The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, commonly known as the Scopes trial or Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case from July 10 to July 21, 1925, in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating the Butler Act, a Tennessee state law which outlawed the teaching of human evolution in public schools. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant. Scopes was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had offered to defend anyone accused of violating the Butler Act in an effort to challenge the constitutionality of the law.
Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100 (equivalent to $1,850 in 2025), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state, argued for the prosecution, while famed labor and criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow served as the principal defense attorney for Scopes. The trial publicized the fundamentalist–modernist controversy, which set modernists, who believed evolution could be consistent with religion, against fundamentalists, who believed the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen both as a theological contest and as a trial on whether evolution should be taught in schools. The trial became a symbol of the larger social anxieties associated with the cultural changes and modernization that characterized the 1920s in the United States. It also served its purpose of drawing intense national publicity and highlighted the growing influence of mass media, having been covered by news outlets around the country and being the first trial in American history to be nationally broadcast by radio.
In the mid-19th century, English naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace independently developed the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection, and that all life on earth is descended from a common ancestor. Their work was jointly published in 1858, and further expanded upon the following year in Darwin's book On the Origin of Species. As knowledge of the theory began to spread over the succeeding decades, many Christian denominations came to accept the theory, believing the creation narrative in the Book of Genesis to be an allegory that was not intended to be interpreted literally. Nevertheless, a number of Christian groups came to reject the theory, believing that the Bible was inerrant and should be interpreted literally and that evolution implied that humans did not have a special place in the universe. Some were also critical of the applications of natural selection to sociology, economics, and politics, which became known as Social Darwinism. In the early 20th century, a schism known as the Fundamentalist–modernist controversy arose within American Protestant Christianity, especially Presbyterianism, in response to the cultural, scientific, and technological developments of the time. Fundamentalists insisted on the literal inerrancy of Scripture and rejected interpretations that contradicted biblical accounts, while modernists sought to reconcile faith with scientific advancements, including evolutionary theory.
Tennessee State Representative John Washington Butler, a Tennessee farmer and head of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, lobbied state legislatures to pass anti-evolution laws. He introduced the Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of human evolution in public schools in Tennessee. Butler later stated, "I didn't know anything about evolution ... 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." On March 21, 1925, Tennessee governor Austin Peay signed the bill to gain support among rural legislators, but believed the law would neither be enforced nor interfere with education in Tennessee schools. William Jennings Bryan, who had been campaigning against the teaching of evolution in public schools, thanked Peay enthusiastically for the bill, stating "The Christian parents of the state owe you a debt of gratitude for saving their children from the poisonous influence of an unproven hypothesis." In response, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) financed a test case by offering to defend anyone accused of teaching the theory of evolution in defiance of the Butler Act.
On April 5, 1925, George Rappleyea, the local manager for the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company, arranged a meeting with county superintendent of schools Walter White and local attorney Sue K. Hicks at Robinson's Drug Store in Dayton, convincing them that the controversy of such a trial would give Dayton much needed publicity. According to Robinson, Rappleyea said "As it is, the law is not enforced. If you win, it will be enforced. If I win, the law will be repealed. We're game, aren't we?" The men then summoned 24-year-old John T. Scopes, a Dayton high school science and math teacher. The group asked Scopes, who had substituted for the regular biology teacher, to admit to teaching the theory of evolution.
Rappleyea pointed out that, while the Butler Act prohibited the teaching of the theory of evolution, the state required teachers to use George William Hunter's textbook, Civic Biology: Presented in Problems, which explicitly described and endorsed the theory of evolution, as well as scientific racism and eugenics; and that teachers were, therefore, effectively required to break the law. Scopes mentioned that while he could not remember whether he had actually taught evolution in class, he had, however, gone through the evolution chart and respective chapter with the class. He told the group that he would be willing to stand trial if they could prove that he had taught evolution and could qualify as a defendant.
Scopes urged students to testify against him and coached them in their answers. Judge John T. Raulston accelerated the convening of the grand jury and "... all but instructed the grand jury to indict Scopes, despite the meager evidence against him and the widely reported stories questioning whether the willing defendant had ever taught evolution in the classroom". Scopes was charged on May 5 and indicted on May 25 for teaching from the chapter on evolution to a high school class in violation of the Butler Act, after three students testified against him to the grand jury. One student afterwards told reporters: "I believe in part of evolution, but I don't believe in the monkey business." Scopes was nominally arrested, though he was never actually detained. Paul Patterson, owner of The Baltimore Sun, put up $500 in bail for Scopes. The original prosecutors were Herbert E. and Sue K. Hicks, two brothers who were local attorneys and friends of Scopes, but the prosecution was ultimately led by Tom Stewart, the district attorney for the 18th Circuit who later became a U.S. Senator from Tennessee. Stewart was aided by Dayton attorney Gordon McKenzie, who supported the anti-evolution bill on religious grounds, and described evolution as "detrimental to our morality" and an assault on "the very citadel of our Christian religion."
Hoping to attract major press coverage, Rappleyea went so far as to write to British novelist H. G. Wells asking him to join the defense team. Wells replied that he had no legal training in Britain, let alone in America, and declined the offer. John R. Neal, a law school professor from Knoxville, announced that he would act as Scopes' attorney whether Scopes liked it or not, and he became the nominal head of the defense team. Baptist pastor William Bell Riley, the founder and president of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, was instrumental in calling lawyer and three-time Democratic presidential nominee, former United States Secretary of State, and lifelong Presbyterian William Jennings Bryan to act as that organization's counsel. Bryan had originally been invited by Sue Hicks to become an associate of the prosecution and Bryan had readily accepted, despite the fact he had not tried a case in thirty-six years. As Scopes pointed out to James Presley in the book Center of the Storm, on which the two collaborated: "After [Bryan] was accepted by the state as a special prosecutor in the case, there was never any hope of containing the controversy within the bounds of constitutionality."