Russian Student Sues School Over Teaching of Evolution

A Russian court on Wednesday started hearings in an unprecedented lawsuit brought by a 15-year-old student who says being taught the theory of evolution in school violates her rights and insults her religious beliefs, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Maria Shreiber sued the St. Petersburg city education committee, claiming the 10th-grade biology textbook used at the Cervantes Gymnasium was offensive to believers and that teachers should offer an alternative to Darwin’s famous theory. “The biology textbook generally refers to religion and the existence of God in a negative way. It infringes on believers’ rights,” she said in comments carried by Russian television stations.

Spiritual Heritage, an organization that supports the suit, argues that Darwin’s theory is still a hypothesis that remains to be proved, claiming that there is no reason it should be taught at school as the only correct version of human genesis.

The case is quite advantageous for the Russian Orthodox Church that has long argued that a subject called “Orthodox Culture Basics” should be introduced into the school curriculum.

Maria’s father, Kiril Schreiber, who represented her in court Wednesday, said he wants the biology textbook revised.

School officials, meanwhile, were dismissive of the suit. Principal Andrei Polozov said he doubted Shreiber had “serious religions beliefs.”

“It seems to everyone that this is stupid and serves no purpose,” he said of the lawsuit in televised comments. “Pupils and teachers are more amused than concerned about it.”

Deputy Principal Olga Makarova told The Associated Press that the biology teacher had mentioned alternative theories to evolution.

“When starting the course on the matter, the biology teacher said that there are other versions of humanity’s origin,” she said.

The suit is the first of its kind in Russia.

In the United States, several lawsuits challenging the theory that says humans descended from apes have been filed in courts, with many anti-evolution groups pushing an idea known as “intelligent design” which holds that living organisms are so complex they must have been created by some kind of higher force.

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