Louisiana is at the verge of of becoming the first state to enact a law mandating that the Ten Commandments be prominently displayed at all public schools and colleges.
The Republican-backed measure is currently being weighed by the Louisiana House after clearing the Senate by a 30-8 margin on May 16, with all but a few Democrat Senators voting against it. A final House action on the bill was originally set to take place on May 22 but was rescheduled for May 28.
The measure was spearheaded by Republican state Rep. Dodie Horton. Last year, she successfully led a legislative effort to require the national motto “In God We Trust” to be displayed in classrooms across the state.
More than a dozen states have enacted laws mandating or explicitly allowing schools to display the phrase, but the Louisiana law goes one step further to require signage to be displayed in each individual classroom.
“Just one more vote until it heads to the Governor’s desk for signature,” Ms. Horton wrote on Instagram. “With his signature, Louisiana will be the first state in the nation to allow the Ten Commandments back into the classrooms, where they hung peacefully for nearly 3 decades prior to the 1970s.”
Last year, the Texas Senate approved a bill similar to Ms. Horton’s proposal. However, the bill died after the House failed to vote on it before a deadline passed.
The Establishment Clause Debate
In 1980, a divided U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, holding that the law signaled the government endorsement of “a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths” in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.“If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments,” the high court’s 5-4 majority wrote at the time. “However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.”
In recent years, the Supreme Court appears to have become more open to a less restrictive interpretation of the Establishment Clause while placing greater emphasis on the country’s history and tradition.
In defense of her Ten Commandments measure, Ms. Horton has highlighted the text’s historical significance, arguing that the bill honors its unique place in Louisiana’s history.
“The Ten Commandments are the basis of all laws in Louisiana,” she said on the House floor in April. “And given all the junk our children are exposed to in classrooms today, it’s imperative that we put the Ten Commandments back in a prominent position.”
“It doesn’t preach a certain religion, but it definitely shows what a moral code that we all should live by is,” she added.
Her argument is similar to what was presented before—and ultimately agreed by—the Supreme Court’s majority in the summer of 2022 in a case concerning whether a Kentucky school district violated a high school football coach’s First Amendment rights by forbidding him to pray at the middle of the field immediately after each game.
In a 6-3 decision, the high court sided with the coach, who argued that his on-field, postgame prayer was the continuation of a “school tradition” that predated his tenure at the school. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, agreed with the coach’s argument, saying that the Establishment Clause must be interpreted by referencing historical practices and understandings.
“Learning how to tolerate speech or prayer of all kinds is part of learning how to live in a pluralistic society,” Justice Gorsuch wrote, adding that the school district cannot suppress an employee’s religious liberty for the sake of complying with the Establishment Clause, which was created to preserve religious liberty.
“In essence,” he wrote, “the District asks us to adopt the view that the only acceptable government role models for students are those who eschew any visible religious expression.”
“We are aware of no historically sound understanding of the Establishment Clause that begins to make it necessary for government to be hostile to religion in this way.”
