Scopes trial

Scopes trial, 1925 prosecution of a biology teacher, John T. Scopes, for breaking a Tennessee law forbidding the teaching of evolution in state-supported schools. For the defense Clarence Darrow unsuccessfully pitted himself against the orthodoxy of William Jennings Bryan; the Tennessee supreme court reversed the conviction on a technicality, but the law was not repealed until 1967.

See also: Evolution.