The Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), founded in 1978, is an association of evangelical Christian 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, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories). It is done by the g ...

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 ...

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, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...

system alleging that the rejection of several Christian science courses was " viewpoint discrimination" 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 entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these pr ...

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 act ...

s against individual school officials were thrown out. The National Center for Science Education 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 Dissen ...

, a former staff attorney for the Institute for Creation Research. 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 bord ...

, he defended the state's "equal time" law, which was ruled to be unconstitutional in '' Edwards v. Aguillard''. The National Center for Science Education works in collaboration with National Academy of Sciences, 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, 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 unfalsifiable claim ...

. The Association retained leading

proponent Michael Behe 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