## Facts

- Arkansas enacted Act 590 of 1981, requiring public schools to give “balanced treatment” to “creation-science” and “evolution-science” when teaching origins.
- The Act defined “creation-science” through propositions including sudden creation from nothing, limits on mutation and natural selection, fixed “created kinds,” a worldwide flood, and a recent origin of the earth and life.
- Plaintiffs included parents of public school students, a public school biology teacher, clergy of multiple denominations, and education and religious-liberty organizations.
- Defendants were state education officials and entities responsible for curriculum and instructional materials, sued in their official capacities.
- Evidence showed the model legislation was promoted by advocates seeking to present biblical creationism in public schools while describing the effort publicly as “fairness” or “academic freedom.”
- The bill moved quickly through the legislature with minimal deliberation and without hearings.
- After a bench trial with expert testimony from scientists and theologians, the district court considered whether the Act was a religious measure presented in scientific terms.

## Issues

1. Whether Act 590’s mandate of “balanced treatment” for creation-science and evolution-science in public schools violated the Establishment Clause under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
2. Whether the Act infringed teachers’ and students’ academic freedom under the Free Speech Clause.
3. Whether the Act was unconstitutionally vague under the Due Process Clause.

## Decision

- The court held Act 590 unconstitutional and permanently enjoined its enforcement.
- Applying the Lemon test, the court found the Act lacked a genuine secular legislative purpose and had the primary effect of advancing religion.
- The court concluded “creation-science,” as defined by the Act, was religious doctrine rather than science because it depended on a literal scriptural premise and did not follow scientific methodology.
- Because the Act failed Lemon’s purpose and effect prongs, the court did not rely on the academic-freedom or vagueness claims to decide the case.

## Legal Principles

- Under Lemon v. Kurtzman, a law violates the Establishment Clause if it lacks a secular purpose, if its primary effect advances or inhibits religion, or if it creates excessive government entanglement with religion.
- A statute compelling public-school instruction that is religious in substance, even if described in secular terms, may be unconstitutional when its purpose or effect is to advance a specific religious view.
- Courts may assess whether mandated classroom content is “science” by examining whether it relies on natural-law explanations and whether it is testable and falsifiable; content grounded in untestable scriptural premises is religious rather than scientific for Establishment Clause analysis.
- “Academic freedom” rationales do not supply a secular purpose where the statute instead compels inclusion of religious doctrine in the science curriculum.

## Conclusion

The district court invalidated Arkansas’s “balanced treatment” requirement because it was designed to insert a particular religious doctrine into public-school science instruction and therefore failed the Establishment Clause under Lemon.


McLean v. Ark. Bd. of Educ., 529 F. Supp. 1255 (E.D. Ark. 1982)