Annie Laurie Gaylor — Is America becoming one great big ‘Hillsboro’?

These are the slightly edited opening remarks on July 18, 2025, at the Scopes Centennial Conference in Chattanooga, Tenn.

By Annie Laurie Gaylor

On behalf of the Freedom From Religion Foundation: Welcome — and thank you for being part of this historic event. FFRF is delighted to be a cosponsor with Robyn Blumner and CFI, and to present a remarkable line-up of speakers.

I’ve been surprised by the number of individuals who, when I’ve mentioned this conference, have never heard of the Scopes Trial. Let’s hope this isn’t the kind of case that freethinker George Santayana warned about in his oft-quoted words, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

What’s the takeaway from the “Trial of the Century”? I’m eager to learn how our assembled experts and historians at this event evaluate its legacy. Briefly, I’d like to recount one little-known bit of legacy from “the monkey trial.”

William Jennings Bryan famously died a tragic figure five days after the trial. Tragic, because, as H.L. Mencken wrote of Bryan: “It is a tragedy indeed to begin life as a hero and to end it as a buffoon.” Bryan’s admirers decided to create a bible college in Dayton in his name, which opened in 1930 and has since dominated Dayton. It emphasizes a conservative Christian biblical worldview. For nearly 75 years, the bible college sent missionary students, known as the Bible Education Ministry, into Dayton public schools to evangelize students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

Some 24 years ago, a father who was not religious moved to Dayton for a job along with his wife and two young children. He was shocked by the overtly proselytizing classes and contacted FFRF. Dan Barker oversaw that lawsuit and located two excellent Tennessee attorneys who then sued. The town was outraged and we quickly sought a protective order to keep the identity of the family confidential.

In the midst of the lawsuit, the malicious-minded newspaper editor declared that he was going to publish the family’s name anyway. Our attorneys jumped in a car and drove from Nashville to Chattanooga late that night so they could be at the courthouse first thing in the morning to seek a restraining order, which was granted.

We proudly won that case in February 2002 before U.S. District Judge R. Allen Edgar, who, by the way, was appointed by President Reagan. Edgar wrote a forceful opinion saying this kind of lesson might be found in “a Sunday school class in many of the Christian churches in Rhea County.”

Edgar continued: “The lesson plans retained by Bryan College reveal that the children are being taught that the bible conveys literal truth about God and Jesus Christ reflective of the Bryan College ‘Statement of Belief,’ that the bible is literally true. Students are asked to memorize bible verses, act out skits of biblical stories, and sing songs such as ‘Jesus Loves Me,’ ‘My God Is So Great,’ ‘Pharaoh, Pharaoh,’ ‘Twelve Men Want to Spy on Canaan,’ ‘Shout to the Lord,’ ‘Change My Heart, Oh God’ and ‘I’m In the Lord’s Army.’”

Edgar also observed: “Rhea County, Tenn., is no stranger to religious controversy. In 1925, the Rhea County Courthouse was the site of the well-known ‘Scopes’ or ‘Monkey’ trial . . . The legacy of that trial in some respects gives rise to this lawsuit.”

The indignant county appealed our victory. Two years later, the 6th Circuit firmly agreed with us, our plaintiffs and Judge Edgar that the bible ministry program, conducted in public school classrooms, during school hours, and for children as young as kindergarten, was patently unconstitutional.

The parents were so concerned about security they didn’t tell their two small daughters that their family was the one suing until long after they won the case and had left Dayton. But it was an open secret — to everyone but the girls. One daughter contacted us about a decade later and explained that she and her sister did not know why they were pariahs. No one would eat with them in the cafeteria. Kids would sometimes slam lockers on their little fingers. She imputed it to racism — their mother was Native American. Now she finally discovered the reason. Need anyone know more than this sad story to understand why divisive religion does not belong in our public schools?

Ed Larson’s riveting Pulitzer-Prize winning book, “Summer for the Gods,” revealed that the play and movie, “Inherit the Wind,” had lots of phony details in it. The irony is that Dayton, in many respects, thanks to three generations of fundamentalist indoctrination in its public schools, appeared to have evolved to resemble the town that the playwrights conjured up as the mythical “Hillsboro.”

Fast forward to 2018. FFRF and supporters were readying to dedicate Zenos Frudakis’ magnificent statue to Clarence Darrow on the Rhea County Courthouse lawn, to balance the statue of William Jennings Bryan already there. But the town hadn’t forgotten FFRF’s lawsuit, including a septuagenarian grandmother who pictured herself on Facebook with a rifle, and promised to be there for the dedication. Fortunately, all went well.

To thank those who had so generously dedicated the statue, including playwright and actor John de Lancie, FFRF had purchased front-row tickets of the play the town puts on every year. When the play concluded, every single stagehand and actor, including those portraying Scopes and Darrow, turned in unison to face our party and belt out Christian hymns at us. Undoubtedly, some had learned those hymns during the public school’s bible classes. We hope 21 years without bible indoctrination in Dayton’s public schools is making a difference. But June Griffin, the woman with the rifle, is still around, and called our office recently to tell us we still aren’t welcome in Dayton.

The good news is that a slim majority of Americans for some time have finally accepted evolution. However, a disturbing Supreme Court decision, Mahmoud v. Taylor, just handed down by the Supreme Court, promises to have a chilling effect on evolution and other curriculum in our public schools. Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the broadly worded decision, wrote:   

“A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill.”

As dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it, the decision hands veto power to a subset of parents who claim public school curriculum exposes children to messages that conflict with a parent’s religious beliefs.

Meanwhile our nation is in the middle of a wholesale federal war against science, in the form of the current dismantlement of public health, the mass firings of scientists and medical researchers. The Association for the Advancement of Science announced a week ago that cuts to the budgets of federal agencies and programs doing scientific research or providing grants to researchers and universities doing scientific research already will fall by more than a third — research that has brought the world so much progress, medical cures and innovations. There’s RFK Jr.’s dogged destruction of our vaccination policies. Then there’s the climate change denial, the demolition of key weather forecasting that saves American lives during the increasingly severe weather. And now the Senate approving the rescission package that reneges funding for NPR and PBS. Because autocrats fear above all an informed citizenry.

As we watch the wreckage from the ongoing takeover of our nation by billionaires and Christian nationalists being rubber-stamped by the extremist Supreme Court, it is hard not to wonder if our entire country is on the verge of becoming one great big “Hillsboro.”

In their foreword, the playwrights of “Inherit the Wind” presciently observed:

“The stage directions set the time as ‘Not too long ago.’ It might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow.”

What would Clarence Darrow do? He’d be saying: Keep your eyes on the 2026 midterms, baby!

Annie Laurie Gaylor is co-president of FFRF.