Via Tim Sandefur comes news that Nathaniel Abraham’s lawsuit against the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has been tossed. Abraham, readers may recall, alleged he was a victim of religious discrimination after Woods Hole fired him as a biologist because he refused to work on “evolutionary aspects” of an NIH research grant. As I noted before, it seems to me that belief in evolutionary theory would be a bona fide occupational requirement for a research position in a biology lab. Abraham did not lose on the merits, however, as the district court dismissed the case on procedural grounds.
UPDATE: To qualify the above, I certainly accept that a belief in evolution is not a bona fide job requirement for any and all biology research positions. In this case, however, Woods Hole maintained that the application of evolutionary theory was a key component of the research grant under which Abraham was hired, and it’s not clear that Abraham was even wiling to “fake it” in order to keep the job. More here.