Probe of professor’s evolution policy ends

LUBBOCK, Texas — The Justice Department has ended its investigation of a complaint against a Texas Tech University biology professor after he stopped requiring that students believe in evolution to receive a letter of recommendation. The department said April 22 that it dropped its probe after professor Michael Dini eliminated the evolution belief requirement in his recommendation policy. He replaced it with a requirement that students have the ability to explain the theory of evolution, the Associated Press reported.

Micah Spradling, a student at the university in Lubbock, Texas, filed the complaint, accusing Dini of refusing to write letters of ­recommendation based on religious beliefs of his students. Spradling said as a creationist he couldn’t state a belief in human evolution to receive a recommendation. “A biology student may need to understand the theory of evolution and be able to explain it,” said Ralph Boyd Jr., the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, in a statement. “But a state-run university has no business telling students what they should or should not believe in.”