LITTLE ROCK — Less than 24 hours after the Conway School District was added to a federal lawsuit challenging Arkansas’s unconstitutional law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments, a federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring the district to take down all Ten Commandments displays from its classrooms and libraries by 5 p.m. on Friday, August 29.
The TRO follows the court’s order yesterday permitting the plaintiffs to add Conway families and the Conway School District to the suit. In yesterday’s order, Judge Brooks explained: “The Court ruled that Act 573, if put into effect, was likely to violate the First Amendment rights of all Arkansas public-school parents and their children — not just those attending public school in Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville, and Siloam Springs. . . . The Court assumed that the State would advise the other 233 school districts of the Court’s ruling and caution them to refrain from displaying the Ten Commandments posters they received until a dispositive ruling was entered or these matters were resolved. Clearly, that did not happen.”
In issuing the TRO, the court pointed to its August 4 ruling in Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1 that Act 573 is “obviously unconstitutional.” On August 5, the plaintiffs’ attorneys sent letters to every school superintendent in Arkansas, notifying them of the federal court’s ruling and warning districts not to implement Act 573.
Despite the Court’s ruling and the letter from the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Conway School District hung Act 573 displays in all classrooms before the first day of school on August 18, prompting swift legal action from families represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP.
“Conway School District had every opportunity to do the right thing and respect families’ constitutional rights, but instead chose to defy a clear federal court ruling,” said John Williams, legal director of the ACLU of Arkansas. “The court has now made it crystal clear: forcing the Ten Commandments into public school classrooms is unconstitutional. We stand ready to defend the rights of every Arkansan against this kind of government overreach.”
“Today’s order ensures that our clients, and all Conway students, will no longer be forced to submit to government-imposed scriptural displays as a condition of attending public school,” said Heather L. Weaver, senior counsel for the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “Public schools are not Sunday schools, and they must comply with the First Amendment.”
“The court’s decision makes clear that public schools must uphold — not undermine — the constitutional protections afforded to every student,” said Jon Youngwood, Global Co-Chair of the Litigation Department at Simpson Thacher. “By enjoining the Conway School District from displaying the Ten Commandments, the ruling reinforces a fundamental truth: the First Amendment safeguards the rights of individuals to choose whether and how they engage with religion, and that protection extends to every classroom.”
A copy of the order can be found online here.