In a crowded conference room Tuesday, the State Board of Education of Ohio voted 11-4 to delete a controversial evolution lesson plan and send it back to the drawing board.

Despite the victory for the lesson’s opponents, the vote came as a surprise to many after board member Martha Wise failed to pass a similar amendment by a 9-8 vote last month.

Unanimously approved in 2002, the “critical analysis of evolution” lesson plan intended for 10th grade biology classrooms has met strong opposition from the scientific community. Critics say that language within the document opens the door to religious teachings in science classrooms, specifically to intelligent design.

Intelligent design holds that life is too complex to exist without intelligent assistance, an explanation most scientists believe to be a non-scientific, faith-based belief. Because of this, the board has endured multiple threats of litigation regarding the constitutionality of the lesson plan.

At the meeting Tuesday, Wise called for the removal of the model lesson plan by proposing an amendment. Board President Sue Westendorf and member Jennifer Stewart immediately submitted an emergency vote, effectively preventing public discussion until after a formal vote was cast. During discussion of the amendment, board members exchanged heated testimonies for both sides of the issue.

“I am a creationist myself. I believe in God, I believe that God created the heavens and the earth, but creationism is not science, it is faith,” Wise said. “It is deeply unfair to the children of this state to mislead them about the nature of science. This lesson is bad news.”

Board member Rob Hovis sided with Wise and said the governor as well as 75 percent of the board’s science advisory committee members wanted the lesson plan removed.

“The paper trail leading up to the adoption of this lesson and the benchmark which it supports clearly show religious intent,” Hovis said.

In an attempt to reach some middle ground, board member Eric Okerson submitted a change to Wise’s original amendment while discussion took place. The change agreed to removing the lesson but called for the board’s Achievement Committee to consider whether a new lesson should be drafted.

Okerson said that if the board deleted the lesson plan, they would have “no process to defer to” for review of the lesson or any similar lessons in the future.

Steve Rissing, a professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology at Ohio State, said Okerson’s move surely helped secure swing votes in support of removing the model lesson plan.

“People on the board were talking back and forth and saying ‘if you can’t support this, will you support that?'” Rissing said. “(The board) ultimately did the right thing – they said no to intelligent design creationism.”

During a 10-minute break before Wise proposed her amendment, board member Deborah Owens Fink said intelligent design was not in the lesson plan. Owens Fink also said that the lesson plan was not a single directive to attack evolutionary theory, but part of many lessons geared to get students to develop critical thinking skills.

“We should critically analyze every theory,” Owens Fink said. “But (the standards to analyze other theories) are already there.”

Michael Cochran, a board member also in support of the lesson plan, said deleting it would be a disgrace to the members who originally created the standards, especially because several were absent from the meeting.

“I have to wonder … if (the lesson plan) is on the table today because of three absent members who all voted for it,” Cochran said. “No matter what we do today, when all the votes come back, there will be further motions. We can go back and forth, and back and forth,” moving the plan between the board and the committee, Cochran said.

Yet after the votes came in, 11 in support and four opposing, Rissing said the members’ presence for voting might not have made a difference.

“Even if all of those people would have voted against the motion, it would have passed,” Rissing said. “The best (the lesson plan’s supporters) would have gotten was 12-7.”

Following the vote, scores of citizens took to the podium. Members of public interest groups, a former member of the committee that drafted the lesson plan, a lawyer and even a future high school biology teacher showed up to voice their opinions about the board’s decision.

Katie Hess, a senior in biology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, said she plans to teach high school biology and was disappointed with the removal of the lesson plan.

“I still feel that there’s not a single good reason to not teach critical analysis of evolution,” Hess said. “I believe that intelligent design was not the issue.”

Because Cochran is a co-chair of the committee that will analyze the lesson plan, Rissing said he was not sure what will happen when the lesson reaches the committee. Despite this potential roadblock for opponents of the original standards, Rissing said he public involvement in any new draft would be high.

“I think this time the public will follow (the lesson),” Rissing said.