Dr. Dini

(RNS) The Justice Department has ended its investigation of a complaint against a Texas Tech University biology professor after he stopped requiring that students believe in evolution to receive a letter of recommendation. The department said Tuesday (April 22) that it dropped its probe after professor Michael Dini eliminated the evolution belief recommendation policy. He replaced it with a requirement that students have the ability to explain the theory of evolution, the Associated Press reported. Micah Spradling, a student at the university in Lubbock, Texas, filed the complaint, accusing Dini of refusing to write letters of recommendation based on religious beliefs of his students. Spradling said as a creationist he couldn’t state a belief in human evolution to receive a recommendation. “A biology student may need to understand the theory of evolution and be able to explain it,” said Ralph Boyd Jr., the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, in a statement. “But a state-run university has no business telling students what they should or should not believe in.” ¹