An American flag, a pencil sharpener − and the 10 Commandments: Louisiana’s law to mandate biblical displays in classrooms is the latest to push limits of religion in public schools
Controversy over displays of the Ten Commandments on government property is nothing new, but only one case about schools has reached the Supreme Court.
Louisiana is not a stranger to controversy over religion in schools. In 2023, it joined almost 20 states that require or allow officials in public schools to post the national motto, “In God We Trust.”
Now, the Bayou State has become the first in the nation to require the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms in public schools, colleges and universities.
Gov. Jeff Landry signed House Bill 71into law on June 19, 2024, requiring officials in public schools, including colleges and universities, to post a specific version of the Ten Commandments. The text is similar to the King James translation of the Bible used in many Protestant churches.
Officials must post a context statement highlighting the role of the Ten Commandments in American history and may also display the Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a federal enactment to settle the frontier – and the earliest congressional document encouraging the creation of schools.
One of the bill’s supporters, state Sen. J. Adam Bass, defended it on the grounds that its “purpose is not solely religious.” He told fellow lawmakers that the Ten Commandments are important because of their “historical significance, which is simply one of many documents that display the history of our country and foundation of our legal system.”
Litigation over the Ten Commandments is not new. More than 40 years ago, in Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court rejected a Kentucky statute that mandated displays of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
The court reasoned that the underlying law violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” – because the mandate lacked a secular purpose.
The justices were not persuaded by a small notation on posters that described the Ten Commandments as the “fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States.”
Twenty-five years later, the Supreme Court again took up cases challenging public displays of the Ten Commandments, although not in schools. This time, the justices reached mixed results.
The first arose in Kentucky, where officials had erected a county courthouse display about texts including the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence and a biblical citation. In a 2005 ruling in McCreary County, Kentucky v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, the five-person majority agreed that display of the Ten Commandments violated the establishment clause, largely because it lacked a secular legislative purpose.
On the same day, however, the Supreme Court reached the opposite result in Van Orden v. Perry, a case from Texas. The court upheld the constitutionality of a display of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state capitol as one of 17 monuments and 21 historical markers commemorating Texas’ history.
Unlike the fairly new display in Kentucky, the one in Texas, which had existed since the early 1960s, was erected using private funds. The court permitted the Ten Commandments to remain because, despite their religious significance, the monument was a more passive display than in Stone: spread out across 22 acres, rather than posted on the courthouse door.
Louisiana is not a stranger to controversy over religion in schools. In 2023, it joined almost 20 states that require or allow officials in public schools to post the national motto, “In God We Trust.”
Now, the Bayou State has become the first in the nation to require the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms in public schools, colleges and universities.
Gov. Jeff Landry signed House Bill 71into law on June 19, 2024, requiring officials in public schools, including colleges and universities, to post a specific version of the Ten Commandments. The text is similar to the King James translation of the Bible used in many Protestant churches.
Officials must post a context statement highlighting the role of the Ten Commandments in American history and may also display the Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a federal enactment to settle the frontier – and the earliest congressional document encouraging the creation of schools.
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