Daniel v. Waters

Daniel v. Waters

Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Full case name	Joseph C. Daniel, Jr., et al., v. Hugh Waters, Chairman, Textbook Commission of the State of Tennessee, et al.
Date decided	April 10, 1975
Citation(s)	515 F.2d 485 (6th Cir. 1975)
Judge(s) sitting	George Clifton Edwards, Jr., Anthony J. Celebrezze, and Pierce Lively
Case opinions
Majority: Edwards Dissent: Celebrezze

Daniel v. Waters was a 1975 legal case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit struck down Tennessee's law regarding the teaching of "equal time" of evolution and creationism in public school science classes because it violated the Establishment clause of the US Constitution.

The plaintiffs were school teachers supported by the National Association of Biology Teachers.

1 Background
2 The act
3 The ruling
4 Effect of the ruling
5 Related cases
6 References
7 External links

Background

Various state laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution had been introduced during the 1920s. These laws were challenged in 1968 in the case Epperson v. Arkansas, which established that such laws were to be held in violation of the constitutional separation of Church and State. The creationist movement reacted to the decision by turning to the promotion of the teaching of creationism in school science classes as equal to evolutionary theory.^[1]

The act

The Tennessee law stated, "Any biology textbook used for teaching in the public schools, which expresses an opinion of, or relates a theory about origins or creation of man and his world shall [give] . . . an equal amount of emphasis on . . . the Genesis account in the Bible." (Public Acts of Tennessee, 1973, Chapter 377, cited in LaFollette, 1983, p. 80)^[1]

The ruling

The Federal District Court ruling was that the Tennessee law was "a clearly defined preferential position for the Biblical version of creation as opposed to any account of the development of man based on scientific research and reasoning. For a state to seek to enforce such preference by law is to seek to accomplish the very establishment of religion which the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States squarely forbids." (US District Court, Daniel v Waters, 1975)^[1]

Effect of the ruling

The ruling did not prevent the Bible from being taught in public schools in an appropriate way. The Court stated (quoting from a prior decision): "While study of religions and of the Bible from a literary and historic viewpoint, presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, need not collide with the First Amendment's prohibition, the State may not adopt programs or practices in its public schools or colleges which "aid or oppose" any religion."^[2]

Following this ruling, creationism was stripped of all overt biblical references and was then renamed creation science. Several states then passed new legislation which required that this be given equal time with teaching of evolution. This came to court as McLean v. Arkansas (1982), which resulted in a detailed ruling that it was similarly unconstitutional to teach this in public school science classes. This was a District level ruling and, while setting a persuasive precedent, it was only a binding precedent in the relevant district. It was not until Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), a similar case in Louisiana, was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court that creation science was ruled unconstitutional at the federal level, which resulted in its removal from public school science classes nationwide. The reaction from the creationist forces would be to create the new concept of intelligent design specifically in order to circumvent this ruling.^[1]

Related cases

Scopes Trial - 1925
Epperson v. Arkansas - 1968
Willoughby v. Stever - 1973
Hendren v. Campbell - 1977
McLean v. Arkansas - 1982
Edwards v. Aguillard - 1987
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District - 2005

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Creationism/ID, A Short Legal History By Lenny Flank, Talk Reason
^ Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (83 S.Ct. 1560 1573) (1963)

External links

Daniel v. Waters
Steele v. Waters

United States First Amendment case law

Establishment Clause

Public funding	Everson v. Board of Education (1947) • McCollum v. Board of Education (1948) • Walz v. Tax Commission (1970) • Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) • Marsh v. Chambers (1983) • Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet (1994) • Agostini v. Felton (1997) • Mitchell v. Helms (2000) • Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002) • Locke v. Davey (2004)

Public displays	Lynch v. Donnelly (1984) • County of Allegheny v. ACLU (1989) • McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky (2005) • Van Orden v. Perry (2005)

School prayer	Zorach v. Clauson (1952) • Engel v. Vitale (1962) • School District of Abington Township v. Schempp (1963) • Stone v. Graham (1980) • Wallace v. Jaffree (1985) • Lee v. Weisman (1992) • Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe (2000) • Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2004)

Creationism	Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) • Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) • Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (M.D. Pa. 2005)

Free Exercise Clause

Reynolds v. United States (1879) • Davis v. Beason (1890) • Braunfeld v. Brown (1961) • Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) • Sherbert v. Verner (1963) • Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) • Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division (1981) • Bob Jones University v. United States (1983) • Goldman v. Weinberger (1986) • Employment Division v. Smith (1990) • Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993) • City of Boerne v. Flores (1997) • Watchtower Society v. Village of Stratton (2002) • Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005) • Gonzales v. UDV (2006)

Freedom of speech

Sedition and imminent danger	Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) • Schenck v. United States (1919) • Abrams v. United States (1919) • Masses Publishing Co. v. Patten (S.D.N.Y. 1917) • Gitlow v. New York (1925) • Whitney v. California (1927) • Dennis v. United States (1951) • Yates v. United States (1957) • Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)

Fighting words and the heckler's veto	Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) • Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) • Terminiello v. Chicago (1949) • Feiner v. New York (1951) • National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1977) • R. A. V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) • Snyder v. Phelps (2011)

Freedom of assembly and public forums	Hague v. CIO (1939) • Schneider v. New Jersey (1939) • Martin v. Struthers (1943) • Niemotko v. Maryland (1951) • Cox v. Louisiana (1965) • Brown v. Louisiana (1966) • Coates v. Cincinnati (1971) • Adderley v. Florida (1966) • Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins (1980) • Hill v. Colorado (2000)

Symbolic speech	United States v. O'Brien (1968) • Cohen v. California (1971) • Texas v. Johnson (1989) • United States v. Eichman (1990)

Compelled speech	Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) • West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) • Wooley v. Maynard (1977) • Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth (2000) • Davenport v. Washington Education Association (2007)

School speech	Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) • Board of Education v. Pico (1982) • Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser (1986) • Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988) • Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995) • Morse v. Frederick (2007)

Obscenity	Rosen v. United States (1896) • United States v. One Book Called Ulysses (S.D.N.Y. 1933) • Roth v. United States (1957) • One, Inc. v. Olesen (1958) • Marcus v. Search Warrant (1961) • MANual Enterprises v. Day (1962) • Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) • Quantity of Books v. Kansas (1964) • Freedman v. Maryland (1965) • Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966) • Redrup v. New York (1967) • Ginsberg v. New York (1968) • Stanley v. Georgia (1969) • United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs (1971) • Kois v. Wisconsin (1972) • Miller v. California (1973) • Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton (1973) • United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film (1973) • Jenkins v. Georgia (1974) • New York v. Ferber (1982) • American Booksellers v. Hudnut (7th Cir., 1985) • Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986) • Osborne v. Ohio (1990) • United States v. X-Citement Video (1994) • Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997) • United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group (2000) • Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) • Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union (2002) • Nitke v. Gonzales (S.D.N.Y., 2005) • United States v. Williams (2008) • FCC v. Fox Television Stations (2009 case) (2009) • American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression v. Strickland (6th Cir., 2009) • United States v. Kilbride (9th Cir., 2009) • United States v. Stevens (2010)

Public employees	Garner v. Board of Public Works (1951) • Pickering v. Board of Education (1968) • Connick v. Myers (1983) • Rankin v. McPherson (1987) • Waters v. Churchill (1994) • Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) • Borough of Duryea v. Guarnieri (2011)

Hatch Act and similar laws	Ex parte Curtis (1882) • United Public Workers v. Mitchell (1947) • United States Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers (1973) • Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973)

Commercial speech	Valentine v. Chrestensen (1942) • Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations (1973) • Bigelow v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1974) • Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976) • Bates v. State Bar of Arizona (1977) • Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro (1977) • Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission (1980) • Consol. Edison Co. v. Public Serv. Comm'n (1980) • Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Commission of California (1986) • San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic Committee (1987) • 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island (1996)

Campaign finance and political speech	Buckley v. Valeo (1976) • First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) • Citizens Against Rent Control v. City of Berkeley (1981) • California Medical Association v. FEC (1981) • Brown v. Socialist Workers '74 Campaign Committee (1982) • FEC v. National Conservative Political Action Committee (1985) • FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life (1986) • Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) • McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995) • Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. FEC (1996) • Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000) • FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (2001) • McConnell v. FEC (2003) • FEC v. Beaumont (2003) • Randall v. Sorrell (2006) • FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007) • Davis v. FEC (2008) • Citizens United v. FEC (2010) • Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett. (2011)

Freedom of the press

Prior restraints and censorship	Near v. Minnesota (1931) • Lovell v. City of Griffin (1938) • New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) • Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974) • Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart (1976)

Taxation and privileges	Grosjean v. American Press Co. (1936) • Branzburg v. Hayes (1972) • Minneapolis Star Tribune Company v. Commissioner (1983)

Defamation	New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) • Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts (1967) • Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974) • Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. (1984) • Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc. (1985) • McDonald v. Smith (1985) • Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988) • Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. (1990)

Broadcast media	Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969) • FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978) • Turner Broadcasting v. FCC (1994) • Bartnicki v. Vopper (2001)

Freedom of association

NAACP v. Alabama (1958) • Roberts v. United States Jaycees (1984) • Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston (1995) • Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000)