The FTE became involved in the Dover controversy when it became clear that "Of Pandas and People" would be a major focus of litigation. The foundation filed a motion to join the defending side in June 2005, arguing that a finding that intelligent design was religious would destroy FTE's ability to market its textbooks within the district, and affect its ability to market the textbooks to any public school in the United States. Had the motion been granted, the FTE would have become a co-defendant with the Dover Area School Board, and able to bring its own lawyers and expert witnesses to the case. However, William A. Dembski, co-author of the new "Pandas" edition, and the Discovery Institute withdrew from the case. The Judge told the defendants: "To me it looks like Mr. Dembski was dropped as an expert because he didn't want to produce, or because his employer didn't want to produce the manuscript subpoena to the court of "The Design of Life"."