Sarah

Edwards vs. Aguillard was a case heard by Supreme Court of U.S. The case was argued on December 10th 1986 and the decision was made on June 19th 1987.The decision of the case nullified the Louisiana law titled the “ Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction Act” that was put in place in 1982. It is often referred to as the “Creationism Act”. It forbade the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools unless accompanied by instruction in “creation science.” No school was required to teach either, but if one was taught, it had to be accompanied by the other. The law was seen as unconstitutional. Justice William J. Brennan ruled that it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment based on the Lemon test. The Lemon test is a three pronged test that is used to determine if a law violates the First Amendment. The three prongs include: the government’s action must have a secular purpose, the government’s action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and the government’s action must not result in an “excessive government entanglement” with religion. It was decided that the Act violates the First Amendment because it lacks a clear secular purpose. The court ruled that the law was unconstitutional with a majority rule of 7 to 2.