The Courage of Their Convictions by Peter H. Irons

Author:Peter H. Irons
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Thirty years separated the Scopes trial and the hearing on Susan Epperson’s case, but light-years separated their atmosphere. The first dragged on for two weeks; the second was briskly halted after two hours on April 1, 1966. Witnesses paraded to the stand in Dayton to declaim on religion and biology; Judge Murray O. Reed in Little Rock barred testimony on either topic, limiting the case to constitutional issues. Unlike Clarence Darrow, whose questions were sharp as rapiers, Eugene Warren gently examined Susan for just ten minutes and hardly questioned the state’s four witnesses, all of them school officials. Susan’s testimony was directed to just one point: “I brought this law suit because I have a text book which includes the theory about the origin or the descent or the ascent of man from a lower form of animals. This seemed to be a widely accepted theory and I feel it is my responsibility to acquaint my students with it.”

The most striking contrast between Dayton and Little Rock was that Arkansas Attorney General Bruce Bennett, who defended the state law, was no William Jennings Bryan. Bennett took personal charge of the Epperson trial, as he had in the 1957 trial of Daisy Bates for refusing to give Bennett the NAACP’s membership list. Although he swaggered into court with Bryan’s bombast and braggadocio, Bennett was cut down by Warren’s objections when he tried to put evolution on trial. Judge Reed sustained every one of Warren’s objections. Bennett was so poorly prepared, so obviously ignorant of science, that the audience frequently tittered. “This is a serious matter,” Judge Reed admonished. “The only question here is a constitutional question of law and it is a serious one.” Bennett left the courtroom in a pique, his play to the galleries frustrated.

Judge Reed did not reject “Creation” in his written opinion, issued two months later, but he rejected the law against teaching evolution: “This Court is of the opinion that a chapter in a biology book, adopted by the school administrative authorities, stating that a specific theory has been advanced by an individual that man ascended or descended from a lower form of animal life, does not constitute such a hazard to the safety, health and morals of the community that the constitutional freedoms may justifiably be suppressed by the state.” Two decades of Supreme Court opinions which raised the “wall of separation” between church and school convinced Reed that “the unconstitutionality of the statute under consideration is not subject to doubt.”

Attorney General Bennett’s appeal of this ruling went to the Arkansas Supreme Court without oral argument; the justices and both lawyers saw the court as a quick whistle stop on the road to Washington, D.C. The court’s opinion, issued on June 5, 1967, set a two-sentence record for brevity. The first sentence ruled that the state law “is a valid exercise of the state’s power to specify the curriculum in its public schools.” No precedent was cited, no issues discussed. The second sentence left lawyers and judges scratching their heads in puzzlement.

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