A stellar graduate of the UT Law School writes in with the following story (from 1978):
"Having wandered through your Texas Taliban archive, I thought you might
enjoy a slightly-older anecdote:
"In third grade at [name omitted] Elementary School in [city name omitted],
Oklahoma (former HQ of [company name omitted] and so populated with a
disproportionate number of scientists) I had a teacher I rather liked
named Mrs. Smith.
"One day Mrs. Smith was teaching science and told us about the fact that
the Earth was created by God, period. 'There are some people who think
we came from monkeys,' she said, 'but they don't go to church and they
aren't Christians.' (This is very close to a direct quote; it's a
rather distinct memory.)
"Being (a) a Methodist and (b) the son of a Ph.D. electrochemist and a
mathmetician with a masters who had taught me about evolution for some
time, I thought this was rather odd. I mentioned it to my parents, being
naturally concerned about the idea that the fact that we recognized
evolution meant we were going to have to leave our church. My mom had a
rather unpleasant discussion with the school principal; Mrs. Smith
eventually took me out of the classroom for a few minutes one day and
told me that I'd clearly misunderstood her. (I hadn't.)"
"Oddly, she was never quite as friendly the rest of that year."
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