John T. Scopes, a high-school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was tried for teaching human evolution in violation of the Butler Act. The trial, prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan and defended by Clarence Darrow, was the first courtroom proceeding broadcast live on US radio. Scopes was convicted (overturned on technicality); the Butler Act remained on the books until 1967. The Supreme Court struck down anti-evolution statutes in Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), creation-science mandates in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), and intelligent-design requirements at the federal-district level in Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005).

Why it’s been targeted

West Virginia (2023), Texas (Next Generation review), and Florida have all advanced “academic freedom” bills that allow teachers to “critique” or present “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution — language EdWeek and the NCSE identify as legally engineered to evade Edwards. The Supreme Court’s 2022 Kennedy v. Bremerton ruling, which the majority used to declare the Lemon test “long ago abandoned,” removes the doctrinal foundation under prior evolution-instruction rulings.