In the March 2, 2010, primary election, avowed young-earth creationist Don McLeroy narrowly lost his bid to be the Republican candidate for the District 9 seat on the Texas state board of education. As the Dallas Morning News (March 3, 2010) reported, "The fiercely contested race pitted McLeroy, a dentist from College Station and member of the board’s social conservative bloc, against [Thomas] Ratliff, a legislative consultant and son of former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff," who is viewed as likely to side with the moderates on the board. There is no Democratic candidate for the seat, so Ratliff is expected to be elected in November 2010.
Originally elected to the board in 1998, McLeroy was persistently determined to undermine the treatment of evolution in Texas's public schools. During the debate over biology textbook adoption in 2003, he was one of the four members of the board who misused the state science standards to oppose adopting the eleven textbooks under consideration. His attacks on science education — including his endorsement of a book that described parents who want their children to learn about evolution as "monsters" — were in part responsible for the state senate's refusal to confirm him as chair of the board in May 2009, as NCSE previously reported.
McLeroy's assault on evolution came to a head during a meeting of the board in March 2009 when he declaimed, in a now notorious moment, "Somebody's got to stand up to experts!" (Video is available on NCSE's YouTube channel.) Unfortunately, a majority of the board did so, voting to amend the Texas state science standards to add a requirement that students examine "all sides of scientific evidence" and to add or amend various standards in a way that encourages the presentation of creationist claims about the complexity of the cell, the completeness of the fossil record, and the age of the universe.
The board's revisions to the standards were widely deplored, with the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology describing it as "a step backward" and the Austin American-Statesman (April 1, 2009) editorially complaining, "Don McLeroy, Dunbar and others have turned the education board into a national joke. But when it comes to teaching Texas children, what they have done is not funny." But McLeroy was unabashed. "Our science standards are light years ahead of any other state when it comes to challenging evolution," he told the Washington Monthly (January/February 2010), adding, "Evolution is hooey."