Butler Act
| Butler Act | |
|---|---|
| Tennessee General Assembly | |
| |
| Passed by | Tennessee House of Representatives |
| Passed by | Tennessee Senate |
| Signed by | Governor Austin Peay |
| Signed | March 21, 1925 |
| Repealed | September 1, 1967 |
| Legislative history | |
| First chamber: Tennessee House of Representatives | |
| Bill citation | House Bill No. 185 |
| Introduced by | John Washington Butler |
| Introduced | January 21, 1925 |
| Committee responsible | House Committee on Education |
| Passed | January 28, 1925 |
| Voting summary |
|
| Second chamber: Tennessee Senate | |
| Committee responsible | Senate Judiciary Committee |
| Passed | March 13, 1925 |
| Voting summary |
|
| Repealed by | |
| Chapter No. 237, House Bill No. 48 | |
| Status: Repealed | |
The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law prohibiting public school teachers from denying the book of Genesis account of humankind's origin. The law also prevented the teaching of the evolution of humans from what it referred to as lower orders of animals in place of the Biblical account. The law was introduced by Tennessee House of Representatives member John Washington Butler, for whom the law was named. It was enacted as Tennessee Code Annotated Title 49 (Education) Section 1922, having been signed into law by Tennessee governor Austin Peay.
The law was challenged and upheld later that year in a famous trial in Dayton, Tennessee called the Scopes Trial which involved a raucous confrontation between prosecution attorney and fundamentalist religious leader, William Jennings Bryan, and prominent defense attorney and religious agnostic, Clarence Darrow.
It was not repealed until 1967.