John Scopes: Breaking The Tennessee Education Law

In 1925, John Scopes, a high school teacher in Tennessee, was accused of violating the state's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of human evolution in state-funded schools. This incident, known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, sparked a highly publicised legal battle that brought attention to the conflict between religious fundamentalism and modernism.

John Scopes taught evolution in a state-funded school

In 1925, John Scopes was a 24-year-old teacher at Rhea County High School in Dayton, Tennessee. He taught science and coached the school's football team.

In March of that year, the Butler Act was passed in Tennessee, which made it illegal for teachers to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposed the passing of the Butler Act and offered to defend any teacher charged under the law.

Businessmen in Dayton, Tennessee, who were experiencing an economic slump, believed that a controversial trial could bring publicity and money to the town. They decided that Scopes, a young and unmarried outsider, was the perfect candidate to challenge the Butler Act. Although Scopes could not remember actually teaching evolution in his classes, he agreed to take part in the challenge.

On May 5, 1925, Scopes was charged with teaching evolution from a chapter in George William Hunter's textbook, 'Civic Biology: Presented in Problems' (1914). The book described the theory of evolution, race, and eugenics.

The trial, known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, began on July 10, 1925, and lasted until July 21. It was the first trial to be broadcast on national radio.

Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 (equivalent to $1,700 in 2023). However, the verdict was overturned on a technicality, as the judge imposed the fine before Scopes was given an opportunity to speak.

The trial brought intense national publicity and highlighted the divide between modernists, who said evolution could be consistent with religion, and fundamentalists, who prioritised the word of God as revealed in the Bible over all human knowledge. It also demonstrated the clash between science and religion in the American classroom.

Scopes was fined $100 for breaking the Butler Act

In 1925, John Scopes was fined $100 for breaking the Butler Act, a Tennessee law that prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools. The Butler Act, passed in March 1925, made it a misdemeanor for teachers in public schools to teach "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." The penalty for violating the act was a fine of between $100 and $500.

The Scopes trial, also known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, began on July 10, 1925, and lasted until July 21. It was a highly publicized event that brought attention to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, and highlighted the clash between fundamentalists and modernists within Christian denominations. John Scopes, a high school teacher, was accused of violating the Butler Act by teaching evolution in his class.

The trial attracted famous lawyers to each side, with Clarence Darrow defending Scopes and William Jennings Bryan prosecuting. The case was intentionally staged to attract publicity, and it succeeded in drawing intense national attention. The trial was broadcast on national radio, and reporters from across the country and even from Europe flocked to Dayton to cover the story.

During the trial, Darrow called Bryan to the stand as an expert witness on the Bible. Darrow's questioning of Bryan highlighted supposed contradictions in the biblical text and showed that Bryan was not an expert in fields such as world religions, modern science, or biblical criticism. This exchange is considered the most memorable moment of the trial and humiliated Bryan and the fundamentalist movement.

After eight days of trial, the jury took only nine minutes to deliberate and found Scopes guilty. In addition to the $100 fine, Scopes was also ordered to pay court costs. However, the conviction was later overturned on appeal due to a technicality regarding the imposition of the fine. The Tennessee Supreme Court found that only juries could impose fines of over $50, and the judge in the Scopes trial had set the fine himself.

The ACLU offered to defend teachers charged under the Butler Act

The Butler Act, passed in March 1925, banned the teaching of evolution in all educational institutions in Tennessee. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) immediately offered to defend any teacher prosecuted under the law.

The ACLU's offer came in the form of advertisements in Tennessee newspapers, seeking a teacher willing to challenge the law. The ACLU's motivations were twofold: firstly, they wanted to demonstrate that the Tennessee law was unconstitutional because it privileged the Bible, a religious document, as the standard of truth in a public institution. Secondly, they wanted to protect teachers' individual rights and academic freedom.

John Scopes, a young and popular high school science teacher, agreed to stand as the defendant in a test case to challenge the law. He was arrested on May 7, 1925, and charged with teaching the theory of evolution. The case, known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, became one of the most sensational cases in 20th-century America, riveting public attention and bringing national awareness to the ACLU for the first time.

The trial, which lasted eight days, resulted in a guilty verdict for Scopes and a $100 fine. However, the ultimate outcome of the trial was significant: the Butler Act was never enforced again, and over the next two years, laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution were defeated in 22 states. The ACLU's efforts to challenge anti-evolution laws continued, and in 1968, the Supreme Court unanimously declared a similar law in Arkansas to be an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Clarence Darrow was Scopes' defence attorney

Clarence Darrow was a prominent defence attorney and civil libertarian in the Scopes trial. Darrow was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a well-known agnostic. He was also a vocal opponent of the death penalty, which he believed to be "in conflict with humanitarian progress".

Darrow was born in 1857 in Farmdale, Ohio, and grew up in the nearby town of Kinsman. He studied at Allegheny College and the University of Michigan Law School but did not graduate from either, instead choosing to teach and study law independently for three years. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1878 and practised law in several small towns in Ohio before moving to Chicago in 1887. Darrow had a reputation as a defender of "radicals" and was well-known for his representation of trade union causes.

Darrow was nearly 70 years old when he joined the defence team in the Scopes trial. He had recently come off a highly publicised trial in Chicago, where he saved Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb from capital punishment. Darrow was a legendary lawyer, having built a national practice with only a single loss in murder defence. He was also known for his representation of labour leader Eugene V. Debs, wealthy University of Chicago students Leopold and Loeb, Detroit doctor Ossian Sweet, and Henry Sweet, an African American accused of murder in a civil rights upheaval.

Darrow's involvement in the Scopes trial was controversial. The ACLU had initially been wary of his involvement, fearing that "Darrow's militant agnosticism would imperil Scopes' defence". However, Darrow approached John Neal of the defence team and offered his services, which Neal accepted without consulting the rest of the team or Scopes.

Darrow's strategy in the trial was to argue that there was no conflict between evolution and the Bible, a viewpoint that would later be called theistic evolution. He also sought to portray the trial as a conflict between tolerant, educated Christians and intolerant, obscurantist Christians. To this end, he called William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the prosecution, to the stand as a witness, questioning him on his literal interpretation of the Bible. This exchange was popularised by the media and is often portrayed as the deciding factor that turned public opinion against Bryan and the prosecution.

Although Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, the conviction was later overturned on appeal, and the law forbidding the teaching of evolution in Tennessee was eventually repealed in 1967. Darrow's defence of Scopes is considered a landmark in the debate between creationism and evolutionism, and increased discourse on the topic.

William Jennings Bryan was the prosecution attorney

William Jennings Bryan was a three-time Democratic Party presidential nominee and former secretary of state. He was a populist and a progressive force in the Democratic Party, supporting women's suffrage, championing the rights of farmers and labourers, and believing passionately in majority rule. However, Bryan was also a religious conservative, and in 1921, he began a campaign to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools. Bryan believed that Darwin's theory was responsible for much of what was wrong with the modern world, and that the Bible countered Darwin's "merciless law" with "the law of love".

Bryan's decision to join the prosecution team in the Scopes trial raised the stakes of the trial in the minds of many supporters of evolution. Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History, declared:

> William Jennings Bryan is the man on trial; John Thomas Scopes is not the man on trial. If the case is properly set before the jury, Scopes will be the real plaintiff, Bryan will be the real defendant.

Bryan's role in the trial was not limited to that of a prosecutor. On the seventh day of the trial, defence attorney Clarence Darrow called Bryan to the stand as an expert witness on the Bible. Bryan accepted, on the understanding that Darrow would in turn submit to questioning by Bryan. The questioning of Bryan lasted approximately two hours and covered several questions regarding Biblical stories and Bryan's beliefs. Bryan declared that Darrow was using the court to "cast ridicule on everybody who believes in the Bible", while Darrow retorted that the purpose of his questioning was to prevent "bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States". The judge eventually adjourned the court, and Bryan was denied the chance to cross-examine Darrow.

Five days after the trial ended, Bryan died in his sleep. The connection between the trial and his death is still debated by historians.

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