Writing in Issues in Science and Technology, Monya Baker offers a detailed 20-year retrospective of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the 2005 case establishing the unconstitutionality of teaching "intelligent design" in the U.S. public schools. She begins:
Two landmark court cases in American science education hit major anniversaries this year. More famous is the Scopes "monkey" trial. A hundred years ago, the legal case formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes made front pages of newspapers nationwide, even though it didn't actually change laws against teaching evolution. Less known is the so-called Panda Trial of 20 years ago, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, which in some ways is Scopes's inverse and has done much to keep religious views from being presented as science in the classroom. "All the Scopes trial gave was noise," said Edward Larson, a historian and legal scholar at Pepperdine University. "The Kitzmiller case gave light."
Among those quoted are Kenneth R. Miller and Eric Rothschild, both of whom participated in the Kitzmiller case and are now members of NCSE's board of directors, and Eugenie C. Scott, NCSE's Executive Director at the time.
