Tennessee's anti-evolution Butler Act was signed into law
On this day · 21 March 1925
Governor Austin Peay signed the first U.S. law banning the teaching of evolution, setting the stage for the Scopes trial.
On March 21, 1925, Tennessee Governor Austin Peay signed the Butler Act, the first law in the United States to forbid teaching human evolution in public schools. Named for the farmer-legislator John Washington Butler, it made it a misdemeanor for any teacher in a publicly funded school to teach “any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible.” Offenders faced fines of $100 to $500.
Peay signed it largely to court rural lawmakers, reportedly doubting it would ever be enforced.
He was wrong almost immediately.
That summer, a young teacher named John T. Scopes stood trial in Dayton for violating the act, in a courtroom spectacle pitting Clarence Darrow against William Jennings Bryan. The so-called Monkey Trial became a defining clash over science, religion, and public education. Tennessee did not repeal the Butler Act until 1967.
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