Issue of the case

Issue of the case.

In 1968 a case was brought to the United States Supreme Court concerning the issue of creationism in the Arkansas public school system. Susan Epperson was a public school teacher in Arkansas in the nineteen sixties. At the time the Arkansas school system banned the teaching of evolution in classrooms all over the state. This appeal challenges the constitutionality of the anti-evolution statute in which the State of Arkansas adopted in 1928 to prohibit the teaching in its public schools and universities of the theory that man evolved from other species of life. The statute was a product of an upsurge of a fundamentalist religious following in the twenties. The Arkansas statute was an adaption of the famous Tennessee “monkey law” which that state of Tennessee adopted in 1925. The Arkansas law makes it unlawful for a teacher in any state-supported school or university to teach the theory that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals, or to adopt or use in any such school a textbook that teaches this theory. The violation is a misdemeanor and subjects the violator to the termination of their job position. The case deals with the teaching of biology in a high school in Little Rock. According to the testimony, the official textbook for the high school biology course did not have a section on the Darwinian theory. Susan Epperson had just graduated with a Masters degree in zoology. If she didn’t teach the theory of intelligent design then she would be fired. She brought the case to the Supreme Court because it was a violation of the fourteenth amendment.