will read in Genesis and the some supplemental material debunking various aspects of evolution from which the students will present.

This shouldn't be a complete shock, given that surveys have found that over 10 percent of the science teachers in the US teach creationism as a valid scientific perspective. The question is whether the LSEA is exacerbating this problem.

Josh Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education suggested it might be. He pointed out that several of the requests sent out by Kopplin were for information about how districts were implementing the LSEA. Given that materials on creationism came back, Rosenau said it "suggests they are seeing it through a similar lens." In one case, Kopplin's requests turned up a copy of the bill itself in a file named "Creationism Act 473.pdf."

So far, however, the state's been spared any legal action as a result of the statute. If the documents turned up are any indication, however, it will only take the right parents ending up in the wrong school district for the courts to get involved.