The teaching of evolution in American schools has been a contentious issue, initially facing opposition after World War I during the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy, which led several states to ban its instruction. A pivotal moment was the 1925 Scopes Trial in Tennessee, where teacher John T. Scopes was convicted for defying the state's anti-evolution law, a widely publicized event.

The legal landscape shifted dramatically in 1968 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Epperson v. Arkansas, ruled that laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution by advancing religion. Later, creationist attempts to mandate "creation science" or "intelligent design" were also struck down by the Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) and a District Court in Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005), respectively.

Consequently, as of 2024, all fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia include evolution in their public school science standards, with intelligent design and creationism typically discussed only in non-science classes such as philosophy or comparative religion.