From the OCT/NOV 2005 issue of Seed:
Credit: Mike Swope
Late this summer, President Bush endorsed teaching the anti-evolutionist concept of intelligent design to America's high school students. But one community has already tried exactly that—and gotten sued for it. In August, the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania faced a community divided over biology and the bible. In attendance were parents and neighbors, co-litigants in a First Amendment legal suit. Welcome to the opening salvo in America's latest war on science.
Resigning from the Dover Area School Board was the last thing that Jeff and Carol "Casey" Brown thought they'd ever have to do. They had poured their lives into their community's educational problems, Jeff for five years and Casey for 10. But in a late-night discussion on October 16—the night of their 20th wedding anniversary, as it were—they realized they had little choice but to quit. Dover, the tiny township of 1,800 where they'd made their home for the past 22 years, had been radically altered. Former friends and school board colleagues were now bitter enemies, divided over a simple matter—what should be taught in ninth-grade biology at Dover High School.
Advertisement
Casey Brown, a tall woman with an uncompromising bent and a parliamentarian's mastery of school board rules, precedents and procedures, first ran for the board to advocate better treatment of students with learning disabilities, like her daughter. Jeff ran for the board because he was fed up with what he viewed as rampant cronyism and corruption. "I made a little cardboard button, took off a day of work and I got elected," he remembers.
That was back when Dover was still a sleepy place, long before most Americans had heard of the town or the New York Times assigned a reporter to cover its school board races. And it was long before the Dover board drove away the Browns, made national headlines, triggered a lawsuit for refuting Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and introduced students to the concept of intelligent design, or ID.
Now, with a highly visible federal trial beginning on September 27, amid a national and international uproar prompted by President Bush's own endorsement of ID, the press is depicting Dover as the 21st-century equivalent of Dayton, Tennessee, site of the famous 1925 Scopes monkey trial. But there's a key difference between the Scopes era and today: Anti-evolutionists seem to be abandoning the Dover confrontation like a sinking ship. They have plans elsewhere—particularly in the state of Kansas.
As a result, Dover represents something very different and perhaps more poignant. It's among the first towns to fall victim to a divisive religious and scientific battle that is building to a fever pitch—one that promises to tear apart many more communities before it's finally settled.
Jeff and Casey were on the front lines as the fight engulfed their town; in fact, they inadvertently facilitated it by choosing the wrong political allies. After their election to the nine-person school board, the Browns began to seek like-minded acquaintances to run for seats alongside them. They turned to a group of conservative Christians, who were soon elected. Together, they formed a majority on the board. The Dover area was home to a wide diversity of sects, including Mennonites, Lutherans, Brethren and Amish, and had a long-standing live-and-let-live tradition. "All of us were good friends, and religion didn't really enter into it," recalls Casey. Then things began to change.
In 2003, the Dover board proposed sending a letter to the U.S. Supreme Court that defended using the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Jeff, himself a Christian and a former Sunday school teacher, balked, asking if the board would also support the phrase "under Allah." Casey, an Episcopalian, also declared her opposition. But their views were in the minority, and the letter was sent.