As a number of older women pointed out during the Women's March on Washington...

"I keep having to do this over and over again."  And so we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over again that the threats to freedom never go away.  That's why I'm pleased to be a very small part of my university's production of "Inherit the Wind," directed by my colleague Miriam Mills, that opened on campus last night.  She gave me the honor of contributing the Program Note:

Why “Inherit the Wind” Matters in 2017

By Dr. Jim Castagnera, Esq., Associate Provost, Rider University

“I believe that God created the known universe, the earth and everything in it, including man. And I also believe that someday scientists will come to see that only the theory of intelligent design provides even a remotely rational explanation for the known universe.”

William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925?  No, Vice President Michael Pence spoke these words from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002.

“There are enormous religious and philosophical questions implied by much of what science does, especially these days…. The debate over origins is an excellent example. Just as has happened in other subjects in the history of science, a number of scholars are now raising scientific challenges to the usual Darwinian account of the origins of life. Some scholars have proposed such alternative theories as intelligent design.”

Lines from the mouth of Matthew Brady (the Bryan counterpart in Inherit the Wind)?  No, again.  This quotation comes from legal papers filed by the school board in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a lawsuit launched in the federal court for central Pennsylvania in 2005 by parents who objected to the board’s adoption of a text on creationism.  (The parents won.)

Bottom line: Both the play Inherit the Wind (1955) and the real case on which it’s based, State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (1925) are as relevant in the new millennium as they were six and nine decades ago.

And religion v. science isn’t the only issue lurking in this courtroom drama, which pits America’s most famous populist politician (Bryan aka Brady) against the most brilliant and notorious trial attorney of his era (Clarence Darrow aka Henry Drummond).

Authors Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee --- writing at the pinnacle of power of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which led the crusade to blacklist and imprison writers suspected of Communist ties --- presented their play as a not-too-subtle metaphor for McCarthyism, red baiting, and censorship.

Depending upon your perspective, you may find in tonight’s production echoes from earlier eras, which reverberate with fresh urgency in America circa 2017.