Ben Stein's 2008 documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed made the claim that discrimination against those critical of Darwin's theory is widely practiced in schools and science research jobs.  The discrimination claim was roundly denounced by critics as false. 

Local property owner Dave Coppedge says he has experienced this discrimination first-hand at JPL.  He lost his job on Monday. Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute provides a recap since Coppedge is currently in litigation:

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) just dumped a lot of fuel on the fire of David Coppedge's discrimination lawsuit by firing him on Monday. Coppedge's lawsuit against JPL alleges discrimination because he was prevented from talking about intelligent design (ID).

This could potentially expose JPL to a claim of wrongful termination and increase the merits of Coppedge's claim that JPL retaliated against him. According to Coppedge's attorney William Becker, JPL claims the firing resulted from downsizing in the face of budget issues, but Coppedge is the most senior member of the team that oversees the computers on NASA and JPL's Cassini Mission to Saturn. Coppedge doesn't seem at all like the first person who would normally be forced to leave in such a situation, but obviously, JPL has other considerations.

Those other considerations began in 2009 when the administration found out that Coppedge had occasionally had friendly discussions about ID with fellow employees. Coppedge was not pushy in these conversations; if a colleague wasn't interested, Coppedge dropped the matter. Nonetheless, one administrator yelled at Coppedge and ordered him to stop "pushing religion," which led to Coppedge filing a claim of harassment. But rather than Coppedge's harassment claim being investigated, Coppedge later learned that he was the subject of an investigation that charged him with creating a hostile work environment.

Coppedge was then demoted and threatened with losing his job if he persisted in purportedly "unwelcome" and "disruptive" discussions of ID. Part of JPL's "Origins Program's" mission is purportedly to study questions like "How did we get here?" One would think that a little friendly conversation about intelligent design in the workplace would therefore be tolerated. But the gag order applied to no other JPL employees, and in fact JPL has openly tolerated anti-ID speech from its other employees. Sadly, David Coppedge was singled out and prevented from speaking in favor of ID. 

Coppedge joined the Cassini mission in 1997 and in 2000 earned recognition for excellence, receiving the role of "Team Lead SA" (computer system administrator).  Cassini is widely held to be the most successful space mission to date.

David Klinghoffer of Evolution News and Views is outraged:

The ultimate government resource, much more so than time or computers, is power, especially the power to coerce and punish. So let us not forget all about the violence that's been done to the public trust in the David Coppedge case at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Get ready now to call (preferably) or at least email Charles Bolden, NASA's administrator, to express your outrage at the fact that Coppedge was fired this week. Here's that contact information: phone: 202-358-1010; email: charles.bolden@nasa.gov.

From all appearances, supervisors at NASA's JPL abused their power in order to persecute Coppedge...