In 2012 the Tennessee legislature passed an “Academic Freedom Act” which called for teaching the “strengths and weaknesses” of allegedly controversial subjects such as evolution, global warming, origin of life, and human cloning. Rather than being just an oddity in the state of Tennessee, more than 40 of these laws have cropped up in state legislatures in every region of the country. Because they are patently injurious to science education, citizens need to oppose the passage of these bills – as well as contend for a basic level of science literacy that would make such bills impossible to contemplate.