Susan Epperson, et al v. Arkansas, docket #7, 1968
Before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), Chief Justice Earl Warren, presiding.
Argument Date: 10-16-1968
Decided: 11-12-1968
Vote: 9-0
Ruling: Held, the statute violates the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces the First Amendment’s prohibition of state laws respecting an establishment of religion. [States may not require curricula to align with the views of any particular religion.]
Issue: Whether an anti-evolution statute that the State of Arkansas adopted in 1928 to prohibit the teaching of the theory that man evolved from other species of life violates the no establishment provision of the First Amendment.
Background:
In 1928, Arkansas–following the lead of Tennessee in 1925–adopted a law which prohibited any public school or university from teaching the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals. During the forty years the Arkansas law was in effect, no one was ever prosecuted for violating it. Only Arkansas and Mississippi had such laws on their books.
In the mid-1960s, Forest Rozzell, secretary of the AEA [Arkansas Education Association] sought a person to challenge the Arkansas law forbidding the teaching of the Theory of Evolution in Arkansas schools. Rather than have that individual violate the law as in the Tennessee Scopes case and thereby have her dismissed as a law breaker, lawyers, headed by Eugene Warren, from the AEA instead tried to find someone to request a declaratory judgment on the law. Susan Epperson–a Little Rock Central High School tenth grade biology teacher and a theistic evolutionist–agreed to be that test person. H. H. Blanchard–a parent of children attending the public schools–intervened in support of the action.
Ms Epperson was a product of the Arkansas school system and then obtained her master’s degree in zoology at the University of Illinois. She was (and is) the daughter of a biology professor and was reared in a devoutly Presbyterian family for whom evolution was never a problem. The text for biology Ms Epperson was given as a new
The Old Senate Chamber during the US Supreme Court's residency (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
teacher contained a chapter setting forth the theory of the origin of man from a lower form of animal. Epperson was chosen to be the figurehead of the case because she was an all-Arkansas girl, not “some Yankee communist troublemaker with long hair and tattoos carpet-bagging her way through Arkansas. She was the biology teacher next door.”
Nevertheless when the suit was filed in 1965, Ms Epperson immediately began to receive heavy media attention and hate mail including comments on her appearance being similar to a monkey. The Creation Research Society stated that “evolution was on the way out.”
In the original Chancery Court trial in 1966, the AEA’s attorneys made an effort to keep the matter in Chancellor Murray O. Reed’s chambers to prevent the media spotlight and circus atmosphere that had accompanied the Scopes trial. However, the Attorney-General of Arkansas disagreed, and an open trial was arranged. In the trial Ms Epperson testified, but the scheduled three week trial lasted only one day with Judge Reed finding the law unconstitutional based on the First Amendment. The Attorney-General appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court who gave a very short ruling that the law was “a valid exercise of the state’s power to specify the curriculum in its public schools” adding further that “the court expresses no opinion on the question whether the Act prohibits any explanation of the theory of evolution or merely prohibits teaching that the theory is true, the answer not being necessary to a decision in the case, and the issue not having been raised.” That issue of ambiguity was important.
The AEA appealed to the SCOTUS which concluded in the majority opinion by Justice Abe Fortas with concurrences by Justices Black, Harlan, and Stewart and joined by all nine members of the Court: “Arkansas’s law cannot be defended as an act of religious neutrality. Arkansas did not seek to excise from the curricula of its schools and universities all discussion of the origin of man. The law’s effort was confined to an attempt to blot out a particular theory because of its supposed conflict with the Biblical account, literally read. Plainly, the law is contrary to the mandate of the First, and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution [because it fell within the condemnation of the Fourteenth Amendment due to being vague and uncertain].” Justice Fortas described the opinion of the Arkansas Supreme Court as “quixotic”. He firmly held that the law could not stand despite any definition of teaching because of its violation of the separation of church and state. He cited the Court’s decision in Keyishian v. Board of Regents which held that, “the First Amendment does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.” Justice Fortas concluded, “The judgment of the Supreme Court of Arkansas is reversed.”
Consequences:
Epperson, herself, remarked that the decision did not change much; evolution was still not taught in many Arkansas schools because of religious fundamentalist community pressure. As a result of the ruling in Epperson v. Arkansas, creationists changed their tactics to push for the teaching of ‘scientific creationism’ in schools. Adeptly side-stepping court challenges, they began to focus on influencing science standards and textbook adoption processes and to infiltrate school boards. The result was a complicated and wide spread involvement in the school systems of the United States making a defense for teaching the theory of evolution a sort of Hercules vs. Hydra battle (as characterized by Susan Epperson). So-called Intelligent Design had a strong and far reaching attractiveness to religious people throughout the country.
The Epperson decision was the first in a cascade of legal setbacks to creationists working to promote their brand of religion through the public school systems. Some of those cases include:
Lemon v. Kurtzman-1971, which put forth the test for any state law regarding religion.
Wright v. Houston Independent School District-1972
Willoughby v. Stever-1973
Daniel v. Waters-1975
Hendren v. Campbell-1977
Seagraves v. California-1981
And finally, in Edwards v. Aguillard-1987, the issue was faced head-on by the Supreme Court of the United States.