Litigation Update: Ten Commandments in Public Schools

This week, the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a Texas law requiring public schools to display a copy of the Ten Commandments in classrooms does not violate the First Amendment's Establishment or Free Exercise Clauses. The court explained that Stone v. Graham, which relied upon the now-defunct Lemon test to invalidate a similar Kentucky law decades ago, is no longer controlling. In the place of Lemon and its progeny, the en banc court explained, courts must ask whether a challenged law resembles a founding-era religious establishment. The court also held the challengers here failed to show the law substantially burdened their free exercise. Join us for a litigation update breaking down this ruling and what it may hold for Establishment and Free Exercise cases in the future.  

• Prof. Stephanie Barclay, Professor of Law and Faculty Director for the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, Georgetown University Law Center
• Prof. Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law
• (Moderator) Joe Davis, Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty