law this week makes, Louisiana the only state to require that the 10 commandments be displayed in every classroom displayed in schools and in colleges to break down what the bill actually does and what it really means I do want to bring in an expert here. Grant Shaw stack is a visiting assistant professor in the department of Law crime and social justice. at Webster University joining us now to discuss Thank you so much as always for taking the time to be here with us today. Hey Josh, happy to be here. All right, so first off, can you explain what this bill actually does and also what it doesn't do. right, So the the bill simply requires. that the Ten Commandments be displayed. in. public school classrooms. Uh from all the way from grade school all the way to the university level. Does it really require? anything more Other than that they be displayed. and Louisiana is the only state to acquire This is it likely that other states? maybe see this and realize huh? I'm going to do the same. right I'm confident that other states are watching. to see how this develops. uh, simply because they can use that. to model. similar statutes in their states, right? So confident that other states are watching this. 1 thing that's interesting is 1 of the states previous teacher of the Year Winners has said that he is not going to post the Ten Commandments in his classroom. He's been very outspoken about this over the past several days. What are the possible? Let's say ramifications for him. Could he be fired? find jailed Is that even clear at this point? So no, it's really not clear at this point because when you read the statute it only discusses. displaying the Ten Commandments It doesn't discuss. ramifications if they're not displayed or if the law is not followed so that really remains to be uh played out. uh as as this, uh statute, uh, you know rolls out. What's interesting though is it's possible that a person who doesn't comply with this. statute. may have their own claim of religious protection as well. So I'm very interested to see how this uh, how this develops I imagine this is going to face some legal. challenges are there. legal precedents that exist? right, so our Supreme Court has at least 2 times. struck down similar actions uh previously, so the the most similar case is a case stone versus Graham decided in 19. and that dealt with a Kentucky statute that required the Ten Commandments to to be displayed in public school classrooms. and the court in that case. struck the statute down. saying it violated the First Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. and given that the Supreme Court did strike down a very similar. law. Why are we talking about this law now? right, so what's uh what is very interesting about this the stone case? in determining the, Kentucky statute was unconstitutional? relied upon a test called The Lemon tests and that comes from a case of Lemon versus kurtzman. and recently our Supreme Court in 2022. abandoned that test. and they abandoned that test in a case called Kennedy versus Bremerton School District. in that case upheld the right of a public high school football coach. to pray with students. and others after football games. And so the court the Supreme Court in in Kennedy versus Breton abandoned this lemon test. and instead indicated we are now supposed to look at the Historical. practices. in understanding. understanding of the founding fathers. in examining these kinds of of statutes and laws. and we are taking a live look at the Supreme Court building right now Is it likely this case has the makings of going all the way back up the court system? to the Supreme Court. once again. right, so I do think this is 1 of those cases. that um, has a has a very good chance of making it to the Supreme Court. particularly because we would be the court would be looking at this under. uh under new standard. right? Uh, because it has abandoned that Lemon versus kurtzman test. and it will have an opportunity to examine the statute under a new test. and my last question here test and my last question here from a legal perspective. what happens next with this new law? so I would expect. there are a number. of groups that have indicated they will. post legal challenges so they will file lawsuits. challenging this statute. They will be handled in the trial court. uh then onto to the appellate courts and possibly onto our United States Supreme Court. All right grant shot stack. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us as always and help break down a law like this 1 is there anything else that you want to add Before? I Let You Go. Well, I I appreciate being here Josh. So yes this case is 1 certainly. we're watching but uh as you know. the Supreme Court has a number of uh, very important cases, I think we're all falling and waiting waiting to see uh decisions on those in the very near future. Oh for sure. Uh, we'll be keeping an eye as we know that the next ones are coming out here in about 23 minutes. Thank you. Grant. We
