Background

By Praful Rana

About Her

• She was born in 1944

• She attended public school

• She went to the College of Ozarks

• Majored in Biology

• Masters in Zoology from the

• University of Illinois

Beliefs

• She was raised in a Presbyterian environment by a devoutly Catholic Family.

• She never believed that Evolution was against her Religion

“Quote”

The tail of Two Redheads

• Are in the Scopes Monkey trial

• The disappearing of Anti Evolution

• The reappearing of Evolution (Bogard’s Quote)

The Political Stir

• The installation of Anti-evolution

• First revolt

• Second Revolt

• Political Stir-Up

• Involvement of the AEA

AEA and Susan Unite!

• The Decision of the Executive Secretary

• The Lawyer and his foresight

• A non-media Trial?

• Susan and her connections

• Susan and the Media

• The Attorney thought Otherwise

• You can’t run away from the Media

ON WITH THE BATTLE!!!

The Case

• The assignment– Chancellor Murray O. Reed– April 1, 1966

• Refused to follow the scopes trial– No questions of personal beliefs– No arguments about the validity of evolution– Limited the case to constitutional issues.

The shakedown

• Warren hardly questioned the state’s witnesses

• Bennett was not quite as laid back about the trial.

• Bennett reminded the court of the vote that put the anti-evolution law into effect

• Bennett also attacked Epperson

The shakedown

• Over 100 people came (seating for only 60)

• Bennett tried to play the case like Bryan did the Scopes trial

• Though Reed limited what Bennett could say

• In the end, Bennett was poorly prepared.• Two hours after it started, both sides

rested their cases.

Bennett, the Arkansas Attorney General who prosecuted Susan Epperson during the case, certainly looked like William Jennings Bryan, but lacked his ability to captivate an audience, and was ultimately outperformed by Eugene R. Warren, the attorney for the Arkansas Education Association, which was pressing to have evolution taught in classroomsAlthough the judge presiding, Chancellor Murray O. Reed, was skeptical about letting evolution be taught in in classrooms, did reject law forbidding the teaching of evolutionHe went on to say that “Act No. 1 … “tends to hinder the quest for knowledge, restrict the freedom to learn, and restrain the freedom to teach.”Warren however, wanted a more definitive decision; He had to get to the U.S. Supreme Court, which meant that the state would need to appeal Reed’s decision to the Arkansas Supreme Court, and that Epperson would have to lose the appeal

The Ultimate Decisions Of All Three Courts

A Rather Ironic Turn of Events at the Arkansas Supreme Court

When Bennett appealed the ruling before the Arkansas State Supreme Court, Warren got his wish without having to make a single political moveThe trial included no oral arguments, and the seven justices themselves surprised everyone in the room with not only their decisions, but their actions as wellOn June 5, 1967, the Arkansas Supreme Court issued a bizarre, two sentence ruling, supporting the State’s power to specify the public school curriculum and claiming that they expressed no opinion on whether the Act prohibits any explanation of the theory of evolution, or merely prohibits teaching that the theory of evolution is trueThe 6-1 decision reversed the Chancery Court ruling without addressing whether or not Epperson could address her students on the “evolutionary chapter”Only a year after Reed’s decision being in effect, evolution was once again a crime in Arkansas

The U.S. Supreme Court and the decision that changed the Country

Early in 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Epperson v. Arkansas, despite the fact that there was no record of any prosecutions under the statute

On October 16, 1968, Eugene R. Warren argued the cause for the appellants, and spoke for only 10 minutes of the half-hour that he was allotted, using the Arkansas Supreme Court decision to attack the vagueness of the Arkansas statute

According to him, teachers were so confused and frightened that “biology is not even taught” in many Arkansas school

Don Langston, Assistant Attorney General of Arkansas, argued the case for the appellate, and with him on the brief was Joe Purcell, Attorney General

Supreme Court ruled unanimously that banning the teaching of evolution violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution

The Personal Opinions of Several Judges

Justice Abe

Fortas

Chief Justice John Marshall

Harlan

Justice Potter Stewart

Justice Hugo Black

“Under either interpretation, the law must be stricken because of its conflict with the constitutional prohibition of state laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“…the pallid, unenthusiastic, even apologetic defense of the Act presented by the State in this Court indicates that the State would make no attempt to enforce the law should it remain on the books for the next century…”

“The States are most assuredly free ‘to choose their own curriculums for their own schools’…But would a State be constitutionally free to punish a teacher for letting his students know that other languages are also spoken in the world? I think not…”

“I think it deplorable that this case should have come to us with such an opaque opinion by the State’s highest court… I take the first sentence of its opinion to encompass an overruling of appellants’ ‘establishment’ point, and the second sentence to refer only to their ‘vagueness’ claim.”

What the Decision Meant

What the case meant historically:

THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION IS ALLOWED

“The Arkansas statute violated the Fourteenth amendment because it was arbitrary and vague, thereby making

interpretation difficult. … Act No. 1 … tends to hinder the quest for knowledge, restrict the freedom to learn, and

restrain the freedom to teach” (Moore).

How it Affected You

•Well without this case there is a possibility that this discussion would not be allowed. The outcome of this case made banning the teaching of evolution illegal. Teachers such as Susan Epperson were also allowed to teach Evolution and use whatever biology book they chose to use

without having to worry about skipping chapters. Because of this case Tennessee and Mississippi repealed their anti-evolution laws, and

everywhere in the country students were allowed to make their own decisions regarding their origins.

•Since the trial was dragged before the Supreme Court, Epperson v. Arkansas has been applied in a variety of court decisions, including

those involving "release time" from public school for religious training, censorship of textbooks, Bible readings in public schools, sex education, exhaustion of administrative remedies, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, First Amendment right for students, and the academic

freedom of teachers