Seventy-five science professors at Case Western Reserve University have taken the unusual step of endorsing a candidate for Ohio’s Board of Education, The New York Times reports. The professors hope that their candidate will unseat a current board member who has led efforts, thus far unsuccessful, to adopt a public-school curriculum that would cast doubt on evolutionary theory.

The professors’ candidate is a former congressman named Tom Sawyer, an unlikely name for any defender of academic science. His opponent in the November election is Deborah Owens Fink.