After the Butler Act became law, the question was whether anyone in Tennessee would actually enforce it — and whether anyone would be willing to test it.

In Part 4 of Religion in the Courts: Galileo, Scopes and Dover, Judge Stephen J. Sfekas turns to the famous trial of State of Tennessee v. Thomas Scopes. What began as a challenge organized by the ACLU quickly became something much bigger, as Dayton businessman George Rappleyea saw a chance to put his struggling town on the map, Thomas Scopes agreed to serve as the defendant, and William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow entered the case.

But the real Scopes trial was far stranger, messier, and more complicated than its later legend. Scopes was not a biology teacher. The textbook at the center of the case, Hunter’s Civic Biology, embraced racist and eugeni ...