Arkansas Advocate: Federal judge blocks Arkansas’ Ten Commandments law

By ANTOINETTE GRAJEDA | Arkansas Advocate

A federal judge on Monday permanently blocked six Arkansas school districts from enforcing a state law requiring displays of the Ten Commandments in every classroom, declaring the 2025 measure unconstitutional.  

Seven families of various religious and nonreligious backgrounds filed the original lawsuit last June against the Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville and Siloam Springs school districts. They argued that Act 573 of 2025, which requires public schools to “prominently” display a “historical representation” of the Ten Commandments in classrooms and libraries, was unconstitutional because it violated their First Amendment rights.

The Conway and Lakeside school districts were later added as defendants in the case, and U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks previously granted preliminary injunctions in all six districts. 

The plain text of the law does not suggest other documents be posted along the Ten Commandments for educational reasons, Brooks wrote in Monday’s 26-page order. That’s because the lawmakers intended the posters to hang in every classroom without regard to the class’ subject matter, students’ ages or other material consideration, he said. 

“Nothing could possibly justify hanging the Ten Commandments—with or without historical context—in a calculus, chemistry, French, or woodworking class, to name a few,” wrote Brooks, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama. “And the words ‘curriculum,’ ‘school board,’ ‘teacher,’ or ‘educate’ don’t appear anywhere in Act 573. Accordingly, there is no need to strain our minds to imagine a constitutional display mandated by Act 573. One doesn’t exist.”

The parents challenging the Ten Commandments requirement were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation, as well as attorneys with the Simpson Thacher & Bartlett law firm.

“Today’s decision ensures that our clients’ classrooms will remain spaces where all students, regardless of their faith, feel welcomed and can learn without worrying that they do not live up to the state’s preferred religious beliefs,” said Heather Weaver, senior counsel for the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

The Arkansas attorney general is reviewing the opinion and will appeal, spokesperson Jeff LeMaster said. 

Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed the Ten Commandments legislation into law last year. Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin was not an original defendant in the lawsuit, and later intervened in the case to represent the state. 

“In Arkansas, we do in fact believe that murder is wrong and stealing is bad,” Sanders said in a statement. “It is entirely appropriate to display the Ten Commandments – the basis of all Western law and morality – as a reminder to students, state employees, and every Arkansan who enters a government building, and I look forward to appealing this suit and defending our state’s values.”

The law’s supporters contend the Ten Commandments have historical significance because they influenced the nation’s founders and the country’s legal system.

Steven Green, the director of Willamette University’s Center for Religion, Law and Democracy who served as an expert witness at a July hearing, said that, according to his research, the Ten Commandments were not foundational to the country’s founding documents or legal traditions. They contain values and principles about right and wrong that can be found in other societies and are not unique to the Ten Commandments, he said.

The state has argued that the Ten Commandments posters are similar to a monument of the Decalogue on government grounds — they’re passive because students aren’t required to read them. Brooks dismissed the argument in Monday’s order noting that students can’t avoid reading the displays throughout 13 years of compulsory schooling. 

The state argued that even if the law is coercive, “it’s only a little coercive” because students won’t be required to publicly affirm or reject the Ten Commandments or be tested on them, Brooks said.

“The State offers no law to support the argument that a little coercive religious indoctrination is fine,” he wrote.

Attorneys for the state asked during oral arguments last July that if Brooks granted an injunction, that he narrowly tailor it to the students named as plaintiffs in the case. Brooks said Monday that an injunction limited to plaintiffs’ classrooms would be too narrow to address their experiences. 

“The Court rejects the State’s invitation to create ‘Ten Commandment-free bubbles’ around each child-Plaintiff; that would entail removing and re-hanging posters each time a child-Plaintiff entered or exited a classroom,” Brooks wrote. “A narrow injunction would put the child-Plaintiffs at risk of repeated ‘accidental’ encounters with the Act’s scriptural displays, which is unacceptable.”

It’s unclear how many school districts around Arkansas have put up the displays, since the law requires that the posters either be donated or paid for with contributions. Multiple school districts last year told the Advocate they had not received donations.

The law also applies to public institutions of higher education, including the University of Arkansas where the installation of donated Ten Commandments posters on the Fayetteville campus prompted at least one donor to withdraw his scholarships.

Similar Ten Commandments laws have been challenged in other states, including in Texas and Louisiana, where the laws were blocked and those rulings were appealed. 

The U.S. 5th Circuit of Appeals heard arguments in the Texas case in January and vacated a court order in February that blocked Louisiana’s law from taking effect.

The decision on Louisiana’s law was made by the full 5th Circuit. Arkansas’ case would go to the 8th Circuit of Appeals.