by Hannah Hiester
Political science professors at conservative and Christian colleges are split over the constitutionality of a new Louisiana law that requires all public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
The law already faces a legal challenge from several families as well as left-leaning and atheist activist groups while Christian and conservative Louisiana lawmakers applaud the law.
Yet not everyone on the right is in lockstep.
Political science professors at center-right colleges, many of whom specialize in teaching classes on the relationship between religion and politics, are divided on whether the new law passes muster with federal checks and balances established by the Founding Fathers as well as court precedent.
Kevin Burns, a professor of political science at Benedictine College, thinks it does.
“According to most originalists, the Establishment Clause simply prevents the government from establishing a state church; simply publicizing the Ten Commandments clearly does not meet that threshold,” Burns told The College Fix via email.
He added the current Supreme Court has several recently appointed originalist justices.
However, Mark Smith, director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University, said he would view the law as unconstitutional based on Supreme Court precedent. He specifically referred to a 1980 case in which the Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Kentucky.
“Classrooms are full of students, nearly all of whom are not adults. The displays are also in a setting that cannot be avoided. There is no opting out,” Professor Smith told The College Fix via email. “Based on how the Court has looked at similar cases, I suspect it will find this unconstitutional.”
“In Louisiana’s case, I think it is the state using its power to impose views on religious minorities in a public school setting,” Smith said.
“I have no issue with the government preferring religion broadly, but the Ten Commandments are particular to specific faiths, and the public school classroom is a place where religious minorities should be protected.”
Smith acknowledged he is sympathetic to the law’s aims, which states including the Ten Commandments “in the education of our children is part of our state and national history, culture, and tradition.”
“It is a close call for me,” he told The Fix. “It is a mild form of establishment, probably, but in a country that is large, diverse, and complex, posting them in every classroom would show at least a kind of favoritism for the Judeo-Christian view of the world.”
The law was signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on June 19 and mandates that each classroom in every publicly funded school—including colleges and universities—include a poster or framed document bearing the text of the Ten Commandments.
The legislation had previously passed by an overwhelming majority in the state’s Republican controlled House and Senate.
It has already been challenged by nine Louisiana families, along with the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Louisiana, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
The lawsuit, filed June 24, argues the law infringes on the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause as well as the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise.
Stephen Krason, professor emeritus of political science at Franciscan University of Steubenville, told The College Fix he doesn’t think precedent will influence the Supreme Court’s ruling should the lawsuit over Louisiana’s law make its way up through the courts.
“What we’ve seen the Supreme Court doing in recent years is they’ve been willing to overturn problematic precedent,” Krason said, naming the court’s recent striking of the 1984 Chevron case, among others, as examples.
He added that between the 1940s and 1960s, the American attitude toward religion and the separation of church and state shifted from “accommodationism” to “separationism.”
According to Krason, the latter view “went against the whole history of the country,” as the United States was “a Christian culture” that reflected religion in its laws and public practice while simultaneously accepting other religions.
“If this case goes to the Supreme Court, which I think it will eventually, they may be willing to move in the direction of beginning to eliminate some of these separationist precedents,” Krason said in a telephone interview.
Based on the accommodationist understanding of the separation of church and state, Krason said he would view the Louisiana Ten Commandments law as constitutional. He also said that the Ten Commandments are an embodiment of natural law, which is something that applies to all Americans regardless of their religion.
“As far as looking at the Ten Commandments themselves go, we’re really talking about natural law here,” he said. “We’re talking about law, moral principles which bind men if there’s going to be a tolerable situation in terms of the relations among men, in terms of decent communities. The natural law has to be upheld.”
Nevertheless, Smith told The Fix that whether or not the Ten Commandments have a rightful place in the classrooms of a nation with Christian roots, Louisiana’s new law “certainly makes it clear that the government prefers some religions over others.”
“I don’t think that helps religion and I don’t think that helps the government,” he said. “Take a good hard look at the history of nations that fused church and state. Christianity was culturally dominant and powerful for a time, but it grew to be perceived as a tool of the state. Christianity was twisted into a political entity. In those nations, Christianity is now dead, dying, or reduced to a cultural influence as opposed to a vibrant faith that animates the lives of citizens.
“I would rather have people freely choose their faith, internalize it, and then live it out,” he added. “A free country should allow Christianity to thrive on its own.”
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College Fix contributor Hannah Hiester is a senior at Benedictine College where she is pursuing degrees in journalism and Spanish. She also writes for CatholicVote and Benedictine’s student newspaper, The Circuit.
Photo “Jeff Landry” by Jeff Landry.
