Editing American Civil Liberties Union (section)

====Public schools====
Five years after the ACLU was formed, the organization had virtually no success to show for its efforts.<ref>Walker, p. 71.</ref> That changed in 1925, when the ACLU persuaded [[John T. Scopes]] to defy Tennessee's anti-[[evolution]] law in ''[[Scopes Trial|The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes]]''. [[Clarence Darrow]], a member of the ACLU National Committee, headed Scopes' legal team. The prosecution, led by [[William Jennings Bryan]], contended that the Bible should be interpreted literally in teaching [[creationism]] in school. The ACLU lost the case, and Scopes was fined $100. The Tennessee Supreme Court later upheld the law. Still, it overturned the conviction on a technicality.<ref>University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm "''Tennessee v. John Scopes'': The 'Monkey Trial' (1925)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150209210437/http://law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm |date=February 9, 2015 }}, ''Famous Trials in American History'', last updated April 25, 2005 (last visited January 7, 2008).</ref><ref>{{cite web|archive-date=April 9, 2004|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040409145806/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopeschrono.html|title=The Evolution-Creationism Controversy: A Chronology|url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopeschrono.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The Scopes trial was a phenomenal public relations success for the ACLU.<ref>Walker, p. 73.</ref> The ACLU became well known across America, and the case led to the first endorsement of the ACLU by a major US newspaper.<ref>Walker, p. 75. The newspaper was the ''St. Louis Post Dispatch''.</ref> The ACLU continued to fight for the separation of church and state in schoolrooms, decade after decade, including the 1982 case ''[[McLean v. Arkansas]]'' and the 2005 case ''[[Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District]]''.<ref>Berkman, Michael (2010), ''Evolution, Creationism, and the Battle to Control America's Classrooms'', Cambridge University Press, pp. 100–01.</ref>

Baldwin was involved in a significant free speech victory of the 1920s after he was arrested for attempting to speak at a rally of striking mill workers in New Jersey. Although the decision was limited to the state of New Jersey, the appeals court's judgment in 1928 declared that constitutional guarantees of free speech must be given "liberal and comprehensive construction", and it marked a major turning point in the [[civil rights movement]], signaling the shift of judicial opinion in favor of civil rights.<ref>Walker, pp. 78–79. The case was in New Jersey, ''State v. Butterworth''. Decision quoted by Walker.</ref>

The most important ACLU case of the 1920s was ''[[Gitlow v. New York]]'', in which [[Benjamin Gitlow]] was arrested for violating a state law against inciting anarchy and violence when he distributed literature promoting communism.<ref>Walker, p. 79.</ref> Although the Supreme Court did not overturn Gitlow's conviction, it adopted the ACLU's stance (later termed the [[incorporation doctrine]]) that the First Amendment freedom of speech applied to state laws, as well as federal laws.<ref>Walker, p. 80.</ref>

The [[Oregon Compulsory Education Act]] required almost all children in Oregon between eight and sixteen years of age to attend [[Public school (government funded)|public school]] by 1926.{{sfn|Kauffman|1982|p=282}} Associate Director [[Roger Nash Baldwin]], a personal friend of [[Luke E. Hart]], the then–Supreme Advocate and future [[Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus|Supreme Knight]] of the [[Knights of Columbus]], offered to join forces with the Knights to challenge the law. The Knights of Columbus pledged an immediate $10,000 to fight the law and any additional funds necessary to defeat it.{{sfn|Kauffman|1982|p=283}} The case became known as ''[[Pierce v. Society of Sisters]]'', a [[United States Supreme Court]] decision that significantly expanded coverage of the [[Due Process Clause]] in the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]]. In a unanimous decision, the court held that the act was unconstitutional and that parents, not the state, had the authority to educate children as they thought best.{{sfn|Alley|1999|pp=41–44}} It upheld the religious freedom of parents to educate their children in religious schools.