Federal judge stops enforcement of Arkansas Ten Commandments law

U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks ruled on Monday that a state law requiring public school classrooms to display a copy of the Ten Commandments may not be enforced in several school districts. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders enacted the law earlier this year, requiring all publicly funded classrooms to display a poster of the Ten Commandments of a minimum size of 16 inches by 20 inches. Posters of the Ten Commandments must be donated or purchased with donated funds, according to the law. The statute also required classrooms to hang a poster of America’s national motto, “In God We Trust” of a minimum size of 11 inches by 14 inches.

Brooks cited the Supreme Court’s ruling blocking a similar Ten Commandments law in the 1980 case Stone v. Graham. The SCOTUS precedent is still binding today and makes the Arkansas law plainly unconstitutional under the First Amendment, Brooks wrote. He rhetorically asked why lawmakers would pass a law he described as obviously unconstitutional. He went on to answer his own question by accusing Arkansas of being one of several states participating in a coordinated strategy to inject Christian doctrine into public classrooms. Brooks’ ruling will block enforcement of the statute in four school districts involved in the lawsuit brought by a coalition of families of various faiths. They include individual school districts in Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville, and Siloam Springs.

Does the ruling also apply to the “In God We Trust” included in the same law? Brooks’ injunction order only blocked the law’s requirement to display the Ten Commandments. The order gave no mention of the additional signage legally required under the law. States like Texas and Louisiana attempted to enact similar laws, citing the historic role of the Ten Commandments in America’s founding and culture.

Dig deeper: Read my report in June on a similar injunction stopping Louisiana’s Ten Commandment law from being enforced.