Though the new session of the state's Senate doesn't start until Monday, a new bill was prefiled by Louisiana Democratic Senator and Education Committee Chair Ben Nevers last week. While in name the "Louisiana Academic Freedom Act" is very similar to bills recently filed in Florida (which are based on a sample bill found on a Discovery Institute Web site), Nevers' bill is actually based on a policy adopted by the local Ouachita Parish School Board and backed by the Louisiana Family Forum, which promotes creationism, according to the National Center for Science Education. Since November 2006, the board's policy allows teachers to helps students understand "the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught"—naming, specifically, only "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning." Similarly, according to the NCSE, the new bill states that "the teaching of some scientific subjects, such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning, can cause controversy" and that teachers should "help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught." Administrators, for their part, are not to "censor or suppress in any way any writing, document, record, or other content of any material" that references those subjects. Still, the bill claims it is not trying to "promote any religious doctrine." —Heather Wax