THE SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL REDUX

Everything Old Is New Again

I don’t know how many were aware that at the recent Caucasian People Acting Crazy conference in Dallas last weekend, the event opened with an invocation from a local minister, who concluded “The Bible says, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’ That’s all the science we need to know.”

Yes indeed, as the song says, “Everything old is new again!”

Once again, as it did in 1925, Tennessee - the state that currently ranks 46th in the rate of vaccination against the coronavirus, only beaten for worst by Alabama, Wyoming, Idaho, Louisiana and Mississippi for having a smaller percentage of the population having received at least one shot - is leading the anti-science cray-cray. It’s only fair - which state saw the largest jump in Delta variant COVID-19 cases last week? Tennessee.

96 years ago, a trial was held in Dayton, Tennessee - The State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scope - known in history as either The Scopes Trial, or - more popularly - The Scopes Monkey Trial. The event came at a high tide of anti-science conservative activism.

For those unaware of the historical details (probably most everyone), Tennessee State Representative John Washington Butler, a Tennessee farmer who headed the World Christian Fundamentals Association, was up in arms over the teaching of “evolution.” He later said, "I didn't know anything about evolution. I'd read in the papers that boys and girls were coming home from school and telling their fathers and mothers that the Bible was all nonsense." (I think we’ve heard this explanation recently). Seeing it as an issue on which to build his scam, er, I mean organization, he lobbied state legislatures to pass anti-evolution laws and found success on March 25, 1925, when the Tennessee state legislature passed the Butler Act, making it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. Tennessee governor Austin Peay signed the law to gain support among rural legislators, but believed the law would be neither enforced nor interfere with education in Tennessee schools. For so doing, he was thanked enthusiastically by politician William Jennings Bryan - who was as well-known for his public evangelical religiosity as for having elbowed his way to the first of three Democratic presidential nominations in 1896 with his declaration that “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold” - sent Governor Peay an enthusiastic thanks, stating, "The Christian parents of the state owe you a debt of gratitude for saving their children from the poisonous influence of an unproven hypothesis."

In response to passage of the Butler Act, the American Civil Liberties Union offered to defend anyone accused of teaching the theory of evolution in defiance of the new law.

On April 5, 1925, George Rappleyea, the local manager of the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company, arranged a meeting with Dayton county superintendent of schools Walter White, local attorney Sue K. Hicks at and John Robinson, owner of Robinson's Drug Store where they met. Rappleyea presented the three with his dea to get the town some much-needed publicity, by charging a local teacher with teaching evolution and holding the trial in Dayton, pointing out that since the ACLU had offered to mount a defense, such a trial would be bound to bring national attention. Robinson later recounted that Rappleyea said, "As it is, the law is not enforced. If you win, it will be enforced. If I win, the law will be repealed. We're game, aren't we?"

Rappleyea then summoned 24-year-old John T. Scopes, a Dayton high school science and math teacher who he had already convinced to admit to teaching the theory of evolution from a chapter in George William Hunter's 1914 textbook, “Civic Biology: Presented in Problems,”which described the theories of evolution, race, and eugenics. Scopes was unsure whether he had actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately, urging his students to testify against him and coaching them in their answers. He was indicted on May 25, after three students testified against him at the grand jury; one student afterwards told reporters, "I believe in part of evolution, but I don't believe in the monkey business." Judge John T. Raulston announced the indictment after having "... all but instructed the grand jury to indict Scopes, despite the meager evidence against him and the widely reported stories questioning whether the willing defendant had ever taught evolution in the classroom." Paul Patterson, owner of The Baltimore Sun, put up $500 bail for Scopes.

When the indictment was made public, the ACLU rose to the challenge. Publicity grew when William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and former Secretary of State, agreed to prosecute, while famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow represented Scopes. The trial publicized the Fundamentalist belief that the Word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge against the Modernist belief that the theory of evolution was not inconsistent with religion, and was seen as a trial on whether modern science should be taught in schools. Rapopleyea was proven right that the trial would get national publicity as reporters from all the major papers descended on Dayton during a hot and humid summer. The trial was followed on radio throughout the United States, the first such major public event to receive such coverage. Among the reporters was H.L. Mencken, who famously observed of the trial, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 (equivalent to $1,500 in 2021). The verdict was later overturned on a technicality. The Butler Act, however, remained on the books another 52 years, until Gary Scott, a Tennessee biology teacher in Jacksboro, was fired on April 13, 1967, for violating section 49-1922 of the Tennessee Code—the Butler Act. Scott sued over his firing, contending the law was unconstitutional. In response, the Tennessee legislature repealed the law, with Governor Frank Clement signing the repeal on May 18, 1967. Later that year, the remaining state bans on the teaching of evolution in Arkansas and Mississippi were ruled unconstitutional in legal challenges.

Of course, as anyone who has followed the news in the 54 years since knows, the battle over the teaching of evolution has continued, with the fundamentalists refusing to give up.

I was reminded of all this with the news of the firing of Dr. Michelle Fiscus, chief of vaccinations for the Tennessee State Department of Health, for having advised medical practitioners who had asked her what they should do when unaccompanied minors appeared asking for COVID-19 vaccinations, that Tennessee law allowed minors over the age of 14 to give consent for vaccination and that therefore they did not need parental consent. Dr. Fiscus cited the 1987 Tennessee Supreme Court decision that minors age 14-17 do not need parental consent to obtain such vaccinations.

Following the firing of Dr. Fiscus, Tennessee Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey ordered her agency to halt all vaccination outreach programs to teenagers. The order means the department will no longer hold COVID-19 vaccination sites at schools or send notices to teens reminding them to get their second COVID-19 shot out of concern that the notifications could be, in the report’s words, “potentially interpreted as solicitation to minors.”

The shutdown goes beyond just the coronavirus vaccine. Dr. Tim Jones, the department’s chief medical officer, sent an email to staffers on Monday ordering them to carry out “no proactive outreach regarding routine vaccines” and “no outreach whatsoever regarding the HPV vaccine.” (In case you’re just back from your vacation on Alpha Centauri, the HPV vaccine has been a target of the fundamentalists on the grounds that it “promotes sexual activity” by the young women who receive it, since the vaccine was first announced.)

Additionally, Jones’ email barred staff from “pre-planning” school flu shot events and stated that “any kinds of informational sheets or other materials” on back-to-school vaccines must have the department’s logo removed.

All 50 states plus the District of Columbia require students to be immunized before they can attend public school, and while requirements vary a bit, every state mandates vaccination against measles, mumps, rubella, polio and chickenpox, among others.

Interestingly, despite this order, schoolchildren in Tennessee are still required to show proof of a whole lot of vaccinations. Here’s a list from the state’s own website:

Children enrolling in child care facilities, pre-school, pre-Kindergarten:

Infants entering child care facilities must be up to date at the time of enrollment and are required to provide an updated certificate after completing all of the required vaccines due no later than 18 months of age.

Poliomyelitis (IPV or OPV)

Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) - age younger than 5 years only

Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) - age younger than 5 years only

Measles, Mumps, Rubella - 1 dose of each, normally given together as MMR

Varicella - 1 dose or credible history of disease

Hepatitis B (HBV)

Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (DTaP, or DT if appropriate)

Hepatitis A - 1 dose, required by 18 months of age or older

Required Immunizations for Children enrolling in Kindergarten”

Hepatitis B (HBV)

Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (DTaP, or DT if appropriate)

Poliomyelitis (IPV or OPV) - final dose on or after the 4th birthday

Measles, Mumps, Rubella - 2 doses of each, usually given together as MMR

Varicella - 2 doses or credible history of disease

Hepatitis A - total of 2 doses, spaced at least 6 - 18 months apart

All children entering 7th grade (including currently enrolled students):

Tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis booster (Tdap) - evidence of one Tdap dose given any time before 7th grade entry is required regardless of Td history.

Varicella - 2 doses or credible history of disease

Children who are new enrollees in a TN school in grades other than Kindergarten:

Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (DTaP, or DT if appropriate)

Measles, Mumps, Rubella (2 doses of each, normally given together as MMR)

Poliomyelitis (IPV or OPV) – final dose on or after the 4th birthday now required

Varicella (2 doses or credible history of disease) – previously only one dose was required

Hepatitis B (HBV) – previously only for Kindergarten, 7th grade entry

Full-time Tennessee college students”

Measles, Mumps, Rubella (2 doses of each, normally given together as MMR): if born on or after January 1, 1957 only.

Varicella (2 doses or credible history of disease): if born on or after January 1, 1980 only.

Hepatitis B (HBV) – only for health science students expected to have patient contact (before patient contact begins).

Meningococcal - At a minimum of 1 dose given at 16 years of age or greater if enrolling in public institution for the first time and under 22 years of age and living in on-campus housing; private institutions set their own requirements for this vaccine.

Until recently, whenever someone wanted to assert that susceptibility to anti-science conspiracy theories was not solely the province of the right, could cite such left wing opponents as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. However, no liberal anti-vax activism has risen to where Democratic politicians were waging fights against immunizations, as is the case with Republican legislators across the country.

At the current rate of radicalization in the Trump Party (in which the leading anti-vaxxer is Trump himself), it will be surprising if it is not the case by the time school opens this fall that opposition to vaccines has become another way for Republicans declare their culture war bona fides, and an emblem of conservative identity everywhere. This might not just involveCOVID-19 vaccines, but all vaccines. All the pieces for a nationwide anti-vaccine movement among Republicans are there now: skepticism of science; distrust of government; a conception of “liberty” that includes the freedom to harm other people if you want,

We’ve seen it with the anti-mask movement, which - at least here in California - has been led by the anti-vaxxers, who decided that visibly and loudly rejecting a simple public health measure was how to show everyone you’re a freedom-loving Trump supporter.

Behind all the right-wing culture-warring, one can see a new right-wing economic counter-mobilization against the present progressive momentum on “soft” infrastructure. The anti-mask/anti-vaccine movement, along with the attacks on critical race theory and the whitewashing of the insurrection, is becoming a virulent new version of the Tea Party, the movement that arose amid the last Democratic presidency. Just as in 2010, the new “tea partyism” has become a front-line energizing force that could help enable a series of GOP donor-class and plutocratic interests to grind the current progressive economic moment to a halt.

Punchbowl News reports that GOP donors are lining up in the expectation of a House GOP takeover. House Republican leader Qevin McQarthy just announced a huge new fundraising total for House GOP candidates. Much of this appears fueled by small donors in he wake of large donors stopping donations in the wake of the 1/6 insurrection. But as Punchbowl flatly declareed in this morning’s e-mail, “GOP donors are giving to McCarthy like he could be speaker in 2023.”

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the elections of 2022 and 2024 are going to decide whether or not the United States remains a small “d” democratic constitutional republic. Everything is on the line.

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