Scopes Monkey Trial Case Study

We have often talked about our position as teachers in a school, whether public or private, is that of a missionary in a mission field. Therefore, it is important for us to know the legal capacities for us to be the light in the schools where we will teach. This paper will address several court cases that have affected the teachings of evolution and creationism in public schools and the implications for Bible-believing teachers.
One of the most famous events regarding the teaching of Creation in public schools was the Scopes Monkey Trial. While this court case did not go up to the Supreme Court, it did have a great impact on the rest of similar cases, with the State of Tennessee vs. Scopes becoming the freedom call to evolutionists around the country. In March of 1925, the Tennessee legislature banned the instruction of evolution in Tennessee schools. John Scopes, a high school science teacher, was arrested in May of the same year for teaching evolution in his classroom. This …show more content…
Three years after the Scopes Trial, an Arkansas law was passed prohibiting state-supported or public schools from teaching evolution in the classroom. Nothing was said about this until, in 1965, Susan Epperson, a biology teacher, was presented with a textbook, which had been adopted by the school administration, despite its evolutionary contents. Epperson sued the state, saying that the law prohibiting evolutionary teaching violated the first and fourteenth amendments. The State Chancery Court ruled that the law did indeed violate her rights according to the Constitution, but the State Supreme Court reversed the decision, saying that the state had the right to declare the schools’ curricula. The Supreme Court in 1968, ruled that the law violated the Establishment clause, because it was based on the beliefs of the Bible. Thus, Epperson vs. Arkansas challenged the prohibition of evolution in public