The Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), founded in 1978, is an association of

evangelical Christian Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exper ...

schools. Its headquarters are in

Colorado Springs, Colorado Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

History

ACSI was founded in 1978 through the merger of three associations: The National Christian School Education Association; The Ohio Association of Christian Schools; and the Western Association of Christian Schools. Various international schools have joined the network. In 2021, it had 23,000 schools in 100 countries.

Governance

The

governance Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, social norm, norms, power (social and political), power or language of an organized society over a social system (family, tribe, formal organization, formal or informal organization, a ...

of the organization is ensured by a President and Regional Presidents in the 5 Continental Regions Members.

Affiliations

The organization is a member of the

World Evangelical Alliance The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is an interdenominational organization of evangelical Christian churches, serving more than 600 million evangelicals, founded in 1846 in London, England, United Kingdom to unite evangelicals worldwide. WEA i ...

Lawsuit

In spring 2006, the Association of Christian Schools International sued the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

system alleging that the rejection of several Christian science courses was "

viewpoint discrimination Viewpoint discrimination is a concept in United States jurisprudence related to the First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a par ...

" which violated the

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

al rights of applicants from Christian schools whose high school coursework is deemed inadequate preparation for college. The lawsuit was brought by the parents of six children who had not been rejected from the university. In August 2006, the case '' Association of Christian Schools International v. Roman Stearns'' was allowed to proceed against the university while

lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

s against individual school officials were thrown out. The

National Center for Science Education The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of controversies surrounding t ...

noted, "One of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs is

Wendell Bird Wendell Bird (Atlanta, Georgia) is a legal historian, and formerly practiced law (nonprofit organizations and litigation). Legal history He is the author of ''Press and Speech Under Assault'' (Oxford University Press 2016), of ''Criminal Dissent ...

, a former staff attorney for the

Institute for Creation Research The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas, that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical ...

. As a special assistant attorney general for

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, he defended the state's "equal time" law, which was ruled to be unconstitutional in ''

Edwards v. Aguillard ''Edwards v. Aguillard'', 482 U.S. 578 (1987), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of teaching creationism. The Court considered a Louisiana law requiring that where evolutionary science was taught in public ...

''. The National Center for Science Education works in collaboration with

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

, the

National Association of Biology Teachers The National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) is an incorporated association of biology educators in the United States. It was initially founded in response to the poor understanding of biology and the decline in the teaching of the subject ...

and the

National Science Teachers Association The National Science Teaching Association (NSTA), founded in 1944 (as the National Science Teachers Association) and headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, is an association of science teachers in the United States and is the largest organization ...

, which consider

creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

and

intelligent design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for its bold attempt to ...

to be

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...

. The Association retained leading

proponent

Michael Behe Michael Joseph Behe ( ; born January 18, 1952) is an American biochemist and author, widely known as an advocate of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design (ID). He serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsy ...

to testify in the case as an expert witness. Behe's expert witness report claimed that the Christian textbooks were excellent works for high school students and he defended that view in a deposition. On March 28, 2008 the defendants won a legal victory when their motion for partial summary judgment was granted, and the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment was denied. On August 8, 2008, Judge Otero entered summary judgment against plaintiff ACSI.

References

External links

ACSI home page
{{authority control Christian schools in the United States Evangelical educational organizations Educational accreditation Evangelicalism in Colorado Non-profit organizations based in Colorado Private and independent school organizations in the United States Organizations based in Colorado Springs, Colorado Organizations established in 1978