High Court to Review Law on Creation Theory Courses

The Supreme Court, evoking memories of the Scopes “monkey trial,” agreed Monday to decide whether the Constitution allows states to require public schools that teach evolution also to conduct courses on the creation theory of the origin of life.

The justices will review in the term beginning next October a controversial Louisiana law that was struck down by a federal appeals court as violating the prohibition against government establishment of religion.

The law, called the Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act, says that creation must be taught whenever evolution is taught in public schools.

The emotionally charged dispute is somewhat reminiscent of the famed 1925 trial of John Scopes, who was convicted and fined $100 under Tennessee law for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. Scopes’ conviction was reversed in state court and the case did not reach the justices.

Such laws, while enjoying avid support among religious fundamentalists, have not fared well in legal tests of their effect on the traditional separation of church and state.

The high court in 1968 struck down an Arkansas law that made it a crime to teach that mankind “ascended or descended from a lower order of animals.” A later Arkansas law nearly identical to the Louisiana statute was invalidated in federal court in 1982. Proposed “balanced treatment” statutes in Oregon, Maryland and South Carolina have been viewed as unconstitutional in legal opinions issued by state attorneys general.

The Louisiana law was defended by state officials as a constitutional means of protecting “academic freedom” and ensuring that pupils hear both sides of the issue. It was assailed by civil libertarians as a blatant attempt to promote a religious belief in the public schools.

The statute was invalidated in federal District Court and that ruling was affirmed by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The full appeals court later voted 8 to 7 to uphold the panel--but the seven dissenters called the law a valid attempt to “prevent the closing of children’s minds to religious doctrine by misrepresenting it as in conflict with established scientific laws.”

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana Atty. Gen. William J. Guste Jr., noting the narrow split in the appeals court, welcomed the justices’ agreement to hear the case (Edwards vs. Aguillard, 85-1513).

But Anthony T. Podesta, president of the advocacy group People for the American Way, said that schools across the nation are now being subjected to “pressure to teach creationism in science classrooms.” It is up to the court, he said, “to reaffirm the separation of church and state.”

In other action, the justices:

--Agreed to decide whether suspects in custody must be informed of all the crimes of which they are suspected before they decide whether to talk to police. The case (Colorado vs. Spring, 85-1517), appealed to the court by Colorado authorities, represents a potentially far-reaching test of the justices’ 1966 ruling in Miranda vs. Arizona, requiring authorities to warn suspects of their rights to silence and counsel before interrogation.

--Opened the way for a new trial in a longstanding lawsuit brought by the estate of the late Karen Silkwood, refusing to hear contentions by Kerr-McGee Corp. that a multimillion-dollar punitive damages claim against the company should be thrown out of court (Kerr-McGee vs. Silkwood, 85-946). Silkwood’s contamination from plutonium and her subsequent death in an auto accident sparked a widely noted controversy over nuclear safety.