The Scopes Trial, over the right to teach evolution in public schools, reaffirmed the importance of intellectual freedom as codified in the Bill of Rights. The trial, in a small-town Tennessee courtroom in 1925, set the stage for ongoing debates over the separation of Church and State in a democratic society - debates that continue to this day.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Edward Asner, Bill Brochtrup, Kyle Colerider-Krugh,...

In 1925, the fledgling American Civil Liberties Union wanted to challenge the constitutionality of the Butler Law, a ruling forbidding the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools. For its test case, it selected the trial of John Scopes, who'd briefly taught Darwinism as a substitute biology teacher. But when celebrated lawyers William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow arrived to argue the case, the quiet procedural matter exploded into...