One hundred years ago, in Dayton, Tennessee, the Scopes “Monkey Trial” was underway, with the battle for children’s public education in the balance. This case has become infamous in American legal history, and it is still relevant a century later.
The defendant, high school teacher John T. Scopes, was charged under Tennessee’s Butler Act, which made it illegal to teach evolution in public schools. Scopes’s defense was represented by Clarence Darrow, and the prosecution was William Jennings Bryan.
At stake in this case was what public schools ought to teach children regarding the origins of the universe: biblical creation, or the then-cutting-edge Darwinian theory of evolution. Bryan’s prosecution ultimately won the case against Scopes and Darrow, but the real issue at hand in this trial is still hotly debated today.
On this 100-year anniversary of the trial, many celebrate that although Bryan won the case, evolution has prevailed as the scientific theory taught in schools. Bryan’s prosecution is commonly viewed today as backward religious fundamentalism, an attack on science for the sake of religious nonsense.
Beyond scientific origins debates, however, the Scopes trial still carries important truths, not for the relitigation of evolution versus creationism, but in the battle for our children’s minds. The principles at stake in the infamous case have not gone away; they have simply adapted to our modern debates and ideological disagreements.
A key part of Bryan’s prosecution dealt not just with the scientific facts of creation over evolution, but with who deserves a say in what schools teach. Bryan argued correctly that schools should reflect the values of the people who fund them.
Families and communities deserve a say in the education of children, rather than the preferences of distant academics or elites. William Jennings Bryan strongly supported this principle in his prosecution, stating that the community ought to determine “what shall be taught… to direct or dismiss those whom they employ as teachers and school authorities… The hand that writes the paycheck rules the school.”
Classrooms today have hijacked the role of parents in impressing social values and objective truth on American children. The debate has moved on from Darwinism and now centers on LGBTQ issues.
In recent years, parents have protested against the exposure of their children to practices such as transgenderism and a myriad of other sexual education overreaches. Public schools have advised children to keep their supposed LGBTQ identities secret from parents and allowed trans-identifying students in sports and locker rooms.
The ability and right of parents to clearly and solely impart the truth values that their children learn has been usurped by a public education system that thinks it knows best.
Schools still ought to play a role in the scientific, mathematical, and humanities education of children. However, the modern school system has by far exceeded that limit and often fails in teaching these basic subjects.
The school system has undermined the very principles of human nature by promoting the supposed plurality and interchangeability of biological sex. In addition to the issue of transgenderism, public schools often use the guise of “sex education” to present young students with explicit sexual material, far beyond teaching the biological function of sex. For example, California’s health education framework details oral sex practices for 7th graders.
This sexual rampancy in a declining public school system shows that the debate at the core of the Scopes trial is even more relevant today. The debate may have shifted away from one of religion versus science, but the matter of who deserves a say and a right in the education and formation of children is critically important.
The Supreme Court in June upheld the rights of parents to exempt their children from LGBTQ book readings at schools in a 6–3 ruling. Justice Samuel Alito summarized the issue, stating in his opinion that the right of parents to truly raise their children “can be infringed by laws that pose ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that parents wish to instill in their children.”
The ruling plays a crucial role in reversing decades of neglect or malice that have, in many ways, cut parents out of the educational picture, especially with regard to sexual education.
The battle for parents’ rights in education is not a superficial aspect of the culture war. It is critical to family and community, and one century later, it is more important than ever.
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