John E. Jones III. Photo by Don Loh. Courtesy of Dickinson College.
John E. Jones III, the federal judge presiding over the trial in Kitzmiller v. Dover in 2005 and now president of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, spoke to WHTM (December 15, 2025) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as the 20th anniversary of his decision approached.
After a trial lasting 40 days, Jones found that teaching "intelligent design" in the public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He told WHTM that although the decision was important, it wasn't difficult: "Candidly, it was a route" in favor of the plaintiffs, 11 local parents who objected to the Dover Area School District's 2004 policy requiring students to be exposed to "intelligent design."
Jones added that "the case was so clear that he would still rule the same today despite more recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, by a more conservative court, that have made the wall between church and state thinner than it was in 2005," as WHTM summarized his comment.
