BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – Even as a legal battle rages over a new Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms, the details of how the mandate will be implemented and enforced remain unclear.
Across the country, conservative movements are moving to incorporate religion into classrooms. Consider, for example, legislation in Florida that allows school districts to use volunteer chaplains to guide students. Oklahoma’s top education official also ordered public schools to include the Bible in lessons.
In Louisiana, the logistics of the new law are still unclear.
Unless a court halts the legislation, schools have just over five months before they’re required to have a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in all K-12 public schools and state-funded college classrooms. But it’s unclear whether the new law will enforce the requirement and punish those who refuse to comply.
Supporters of the law say donations will pay for the thousands of posters needed, while critics argue the law is an unfunded mandate that could burden schools. And teachers at some schools have said they are unlikely to put up the posters, including in the blue city of New Orleans, where residents and officials have a history of opposing conservative policies.
Financing the required: Louisiana has more than 1,300 public schools. Louisiana State University has nearly 1,000 classrooms on its main campus in Baton Rouge alone, and seven other campuses across the state. That means thousands of posters will be needed to comply with the new law.
The Louisiana Department of Education is required by the new law to identify and post on its website sources that can provide the posters for free.
Lawmakers who supported the bill said during debate in May that the posters or funds to print them would likely be donated to schools in the deep Bible Belt state. National praise for the law from conservative groups and figures, including, most recently, former President Donald Trump, could result in outside financial support for the mandate.
Louisiana Family Forum, a Christian conservative organization, has already created a page on its website for donations that “will be used specifically to produce and distribute ’10 Commandments’ displays to educational institutions in Louisiana.”
But the question of what happens if a school doesn’t receive enough donations has lingered for months with little clarity.
“So schools have the opportunity to raise money or they (the posters) can be donated. But what if you can’t raise the money or find a donor?” asked Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat who voted against the bill, during debate on the legislation last month.
“I don’t know what happens next,” replied Senator Adam Bass, a Republican who co-authored the bill.
The Associated Press reached out to multiple co-authors of the bill, including Bass and the offices of Attorney General Liz Murrill, Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley and the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, but did not receive a response to questions about financing.
Legislators who supported the bill were adamant during the debate that the law clearly states that donations would be used to purchase the posters. Others suggest that the language of the law still allows for the purchase of displays using public funds.
“Louisiana law does not appear to prohibit the use of public funds to pay for Ten Commandments exhibits. Such use of taxpayer dollars would only worsen this blatant violation of the Constitution,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which opposes the law.
The law says it “shall not require” the governing body of a public school to spend its funds on purchasing monitors. Instead, “to finance the displays at no cost, the school’s government agency” will either accept donated funds to purchase the displays or accept donated displays.
Even with enough donations, opponents say the state is still spending money and resources to defend a lawsuit over a requirement they say is unconstitutional.
But advocates say they are prepared to fight this battle.
Enforcement of the new law: Louisiana’s 2020 Teacher of the Year Chris Dier said he has no plans to post the Ten Commandments in his classroom.
“I don’t believe in anything that is unconstitutional and harmful to students,” said Dier, who teaches at a high school in New Orleans.
It’s unclear whether failure to comply will result in a penalty, as the language in the law does not specify any repercussions. While the law specifies that Louisiana’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will adopt “rules and regulations” to ensure the “proper execution” of the mandate, enforcement could fall to parish school boards or local school districts.
A similar law passed last year requires “In God We Trust” to be displayed in classrooms. Enforcement and penalties for failure to comply with that law are determined by local education authorities, said Kevin Calbert, a spokesman for the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The AP emailed 55 members of parish school boards across the state, including rural and urban parishes in Republican-leaning and Democratic-leaning areas, to ask whether they support the law and how they plan to enforce it. Two responded, saying they support the mandate.
Carlos Luis Zervigon, vice president of the Orleans Parish School Board, had a different view, describing it as “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“I haven’t heard any conversations or interest in considering enforcing this,” the former history teacher said. “My instinct would be to do nothing unless I’m forced to.”
With schools closed and many school boards meeting less frequently during the summer, Zervigon said his board has not yet discussed the requirement. However, if he is tasked with figuring out the mandate’s implementation and enforcement, he will likely take a “wait and see” approach until the court rules.
“I could see myself drafting a resolution that might say something along the lines of, ‘We will not enforce this until we get legal clarity on whether this is constitutional or not,’” he said.
However, if New Orleans takes the lead, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry “could take retaliatory action,” Zervagon said.
Landry, a Republican, previously tried to punish New Orleans after city leaders resisted enforcing Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban.
