During the sentencing phase at his trial in 1925, John Scopes invoked academic freedom and his constitutional right to teach evolution, marking one of the earliest mentions of academic freedom in any American trial. John K. Wilson, an expert in education history, will speak about these issues in the context of the Scopes Trial Centennial. Two early academic freedom cases, one involving a faculty member at Vanderbilt University (1878) and another at Lafayette College (1913), foreshadowed the controversies within the Scopes trial. The Lafayette College case, like the Scopes case, involved the teaching of evolution and led directly to formation of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in 1915. Dr. Wilson will explain how these early incidents sparked debates over academic freedom, science teaching, and critical thinking in the classroom, controversies that persist today.
 

Sponsored by the UT Chapter of the American Association
of University Professors and the College of Arts and Sciences.