The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s appeal to the Iredell-Statesville School Board to abandon a compulsory districtwide Ten Commandments display proposal appears to have played a key role in the board voting down the idea yesterday.
A concerned district parent had informed FFRF that the School Board was considering a proposal to require all of its schools to exhibit the Ten Commandments as part of a “Founding Documents” presentation. The posters would have been placed in each school’s entrance foyer or library. Board member Brian Sloan, who initiated the proposal, believed that this was “within the letter of the law” because North Carolina passed legislation allowing the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools under certain circumstances.
The district would have infringed the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause with the Ten Commandments exhibit even if it was following North Carolina law, FFRF reminded the school board.
“It would be a flagrant violation of the Establishment Clause for the Board to require all of its schools to display the Ten Commandments,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line wrote in a letter to the school board via email. “The Supreme Court has ruled on Ten Commandments displays in public schools, finding that they violate the Establishment Clause.”
FFRF additionally informed the school board that along with several families, it filed federal lawsuits against two school districts in Pennsylvania for refusing to remove unconstitutional Ten Commandments displays. In both of these cases, the school districts were required to remove the displays and pay FFRF’s attorneys’ fees.
On Monday, Oct. 14, the Iredell-Statesville School Board voted against the display proposal, echoing FFRF’s reasoning — and, it seems, referencing the constitutional watchdog itself.
“Board member Doug Knight said that he had received emails from a national organization about challenging the legality of displaying Sloan’s Founding Documents poster in district schools,” reports a local media outlet.
And Board Vice Chair Charles Kelly seconded FFRF’s argument about the poster display being declared unconstitutional at the federal judicial level.
“That question has already been taken to the Supreme Court,” he said. “We have been told categorically you are fine with the state, but you will lose on the federal level. That’s money I don’t have.”
FFRF is glad to report that reason and our secular Constitution have prevailed in this matter.
“The First Commandment is reason enough to reject this scheme, since a public school board has no business dictating to other peoples’ children how many gods to worship, which gods to worship or whether to worship any gods at all,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We’re pleased that the school board officials are instead upholding the First Amendment.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members and several chapters across the country, including more than 900 members and a local chapter in North Carolina. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
