For high school seniors, applying for college should be an exciting time—even more so for those with outstanding academic and extracurricular records. For these students, the sky should be the limit when it comes to choice. Sadly, that won’t be the case for six high school students whose acceptance to the University of California (UC) system1 has already been decided, even though they haven’t even applied.
Unless they choose to take other college-prep classes that use textbooks deemed “acceptable” by UC, these students’ applications will most likely be denied. The reason: the Christian textbooks used in several new college-prep courses at their high school were considered “too religious” to be accepted for college-entrance credit at UC.
On August 25, these six students, along with their school, Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, California and the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI),2 filed a federal lawsuit against the University of California where, according to the LA Times (August 27), admissions officials have been accused of discriminating against high schools that teach creationism and other conservative Christian viewpoints.
According to the LA Times article, UC’s board of admissions advised the school that it would not approve biology and science courses that relied primarily on textbooks published by Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books. Some of the school’s Christian-oriented courses were “too narrow” to be acceptable, university officials wrote in letters to Calvary Chapel.