Paul Sunstone has some very interesting details on the story behind the story of that Ohio creationist science teacher who burned a cross into a student’s arm: The Firing of John Freshwater.

Yesterday’s report reveals Mr. Freshwater has a long history of complaints against him — all of which have been more or less ignored until the most recent ones. John Freshwater has taught at Mount Vernon Middle School for 21 years. For at least the past 11 years, he has been the subject of numerous complaints lodged against him by his fellow teachers, his students, and their parents.

His colleagues over at the high school, for instance, claim his teaching of evolution is so flawed they are forced to re-teach the subject to his students when they get into high school. It has also come out that Mr. Freshwater has been told on at least several occasions to change his behavior, but has refused to do so. Only now, years after the complaints first started coming in, has anything been done about them.

Today, Friday, the School Board “…unanimously passed a resolution of intent to consider the termination of [Mr. Freshwater’s] teaching contract. “Board president Ian Watson said the board will proceed with termination at its meeting on July 7, unless Freshwater files a written request for a hearing within 10 days of receiving notice of the board’s intent to fire him.”

Yet even before today’s School Board news, Mr. Freshwater’s friends were aiming to payback the Board. The melodramatic Minutemen United group earlier this week launched a drive to recall the School Board. Although the drive does not seem to have much chance of succeeding, it might indicate just how hot tempers are in Mount Vernon these days.

Minutemen United was founded by David Daubenmire, a man who was himself sued by the ACLU in 1999 for leading the high school football team he coached in prayer. Mr. Daubenmire is a close friend of Mr. Freshwater and has called the accusations against him a “witch hunt”. Mr. Daubenmire has said:

The science experiment [the alleged burning of the student] took place in December, and the parents did not go to the police and didn’t file a criminal complaint. It was not until April, when John Freshwater refused to remove his Bible, that the school board rapidly made the decision to accuse him of things and then go back and find evidence.

With the exception of the science experiment, John Freshwater is teaching the beliefs and values that the majority of people in this community agree with. The only thing the On Call report found is evidence that Mr. Freshwater is a Christian.

So, Mr. Daubenmire is still trying to spin the story as merely about John Freshwater displaying a Bible.

There is much more to this story than I have the space for — so I have provided references and further reading at the end of this post. It occurs to me, however, that we have here one instance of what’s going on in many hundreds — even thousands — of science classrooms across the country. Teachers entrusted to teach science are instead teaching creationism and intelligent design.