“Framed posters of the Ten Commandments began to adorn classroom walls and hallways across the University of Arkansas this week as campus leaders work to comply with a new state law,” reports The College Fix:
The law, passed earlier this year, requires that copies of the Ten Commandments be displayed in public schools…Reaction among students was mixed…Some don’t think the displays are appropriate…Others said the laws are a good reminder of how best to live.
Students have also responded to the posters by taping printed statements of faith from other religions around the Ten Commandment posters. Some of these include the Five Pillars of Islam, Monastic Vows, the Five Constant Virtues, and Yamas and Niyamas.
John Thomas, a university spokesman, said the framed posters were donated, and their installation in buildings and classrooms is required under Act 573 of 2025…Act 573 stipulates that the “copies or posters authorized under this section shall either be donated or purchased solely with funds made available through voluntary contributions to the local school boards, local building governing entity, or the Building Authority Division.”
The university is currently working to hang the remainder of the donated posters.
In May, the university’s faculty senate approved a resolution opposing the law, arguing it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
A lawsuit against the law filed by the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State is winding its way through the courts.
If a K-12 school displays the Ten Commandments, that will often violate the Supreme Court’s decision in Stone v. Graham (1980), which ruled that a Kentucky law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms was unconstitutional, finding it had no secular purpose.
