Religion, Bias and Inaccuracy in Education (5/23/2010) from Ethical Culture Society Bergen on Vimeo.
Matthew LaClair is a college sophomore attending the New School in New York City. In September of 2006, when a high school student, his U.S. History teacher was preaching his religion during class, telling the students that if they reject the Lord's salvation, they belong in hell. He also dismissed the theory of evolution and the big bang theory, saying that they are not scientific, and made many other inappropriate statements. Matthew challenged the teacher and school board who refused to deal with the situation in any manner. The story has generated five articles and two editorials in the New York Times, along with a flurry of print, television and radio coverage. Matthew LaClair will talk about this, as well as his experience challenging an American Government textbook for presenting inaccurate and biased information, and how these two situations are examples of problems occurring all around the country.
Matthew has served as a board member of the Secular Student Alliance and as president of Center for Inquiry's Student Initiative Program. He has appeared on Anderson Cooper 360, Air America, Brian Lehrer, BBC international radio and several others. He has also been awarded the James Madison Religious Liberty Award from the Center for Inquiry, the Ethical Hero Award from the American Ethical Union, the Ethical Humanist Award from the New York Society for Ethical Culture and several others. He is a co-host of the radio program Equal Time for Freethought on WBAI 99.5FM. Matthew attended the Sunday school at the Ethical Culture Society of Essex County.
Introduced by Scott Harris.
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