Editing Butler Act

{{Short description|1925 Tennessee state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in schools}}
{{For|the United Kingdom Butler Education Act|Education Act 1944}}
{{Infobox legislation
|short_title         =  Butler Act
|image              = <!-- Image with inadequate rationale removed: Tennesseestateseallrg.png -->
|imagesize          = 150px
|legislature        = [[Tennessee General Assembly]]
|imagelink          = 
|imagealt           = 
|caption            = 
|long_title          = AN ACT prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof
|citation           = 
|territorial_extent  =
|passed_by          = [[Tennessee House of Representatives]]
|passed_by2         = [[Tennessee Senate]]
|signed_by           = [[Governor of Tennessee|Governor]] [[Austin Peay]]
|date_signed         = March 21, 1925
|date_commenced      = 
|date_repealed       = September 1, 1967
|repealed_by         = [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm Chapter No. 237, House Bill No. 48]
|bill                = 
|bill_citation       = House Bill No. 185
|bill_date           = January 21, 1925
|introduced_by       = [[John Washington Butler]]
| committee_responsible = House Committee on Education
|passed              = January 28, 1925
|passed_for          = 71
|passed_against      = 5

| committee_responsible2 = Senate Judiciary Committee
|passed2             = March 13, 1925
|passed2_for         = 24
|passed2_against     = 6

|white_paper         = 
|committee_report    = 
|amendments         = 
|repeals            = 
|related_legislation            = 
|summary            = 
|keywords           = 
|status             = repealed
}}
The '''Butler Act''' was a 1925 [[Tennessee]] law prohibiting [[Public school (government funded)|public school]] teachers from denying the [[Creationism|book of Genesis account]] of [[human|humankind]]'s origin. The law also prevented the teaching of the [[human evolution|evolution of humans]] from what it referred to as lower orders of [[animal]]s in place of the Biblical account. The law was introduced by [[Tennessee House of Representatives]] member [[John Washington Butler]], from whom the law got its name. It was enacted as Tennessee Code Annotated Title 49 (Education) Section 1922, having been signed into law by Tennessee governor [[Austin Peay]].

The law was challenged later that year in a famous trial in [[Dayton, Tennessee]] called the [[Scopes Trial]] which included a raucous confrontation between prosecution attorney and fundamentalist religious leader, [[William Jennings Bryan]], and noted defense attorney and religious [[agnostic]], [[Clarence Darrow]].

It was repealed in 1967.

==Provisions of the law==

The law, "An act prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof" (Tenn. HB 185, 1925) specifically provided:
:That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the [[University|Universities]], [[Normal school|Normals]] and all other [[Public school (government funded)|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.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm# |title=Full text of the Butler Act and the bill that repealed it |access-date=2005-02-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090520091924/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm# |archive-date=2009-05-20 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

It additionally outlined that an offending teacher would be guilty of a misdemeanor and fined between $100 and $500 for each offense.

By the terms of the statute, it could be argued, it was not illegal to teach evolution in respect to non-human creatures, such as that [[ape]]s descended from [[protozoa]] or to teach the mechanisms of [[Genetic variation|variation]] and [[natural selection]]. The bill also did not touch on, or restrict the teaching of prevailing scientific theories of [[geology]] or the [[age of the Earth]]. It did not even require that the [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] story be taught, but prohibited solely the teaching that humans evolved, or any other theory denying that humanity was [[creationism|created by]] [[God]] as recorded in Genesis. However the author of the law, a Tennessee farmer and member of the Tennessee House of Representatives [[John Washington Butler]], specifically intended that it would prohibit the teaching of evolution. He later was reported to have said "No, I didn't know anything about evolution when I introduced it. I'd read in the papers that boys and girls were coming home from school and telling their fathers and mothers that the Bible was all nonsense." After reading copies of [[William Jennings Bryan]]'s lecture "Is the Bible True?" as well as [[Charles Darwin]]'s ''[[The Origin of Species]]'' and ''[[The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex|The Descent of Man]]'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Freeman_TheDescentofMan.html|title = Darwin Online: The Descent of Man}}</ref> Butler decided the teaching of evolution was dangerous.

==Challenges==

The law was challenged by the [[American Civil Liberties Union|ACLU]] in the famed [[Scopes Trial]], in which [[John T. Scopes|John Scopes]], a high school science teacher who agreed to be paid on a charge of having taught evolution, and was nominally served a warrant on May 5, 1925. Scopes was indicted on May 25 and ultimately convicted; on appeal the [[Tennessee Supreme Court]] found the law to be constitutional under the [[Tennessee State Constitution]], because:

<blockquote>We are not able to see how the prohibition of teaching the theory that man has descended from a lower order of animals gives preference to any religious establishment or mode of worship. So far as we know, there is no religious establishment or organized body that has in its creed or confession of faith any article denying or affirming such a theory. — Scopes v. State 289 S.W. 363, 367 (Tenn. 1927)</blockquote>

Despite this decision, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the conviction on a technicality (that the jury should have fixed the amount of the fine), and the case was not retried. During the trial, Butler told reporters: "I never had any idea my bill would make a fuss. I just thought it would become a law, and that everybody would abide by it and that we wouldn't hear any more of [[evolution]] in Tennessee."<ref>Hariman, Robert. ''Popular Trials : Rhetoric, Mass Media, and the Law''. Tuscaloosa, University Of Alabama Press, 1993, p. 57.</ref>

The law remained on the books until 1967, when teacher Gary L. Scott of [[Jacksboro, Tennessee]], who had been dismissed for violation of the act, sued for reinstatement, citing his [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution#Freedom of speech and of the press|First Amendment]] right to [[Freedom of speech in the United States|free speech]]. Although his termination was rescinded, Scott continued his fight with a class action lawsuit in the Nashville Federal District Court, seeking a permanent injunction against enforcement of that law. Within three days of his filing suit, a bill for repeal of the Butler Act had passed both houses of the Tennessee legislature and was signed into law May 18 by Governor [[Buford Ellington]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moore |first=Randy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7hc-l875XlIC |title=Evolution in the Courtroom: A Reference Guide |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |year=2002 |isbn=9781576074206 |series=ABC-CLIO E-Books |pages=58-59 |lccn=2001005295}}</ref>

==See also==
* ''[[Monkey Town (novel)|Monkey Town]]''
* [[Creation and evolution in public education]]
* ''[[Inherit the Wind (play)|Inherit the Wind]]''

==References==
{{Reflist}}
*"Author of the Law Surprised by Fuss", ''[[The New York Times]]'' (18 July 1925), p.&nbsp;1.

{{Scopes trial}}

[[Category:Christian creationism]]
[[Category:United States education law]]
[[Category:1925 in American law]]
[[Category:Public education in Tennessee]]
[[Category:Tennessee law]]
[[Category:1925 in Tennessee]]
[[Category:1925 in education]]
[[Category:1925 in Christianity]]
[[Category:Scopes Trial]]