Three states that tried to put the Ten Commandments in schools have been blocked in the courts. In Ohio, lawmakers are considering a new approach.
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A federal appeals court today is hearing arguments about laws in Louisiana and Texas requiring displays of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. The laws have been blocked by lower courts. Other states are watching for the final outcome of that case, including Ohio, where some lawmakers are backing an approach they hope will survive legal challenges. Ohio Public Radio’s Sarah Donaldson reports from Columbus.
SARAH DONALDSON, BYLINE: In 1980, the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law requiring public schools to hang posters with the Ten Commandments in every classroom. The court ruled the posters were, quote, “plainly religious in nature.” But the unsigned decision was close. And now, decades later, Yale Law School professor Justin Driver says dissenters want to test it.
JUSTIN DRIVER: More recently, a number of states, including Louisiana and Texas and Ohio, have been taking steps to try to get the court to, in effect, revisit that issue.
DONALDSON: Their hopes were boosted a few years ago when the court ruled in favor of a high school football coach who had prayed on the 50-yard line after games, with players free to join. The reading of the First Amendment seems to be in flux.
DRIVER: The Establishment Clause has long been understood to prohibit the school from teaching, say, religion as truth.
DONALDSON: Laws in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, which have been passed but put on hold by the courts, mandate the display of the commandments. But Ohio lawmakers are trying something different. In November, the state Senate passed a bill that requires four historic documents in history and social studies classrooms out of a list of nine options. The legislature assembled the list. Among the choices? The Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta, the Articles of Confederation and the Ten Commandments. The decision is left with the school boards.
ANDREW BRENNER: I’m sure there’s local school boards in the state that have no problem putting up an LGBTQ+ flag in their schools and/or celebrating it because their locals have made that decision.
DONALDSON: That’s Republican state Senator Andrew Brenner. He backs the argument heard in other states – that the Ten Commandments is significant as a historical document that shaped the founding of the U.S.
BRENNER: There is a basis for everything – that there was a God Almighty and that everything was created from God. And you have to have a moral basis for everything. The Ten Commandments are a basis for a large chunk of our laws if you go back to the Mayflower.
DONALDSON: American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio legislative director Gary Daniels says that even though some commandments overlap with secular messaging – don’t kill, don’t steal – others are just religious.
GARY DANIELS: That’s what they want to get purposely in front of students, is those exclusively religious messages in the Ten Commandments.
DONALDSON: Opponents to the bill in the Senate said it could make children and families of other beliefs feel excluded. And Daniels says some school districts might be pressured to display the commandments.
DANIELS: So you’re going to have legislators sign this into law – school districts feel forced because there will certainly be lobbying at the local level to include, among those four documents, the Ten Commandments.
DONALDSON: With the bill having passed the Senate, it could get a hearing in the Ohio House next month.
For NPR News, I’m Sarah Donaldson in Columbus, Ohio.
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