California State University, Northridge has settled a lawsuit brought by a former employee, who sued the university after claiming that it fired him over his creationist beliefs.
Mark Armitage was sacked from his position as manager of the biology department¡¯s electron and confocal microscopy suite in 2013, two weeks after he published a paper about a triceratops horn, which he believed was just 4,000 years old and offered proof of his young-Earth creationist beliefs, according to .
The following year, Mr Armitage sued the university claiming that faculty scientists did not want to be associated with a published creationist.
The university told Inside Higher Ed that its decision to not renew Mr Armitage¡¯s contract was based on ¡°budgetary considerations and a dwindling need for his services¡± and it settled the lawsuit for $399,500 (?322,500) to avoid the costs involved in a protracted legal battle.
It added that a large proportion of the settlement would cover Mr Armitage¡¯s legal fees.
A Mr Armitage published about the settlement on 1 October claims that he has been ¡°vindicated by the [Los Angeles] courts¡± and his research ¡°stands head and shoulders above all the other work that¡¯s been found so far in soft tissue in dinosaur bones¡±.
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