Teaching or Preaching?
LOS ANGELES - Picture this: A Jewish or non-religious student walks into a Fayetteville classroom and is immediately confronted by a massive 16-by-20 inch poster of the Ten Commandments -- not just any version, but the Protestant one, mandated by the state.
They’re not there to worship. They’re there to learn.
But Arkansas disagrees.
Under a new law, Act 573, every public-school classroom and library in Arkansas must display the Ten Commandments “in a conspicuous place,” using a font large enough to be read from anywhere in the room. The posters also include “In God We Trust.”
The law was passed in April 2025 and is due to take effect in August.
It doesn’t matter that the posters are privately funded – the mandate is public, and the message is clear.
Parents, students and teachers are suing. Backed by the ACLU and other groups, seven Arkansas families filed a federal lawsuit to block the law from taking effect. Speaking to USA Today in June, plaintiff Samantha Stinson spoke bluntly, “This law will infringe on our rights as parents and create an unwelcoming and religiously coercive school environment for our children.” She’s right.
I conclude that the Arkansas law absolutely violates the U.S. Constitution. It fails all three parts of the so-called Lemon Test that the U.S. Supreme Court established in 1971, directly contradicts the Court’s ruling nine years later in Stone v. Graham and creates the kind of religious coercion the Court rejected earlier this year in McCreary County v. ACLU.
Public schools are not churches. State-mandated religious displays are not education – they are pressure. They are promotion. They are unconstitutional.
Here's the background:
Act 573 requires every public classroom and library in the state to hang the Ten Commandments. The posters, as noted, must be at least 16-by-20 and designed so they’re visible from any point in the room. Again, also required: “In God We Trust.”
The law insists these be funded by private donations, but that doesn’t change the reality – the state is endorsing and enforcing religious doctrine in public schools.
The Constitution doesn’t allow that. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment bars the government from “making any law respecting an establishment of religion.”
Courts have consistently said that means no state endorsement of religion, especially in schools where students are young, impressionable and legally required to attend.
This isn’t a gray area – it’s almost a copy-paste of what the Court struck down in Stone v. Graham. That 1980 ruling overturned a nearly identical Kentucky law. The Court wrote: “The pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature.” Sound familiar?
The Arkansas law also flunks all three parts of the Lemon Test:
Secular purpose? None. The Ten Commandments are a religious text.
Primary effect neither advances nor inhibits religion? No – it clearly advances one.
Excessive government entanglement? Yes – the state now requires a religious message in every public classroom.
To be fair, Stone v. Graham was decided 45 years ago. Supreme Court precedent doesn’t last forever – most major rulings shift or get reinterpreted after about 40 to 60 years. And lately, the Court has leaned heavily on history and tradition when deciding what stands and what doesn’t, often pointing to what states have done in the past as justification.
Is that the play here – for Arkansas lawmakers to make something that feels blatantly unconstitutional seem legal just by calling it "tradition"?
In McCreary, the Court said the government can’t just slap a secular label on something religious and pretend it’s fine. “The government may not promote or affiliate itself with any religious doctrine,” the Court wrote. That’s exactly what Arkansas is doing here.
The law is also wildly exclusionary. It requires the Protestant version of the Ten Commandments – not the Catholic or Jewish versions. So even within Christianity, the state is picking favorites. And for students who are Muslim, Hindu, atheist, or just don’t want scripture in their class? Too bad. These posters are unavoidable. There’s no opt-out. That’s not education. That’s coercion.
In the end, Act 573 doesn’t pass any constitutional test. It fails Lemon. It defies Stone and McCreary. It promotes religion in schools where neutrality is required. And it forces students to sit beneath a religious message that tells them, directly or indirectly, who belongs and who doesn’t.
Schools exist to expand minds, not impose creeds. The role of public education is to inform, not indoctrinate. And students go to school to learn – not to be converted.
