Dallas — When it became clear to high school theater teacher Gigi Cervantes that she couldn’t ignore A New state law She asked for the Ten Commandments to be posted in her classroom in Texas, feeling she had no other choice. She quit the job she loved.
“I was not going to be a part of imposing or enforcing a religious doctrine on my students,” she said.
Texas is making the nation’s largest attempt to hang Ten Commandments In public schools, and in the rush to move around Republican-led mandate After it came into effect in September, the rollout forced some regions to face difficult choices.
Federal courts I ordered More than two dozen of the state’s roughly 1,200 school districts were not to put up the posters, including on Tuesday when a judge ruled that the mandate violated First Amendment language that guarantees religious freedom and prohibits government establishment of religion. Courts have also ruled against similar laws in Arkansas and LouisianaThe case is expected to reach the US Supreme Court.
But several Texas classrooms have gone a long way in implementing a law that has revitalized school board meetings, established guidelines on what to say when students ask questions, and led to boxes of donated stickers being dropped on campus doorsteps statewide. Some districts didn’t wait: In suburban Dallas, school officials in Frisco spent about $1,800 to print nearly 5,000 posters, even though the law only requires schools to post the Ten Commandments if the displays are donated. Some schools do not have posters to put up.
“I don’t preach,” said eighth-grade American history teacher Dustin Parsons, who hangs a Ten Commandments poster in his classroom in the small city of Whitesboro. He said the show helps him show the influence of Christianity on the country’s founding principles.
“I’m doing it more from the perspective of where history comes from in terms of how the Constitution was built,” he said.
The law states that schools must place donated posters “in a conspicuous place” and requires that the writing be in a size and typeface that can be seen from anywhere in the classroom to a person with “average vision.” Displays must also be 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall (40 cm wide and 50 cm long).
South of Austin, the Hays Independent School District posted copies of the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights — which includes the First Amendment — along with the state-required Ten Commandments.
“Districts are between a rock and a hard place,” said Elizabeth Peyton, a Galveston Independent School District board member.
The Galveston school board voted not to publish the wills until the constitutionality of the law was decided in the courts, but then found themselves Target of a state lawsuit. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton this week announced lawsuits against two more districts that he said were violating the law, even though one of them, Leander Independent School District, said it was displaying donated posters.
The Texas law was easily passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature and Republicans, including President Donald Trump. They supported the publication of the Ten Commandments In the classroom.
In suburban Dallas, Lorne Lichty rallied his family to raise money for Ten Commandments posters to donate to the Rockwall Independent School District.
Liechty, an attorney and Rockwall County commissioner, sees the wills as essential to his Christian faith, the nation’s legal system and the functioning of society.
“These are just good clues to human behavior,” Liechty said. “For the life of me, I don’t know why people would object to any of these principles.”
Adriana Bonilla wants to see the stickers at her son’s kindergarten near San Antonio.
“It helps ground morals and teaches respect and responsibility,” Bonilla said.
Julie Leahy, director of legal services for the nonprofit Texas Classroom Teachers Association, says teachers are wondering about the consequences of refusing to display commandments and whether they can also display posters containing principles of other faiths.
Teachers are also asking for guidance on how to handle student questions, she said.
“In general, the answer would be that the teacher should return them to their families,” Leahy said.
While the Austin High School where Rachel Preston teaches has been prohibited by court order from displaying the Ten Commandments, she said she and her classmates are concerned nonetheless.
“We’re specifically concerned about students who don’t identify as Christian feeling at least as uncomfortable about having this in our classrooms, and also struggling with how do we contextualize this?” Preston said.
When the Ten Commandments were spread last month throughout 16-year-old Madison Creed High School in the small East Texas city of Carthage, she said it briefly became “the buzz of the school” as students debated whether religious faith belonged at that school.
“Everyone had an opinion about it,” Creed said. “I know talking to a lot of my peers and classmates that a lot of us don’t agree with it, but there’s the other part of the school that agrees.”
There were also reports that the high school band director resigned over the law. Johnny Cotton wrote on Facebook that he believes “strongly that politics and religion have no place in public schools.”
Creed, who plays in the band, said she understood and agreed with Cotton’s position, and admired his standing up for his beliefs, even though his resignation two weeks before the big competition was poorly timed.
Creed’s mother, Tiffany Meadows, said the publication of the wills did not bother her because she and her children are Christians, but she was concerned about students of other faiths.
“These are public schools, not Christian schools,” Meadows said.
Cervantes, who said she believes complying with the law violates her students’ First Amendment rights, concluded her career at the Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts this fall by leading her students through a production of Molière’s comedy “The Imaginary Invalid.” Her students presented her with an autographed photo, and many said they respected her point of view.
“I feel like we live in a time where people who are in a position to stand up for things are not standing up, they are not speaking out, and there is a climate of fear,” Cervantes said. “And I don’t want to be a part of that.”