By james art BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The 2020 Louisiana Teacher of the Year has filed a lawsuit against the state challenging a new law that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom by Jan. 1.
This is the second lawsuit filed against the law, which went into effect in June. The first lawsuit was filed in Baton Rouge soon after the law was passed. The judge in that case said he would try to rule on a motion to block the law by Nov. 15.
The second suit attracted less attention. It was filed in New Orleans on Sept. 23 by Christopher Dyer, a history teacher at Ben Franklin High School in New Orleans. Dyer told The Associated Press in an interview last summer that he had no intention of displaying the Ten Commandments in his classroom.
U.S. District Judge Greg Guidry was scheduled to meet with attorneys in the case by phone Wednesday to work out a schedule, including a possible date for Dyer’s trial. Defendants in the lawsuit include Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who signed the bill, Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill, Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley and members of the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Dyer’s lawsuit says the law, contained in his legislative bill number HB71, targets children with a religious message and “forces” teachers to display it in violation of the First Amendment’s language prohibiting government establishment of religion and guaranteeing religious freedom . Echoing other critics of the law, it said the version of the Ten Commandments required in the law was favored by Protestant denominations and that requiring it to be displayed could isolate non-Christian students.
“I don’t believe in doing something that’s unconstitutional and harmful to students,” Dyer told the AP in June.
State officials argue that HB71 is not just religious and that the Ten Commandments have historical significance in the foundation of US law. They have filed a motion to dismiss Dier’s case.
A big part of their argument is that Dier has not yet suffered any harm that he can sue for.
“He only challenges some unspecified future HB 71 display that suggests it may infringe his rights at some unspecified future time. But he doesn’t know—and the defendants don’t—how his (or any) school will select its HB 71 displays, what size they will be, where they will be located, what context will be included, etc. ,” the motion to dismiss said.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge John DeGravels in Baton Rouge is considering claims made Monday in an earlier lawsuit filed by several parents of Louisiana children. The proposals include one to block enforcement of the law.
The law would apply to all K-12 public schools and state-funded university classrooms. It requires that the Ten Commandments be displayed on a poster or framed document measuring at least 11 inches by 14 inches (28 by 36 centimeters), where the text is the central focus and “printed in large, easily readable type.” Each poster should be accompanied by a four-paragraph contextual statement.
Sarah Klein and Kevin McGill, Associated Press