Today in History

March 13 , 1925

Passage of the Butler Act

On March 13, 1925, the legislature of the state of Tennessee passed the Butler Act which declared in part:

... that it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, 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."

A high school teacher, John Scopes, was charged on May 5, 1925 with teaching evolution. His source was a textbook outlining the theories of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species." The prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan with Clarence Darrow acting as attorney for Scopes. The trial drew worldwide attention and was later memorialized in the play and subsequent movie "Inherit the Wind." H.L. Mencken, the famous journalist for the Baltimore Sun, coined the name "Scopes Monkey Trial" for the case.

Scope's teaching of evolution was a deliberate attempt to challenge the Butler Act, financed by the American Civil Liberties Union and a group of business leaders in Dayton, Tennessee. The Butler Act conflicted with another Tennessee law requiring teacher to instruct from the textbook Scopes used. The trial was a theatrical circus. After nine days of testimony, it took the jury nine minutes of deliberation to reach a verdict of guilty. Scopes was ordered to pay a $100 fine.