Butler Act

For the United Kingdom Butler Education Act, see Education Act 1944.
Butler Act
Tennessee General Assembly
  • AN ACT prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof
Passed byTennessee House of Representatives
Passed byTennessee Senate
Signed byGovernor Austin Peay
SignedMarch 21, 1925
RepealedSeptember 1, 1967
Legislative history
First chamber: Tennessee House of Representatives
Bill citationHouse Bill No. 185
Introduced byJohn Washington Butler
IntroducedJanuary 21, 1925
Committee responsibleHouse Committee on Education
PassedJanuary 28, 1925
Voting summary
  • 71 voted for
  • 5 voted against
Second chamber: Tennessee Senate
Committee responsibleSenate Judiciary Committee
PassedMarch 13, 1925
Voting summary
  • 24 voted for
  • 6 voted against
Repealed by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Status: Repealed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 mankind's origin. The law also prevented the teaching of the evolution of man 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, from whom the law got its name. 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 later that year in a famous trial in Dayton, Tennessee called the Scopes Trial which included a raucous confrontation between prosecution attorney and fundamentalist religious leader, William Jennings Bryan, and noted defense attorney and religious agnostic, Clarence Darrow. It was repealed in 1967.