The Louisiana Science Education Act is an "academic freedom law" based on the Discovery Institute's academic freedom model statute The LSEA allows teachers in public schools to use supplemental materials in the science classroom that are critical of established scientific theories "including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning." Senator Nevers originally pre-filed the bill as the Louisiana Education Freedom Act (SB 561), at the behest of the Louisiana Family Forum to allow creationism to be taught in public schools. “They (the Louisiana Family Forum) believe that scientific data related to creationism should be discussed when dealing with Darwin's theory. This would allow the discussion of scientific facts," Nevers said. The Louisiana Science Education Act, SB 733, introduced April 17, 2008, is a renumbered and renamed version of SB 561, which was introduced earlier by Senator Nevers. Gene Mills, president of the Louisiana Family Forum, states that the bill is necessary to allow teachers to "critically present" evidence and "quit choosing sides when it comes to teaching students this controversial subject matter." Critics of the bill suggest that it is intended as an end-run around the federal ban on the teaching of creationism in public schools, and say that the sole purpose of the law is to provide legal cover to educators who want to introduce things other than science to the teaching of evolution in contravention of court rulings in cases such as Edwards v. Aguillard and Kitzmiller v. Dover, something opposed by the scientific community. On June 3, 2008, The American Institute of Biological Sciences sent a letter to House Speaker Jim Tucker opposing SB 733. On June 20, 2008, AIBS and seven other societies sent a letter to Governor Bobby Jindal requesting that he veto SB733. The requesting societies included the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the American Ornithologists Union, the American Society of Mammalogists, the Botanical Society of America, the Natural Science Collections Alliance, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the Society for the Study of Evolution.

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