Consequences
Though William Jennings Bryan famously testified to some questions about Biblical creation in the 1925 Scopes v. State trial, that Court, like this one, was asked only to judge whether or not teachings about human evolution could be prohibited in the public schools. Even in that case Bryan, who opposed the evolution instruction, never argued that the teaching of Biblical creation belonged in the school. This quickly changed after Epperson. The precedent set in Epperson, in which the Court concluded the sole motive behind the ban against evolution teaching in Arkansas was to protect a particular religious view, effectively nullified all other related evolution education prohibitions throughout the United States. Within a short time of the Epperson decision, religious opponents of the teaching attempted through other means to lessen its influence in the curriculum, including requiring schools to teach biblical creation alongside evolution or forcing schools to provide disclaimers that evolution was "only a theory". Many of these attempts also resulted in precedent setting court decisions. These include:
- Wright v. Houston Independent School District (1972)
- Willoughby v. Stever (1973)
- Daniel v. Waters (1975)
- Hendren v. Campbell (1977)
- Segraves v. California (1981)
- McLean v. Arkansas (1982)
- Edwards v. Aguillard (1987)
- Webster v. New Lenox School District (1990)
- Bishop v. Aronov (1991)
- Peloza v. Capistrano School District (1994)
- Hellend v. South Bend Community School Corporation (1996)
- Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education (1997)
- Edwards v. California University of Pennsylvania (1998)
- LeVake v. Independent School District 656 (2000)
- Selman v. Cobb County School District (2005)
- Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005)
Read more about this topic: Epperson V. Arkansas
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