In 1925, Dayton, Tenn., high school teacher John Scopes was arrested for violating a Tennessee law that prohibited public schools from teaching “any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible.” In his classroom, Scopes explained Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to his students.

Scopes hoped that his trial would result in a judicial ruling that Tennessee’s law was unconstitutional — while Dayton’s businessmen who persuaded Scopes to teach about evolution were motivated largely by an expectation that a controversial trial would be a big moneymaker for Dayton when people from all across America went to Dayton to witness the trial.

William Jennings Bryan, a fundamentalist Christian, three times the Democratic presidential candidate, and a former Secretary of State during the Woodrow Wilson administration, volunteered to join the prosecutorial team, while renowned criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow offered to help defend Scopes pro bono. Darrow, an agnostic, was a staunch opponent of fundamentalism and a staunch supporter of separation of church and state.

In his preface to “The Trial Of The Century,” Gregg Jarrett, a Fox News Service legal and political analyst, concludes that “Clarence Darrow’s intrepid defense of academic autonomy, scientific empowerment, intellectual growth, and freedom of........

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