{"id":139141,"date":"2025-03-17T07:57:49","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T07:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-march-17-2025-scopesstudying-the-butler-act\/"},"modified":"2025-03-17T07:57:49","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T07:57:49","slug":"americanstudies-march-17-2025-scopesstudying-the-butler-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=139141","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: March 17, 2025: ScopesStudying: The Butler Act"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[100 years
\nago this month, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the Butler
\nAct<\/a>, prohibiting public school teachers from teaching evolution. So
\nthis week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy that law and the famous
\ntrial<\/a> it produced, leading up to a weekend post on current attacks on
\neducators.]<\/p>\n

For the
\nlaw\u2019s 100th<\/sup> anniversary, on three interesting historical ironies around
\nit.<\/span><\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>John
\nWashington Butler\u2019s<\/a> Beliefs: The state representative who introduced the
\nAct (and for whom it was nicknamed thereafter) was mostly known as a farmer,
\nbut had worked as a teacher as a young man. That\u2019s an interesting detail, but
\nthe irony I want to highlight is that, by his own admission, Butler had no
\nknowledge of evolution when he introduced the bill. As he
\nnoted<\/a>, \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t know anything about evolution when I introduced it. I\u2019d
\nread in the papers that boys and girls were coming home from school and telling
\ntheir fathers and mothers that the Bible was all nonsense.\u201d Perhaps it not an
\nirony so much as a very telling, and frustratingly American, detail that the
\nauthor of the nation\u2019s most famous anti-evolution educational law was poorly
\neducated about evolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Austin Peay\u2019s<\/a> Advocacy:
\nButler\u2019s bill passed the Tennessee House in January 1925 and the Tennessee
\nSenate in March, and then was signed into law on March 21 by Governor Austin
\nPeay. Peay, was serving the first of what would be three terms as Governor (he tragically
\ndied in office in October 1927), was an influential political figure in the
\nstate on multiple levels (he was ranked the state\u2019s best governor by historians
\nin a 1981 poll<\/a>, for
\nexample). But the irony here is that the most significant level seems to have
\nbeen his
\neducational reforms<\/a>\u2014when he took office the state\u2019s education system was
\nworst in the country by several measures, and he worked to change that,
\nbuilding new schools, lengthening the school year, increasing teacher pay and
\nbenefits, and more. Guess those pro-teacher policies didn\u2019t extend to academic
\nfreedom, though.<\/span><\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>An Overdue, Immediate Repeal: The famous trial
\nabout which I\u2019ll have much more to say this week was the Act\u2019s most prominent as
\nwell as immediate legacy\u2014but the law stayed on the books for more than four
\ndecades, greatly influencing generations of Tennessee schoolkids (and thus the
\nentire state) in the process. The irony, though, is how suddenly that changed\u2014when
\nteacher
\nGary Scott<\/a>, who had been fired for violating the Act, successfully sued for
\nreinstatement under the First Amendment, it took just three days for both legislative
\nhouses to pass (and Governor Buford Ellington to sign) a bill
\nrepealing the Butler Act<\/a>. A state legislature acting swiftly and decisively
\nto do away with an outdated, prejudiced law and help the state move forward
\ninto a more progressive future? Not just ironic but, here in 2025, ideal. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next
\nScopes context tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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