Supreme Court May Soon Consider Overturning 45-Year Precedent

Newsweek

8 hours ago

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Concerns emanating from three states' legislative decisions to display the Ten Commandments in public schools has raised questions of whether the U.S. Supreme Court may ultimately weigh its hand on the issue at the national level.
Why It Matters
First Amendment rights and issues of separation of church and state have become front and center after legislatures in the states of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas passed laws requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments.
Several plaintiffs across the trio of states have brought lawsuits forward challenging laws that passed.
In June, seven Arkansas families filed suit against state law signed by Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and intended to go into effect in public school classrooms and libraries, arguing that constitutional rights were violated.
Days later, a panel of three federal appellate judges ruled that Louisiana's similar law pertaining to the Ten Commandments was unconstitutional. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled called the law "plainly unconstitutional." Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill disagreed with the ruling, saying she would appeal the decision and possibly take it all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the Associated Press.
And then, days after that appellate decision in Louisiana, a group of Dallas, Texas, based families and faith leaders filed federal litigation seeking to block the law in their home state—arguing in part that the public school display of the Ten Commandments "will be forcibly subjected to scriptural dictates, day in and day out," and that its enforcement violates "the fundamental religious-freedom principles that animated the Founding of our nation."
As of February 2025, Republicans in at least 15 states introduced similar legislation requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in public schools, according to Stateline.
What To Know
Christian nationalism
Several critics of Republicans' legislative moves to bring religion into public educational spaces expressed wide-ranging concerns to Newsweek, including laws separating church and state, and efforts on behalf of conservatives to install a broader Christian nationalist framework that caused widespread concern emanating from Project 2025.
"These Ten Commandments display laws are part of a broader Christian nationalist movement to impose one narrow set of religious beliefs on our nation's public school children," Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told Newsweek. "Our country's foundational promise of church-state separation and religious freedom means that families—not politicians—get to decide how and when children engage with religion."
The U.S. Supreme Court could rule in future cases involving public schools and the Ten Commandments.
The U.S. Supreme Court could rule in future cases involving public schools and the Ten Commandments.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva
American United allied with other groups to sue the three aforementioned states, relying on a 1980 case ruled by the Supreme Court, Stone v. Graham, in which they ruled in an unsigned decision that a Kentucky statute requiring a copy of the Ten Commandments to be hung in every public school classroom violated the establishment clause.
"The Christian nationalists behind these laws believe they have allies among the ultra-conservative members of the Supreme Court," Laser said. "But the Supreme Court has always recognized that public school children are a captive, impressionable audience that must be protected from religious coercion.
"America's highest court would be thumbing its nose at our founders' intentional promise of religious freedom, not to mention longstanding legal precedent, if it allowed these displays to go forward."
Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), told Newsweek that his large civil rights organization "focuses on one thing and one thing only, and that is separation of church and state."
MRFF has clients across all U.S. national security agencies, with roughly 95 percent of them being Christian. They have sued different agencies, such as the Air Force Academy and the Department of Veterans Affairs, for purported civil rights violations.
He questioned which version of the Ten Commandments lawmakers and other officials in authority even want to display in public buildings.
"The point is that the 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court will decide what they want and then try to rationalize it," Weinstein said. "So, it's useless to look at any of the prior cases. I fully expect the Supreme Court will allow this in Arkansas, Louisiana, wherever the hell else it's going to be, red states.
"I'm old enough to remember—I was born and raised in Albuquerque, but I'm a military brat—being forced to be in a Christmas play as a little Jewish kid in a public school. ... Christian nationalism is this weaponized version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that is antithetical in every way to what our Constitution is about.
"Our constitutional framers looked at Europe, where most of the bloodshed had happened, there had been when men of the cloth, men in political power—they looked at the Salem Witch Trials, they said, 'We are not going to do that here, so they carved this chasm, this canyon between spiritual and temporal in our basic foundational document.
It is "not a small thing" to put the Ten Commandments up in the classroom, he added, wondering why Christianity is paramount in these displays rather than, say, erecting the Code of Hammurabi.
Freedom 'For and From' Religion
Patrick Elliott, legal director of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, told Newsweek that he's concerned about broader laws nationally considering the number of states that have attempted, unsuccessfully thus far, to mirror laws in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas.
He also acknowledged that such a movement could occur a long time from now, as the Court currently has no such case in front of it.
"We would oppose, at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, any religion being given favoritism and being posted on the walls of public buildings," Elliott said. "I don't think it's just because it's the Ten Commandments, this biblical scripture that they want.
"But I think that it's a way for people who are of the Christian faith to, one, put their territory marking on our public institutions; and two, to coerce other people and to try to influence other people to adopt their beliefs. And that's wrong. That violates the First Amendment."
Kevin Bolling, executive director of the Secular Student Alliance, told Newsweek that the contents of Project 2025 outlined for all to see efforts to invoke Christian themes and beliefs in areas of public discourse, including public schools.
"This has been a goal of theirs for a long time," Bolling said. "The founding principles of our nation was the separation of church and state, that's a hallmark that we have cherished for a long time and there has been a coordinated effort and a long-going effort by especially conservative Christian forces and organizations to undo that."
It's not necessarily about Christianity, or any other religion for that matter, but anything being pushed on Americans that is not legally viable, he added.
"Our concern is that the government is not supposed to endorse religion nor support any particular religion, and in this case they are trying to use the government specifically to support one version of one religion over all the others. That is a violation of a basic principle of the founding of our country, and the separation of church and state.
"We support people's right to to practice their religion. We often advocate that people deserve that. But the freedom of religion and the freedom from religion are intricately linked in our society, and they depend on each other and they're important. We don't want anyone's version of a particular religion involved in the public square."
What People Are Saying
Texas Governor Greg Abbott in a new statement: "I will always defend the historical connection between the Ten Commandments and their influence on the history of Texas."
Texas Republican Representative Brent Money in May: "We should be encouraging our students to read and study their Bible every day. Our kids in our public schools need prayer, need Bible reading, more now than they ever have."
Republican Representative Candy Noble, a co-sponsor of the bill, said when the statewide bill passed the Texas House: "The focus of this bill is to look at what is historically important to our nation educationally and judicially,"
Heather L. Weaver, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, after the Louisiana law was blocked in June: "This is a resounding victory for the separation of church and state and public education. With today's ruling, the Fifth Circuit has held Louisiana accountable to a core constitutional promise: Public schools are not Sunday schools, and they must welcome all students, regardless of faith."
What Happens Next
There is no current case revolving around the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools currently on the Supreme Court docket. Challenges in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas could result in efforts to bring the issue to the nation's highest court.