Giles County School Board is making an unusual argument in its effort to maintain Ten Commandments postings in public high schools. The displays are being challenged by the ACLU and the FFRF, claiming they violate the separation of church and state by giving the appearance of a governmental endorsement of religion. Not so, Giles County lawyers countered in a motion to dismiss, because the displays were donated and physically installed by a private party, not a school official.
Today in a response filed with the court, plaintiffs pull no punches, using the Board's own recent procedural history to make their case.
The School Board claims that because the Ten Commandments display was privately donated and not erected by school personnel, the School Board has no responsibility for its presence on the walls of Narrows High School. This is absurd. At all times, the School Board has exercised control over the posting of the Ten Commandments, as the following facts demonstrate. The original Ten Commandments display was also privately donated, but the Superintendent used his authority to remove it from the walls of schools. On January 11, 2011, the School Board voted to put the displays back up, and the displays were put back up. On February 22, 2011, the School Board voted to take the displays down again, and the displays were taken down again. Finally, on June 7, 2011, the Board voted to authorize the posting of the Ten Commandments with various historical documents, and those documents were posted in Narrows High School. If the Board voted tomorrow to take those documents down, they would be taken down.
This basic cause-and-effect logic is borne out by the case law, which uniformly holds that, in the absence of a public forum, when a government entity permits a private person to erect a religious display on public property, the religious speech is attributable to the government. See Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum…
Students should be taught about the Ten Commandments in their homes, and in churches and synagogues, not in public school. School officials should not be using public school hallways – either directly or indirectly – to promote private religious beliefs.
