Defending the religious freedom rights of Arkansans
Summary
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law Act 573, a bill that requires all public elementary and secondary schools to “prominently” display the Ten Commandments in every classroom and library. This law violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional.
On June 11, 2025, AU and allies filed suit in federal court on behalf of a group of seven multifaith and nonreligious Arkansas families with children in public schools. In their complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, the plaintiff parents and children, who are Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, or nonreligious, assert that Act 573 violates longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent and the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The Constitution promises that families – not politicians or public school officials – get to decide how and when children engage with religion.
AU is fighting back.
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What is happening in Arkansas is Christian Nationalism
More than 40 years ago, in Stone v. Graham, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the separation of church and state bars public schools from posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Yet Arkansas Act 573 of 2025 requires these displays. The law calls for the scriptural displays to be a minimum of 16 x 20 inches in size and hung in a “conspicuous place” in each classroom and library. The text of the Ten Commandments must be printed “in a size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the room.” The law also mandates that a specific version of the Ten Commandments, associated with Protestant faiths and selected by lawmakers, be used for every display.
“This law is part of the nationwide Christian Nationalist scheme to win favor for one set of religious views over all others and nonreligion – in a country that promises religious freedom,” said AU President and CEO Rachel Laser. “Not on our watch. We’re proud to defend the religious freedom of Arkansas schoolchildren and their families.”
On Aug. 4, 2025, a federal judge made a similar point when he ruled that the law is “plainly unconstitutional” and blocked our plaintiffs’ school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments: “Why would Arkansas pass an obviously unconstitutional law?,” asked U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Brooks in his opinion, “Most likely because the State is part of a coordinated strategy among several states to inject Christian religious doctrine into public-school classrooms.”
Laws requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments violates students’ religious freedom
Arkansas’ Act 573 is unconstitutional because it will pressure students to observe and venerate the state’s favored religious scripture every minute of every school day – or risk being treated as outcasts.
“As American Jews, my husband and I deeply value the ability to raise our children in our faith, without interference from the government,” said plaintiff Samantha Stinson. “By imposing a Christian-centric translation of the Ten Commandments on our children for nearly every hour of every day of their public-school education, this law will infringe on our rights as parents and create an unwelcoming and religiously coercive school environment for our children.”
Plaintiff Carol Vella agreed: “My children are among a small number of Jewish students at their school. The classroom displays required by Act 573 will make them feel like they don’t belong simply because they don’t follow the government’s favored religion. The displays will also violate core Jewish tenets, which emphasize tolerance and inclusion and prohibit evangelizing others.”
White Christian Nationalism is an existential threat
White Christian Nationalism is the dangerous belief that America is – and must remain – a Christian nation founded for its white Christian inhabitants and that our laws and policies must reflect this. Christian Nationalists deny the separation of church and state promised by our Constitution, and they oppose equality for people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and the nonreligious.
In Arkansas and all across the country, Christian Nationalists are seeking to infiltrate our public schools and force everyone to live by their beliefs.
Public schools are not Sunday schools
Secular, inclusive public schools that welcome all students regardless of their belief system are the backbone of our diverse and religiously pluralistic communities.
The separation of church and state ensures that all people – whether they are religious or not – are treated the same. It also guarantees that everyone has equal access to public schools and government services – full civil rights regardless of who they are or what they believe.
Americans United is dedicated to safeguarding the separation of church and state in Arkansas and across the country.
Case Materials
Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1
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ISSUES
Arkansas public schools enroll upwards of 470,000 students. These students and their families adhere to an array of faiths, and many do not practice any religion at all. Yet a newly enacted Arkansas law, Act 573, seeks to impose one religious perspective on all Arkansas schoolchildren by requiring Arkansas public schools to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Under Act 573, public-school students will be forcibly subjected to scriptural dictates, day in and day out. Children of all faiths will be told through these displays “I am the Lord thy God” and “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”—leaving many of them excluded and uncomfortable in their own classrooms.
On June 11, 2025, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Arkansas Civil Liberties Union, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and Simpson Thacher Bartlett LLP filed a lawsuit in the Western District of Arkansas on behalf of a multifaith group of seven families with children in Arkansas public schools. The plaintiffs, who are Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, and non-religious, assert that Act 573 is a violation of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.
Our suit argues that, through Act 573, Arkansas is adopting an official religious text and taking an official position on religious issues in clear violation of the Establishment Clause’s guarantee of separation of church and state. Act 573 coerces children to view, venerate, and obey commandments that are against their beliefs and interferes with parents’ ability to direct their children’s religious upbringing. The law therefore also violates the Free Exercise Clause, which protects the right to hold and exercise religious beliefs of one’s choice, including no religious beliefs.
Plaintiffs ask for a judgment from the court that the law is unconstitutional and an order that prohibits implementation of the law and the posting of the Commandments.
On August 4, 2025, in a victory for religious freedom and church-state separation, the district court issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the school district defendants from implementing Act 573. The court called Act 573 “plainly unconstitutional” and called it “part of a coordinated strategy among several states to inject Christian religious doctrine into public-school classrooms.”
Despite the district court’s August 4 ruling, some Arkansas school districts—that were not initially defendants in our lawsuit—have moved forward with displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms. So we’ve added two new school districts to our lawsuit, one on August 22, 2025, and one on October 14, 2025. Both times, the district court quickly issued orders requiring that the additional school districts remove the displays.
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Plaintiffs
Reverend Darcy Roake & Adrian Van Young
“As an interfaith family, we strongly value religious inclusion and diversity, and we teach our children that all people are equal and have inherent dignity and worth. The Ten Commandments displays required by this law fly in the face of these values and send a message of religious intolerance. They will not only undermine our ability to instill these values in our children, but they will also help create an unwelcoming and oppressive school environment for children, like ours, who don’t believe in the state’s official version of scripture. We believe that no child should feel excluded in public school because of their family’s faith tradition.”
Reverend Jeff Sims
“By favoring one version of the Ten Commandments and mandating that it be posted in public schools, the government is intruding on deeply personal matters of religion. I believe that it’s critical for my children to receive and understand scripture within the context of our faith, which honors God’s gift of diversity and teaches that all people are equal. This law sends a contrary message of religious intolerance that one denomination or faith system is officially preferable to others, and that those who don’t adhere to it are lesser in worth and status. As a pastor and father, I cannot, in good conscience, sit by silently while our political representatives usurp God’s authority for themselves and trample our fundamental religious-freedom rights.”
Jennifer Harding and Benjamin Owens
“As a nonreligious family, we oppose the government forcibly subjecting our child to a religious scripture that we don’t believe in. The State of Louisiana should not direct a religious upbringing of our child and require students to observe the state’s preferred religious doctrine in every classroom.”
Erin Hawley and David Hawley
“We instill moral and ethical values in our children through positive concepts, such as love and caring for others, not biblical commandments. As Unitarian Universalists, we strongly believe that every person has the right to undertake a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. That cannot happen when the government forces scripture on people, especially children—who are at the beginning of their spiritual journeys.”
Joshua Herlands
“As a parent, an American, and a Jew, I am appalled that state lawmakers are forcing public schools to post a specific version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. These displays distort the Jewish significance of the Ten Commandments and send the troubling message to students that one set of religious laws is favored over all others. Tolerance is at the heart of our family’s practice of Judaism, and this effort to evangelize students, including my children, is antithetical to our core religious beliefs and our values as Americans.”
Press
AU & allies sue over Arkansas law mandating Ten Commandments in public schools
June 11, 2025 –
A multifaith group of seven Arkansas families with children in public schools filed suit in federal court today to block a new state law requiring all public elementary and secondary schools to “prominently” display the Ten Commandments in every classroom and library. The plaintiffs in Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1 are represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with Simpson Thacher Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel.
Arkansas Act 573 of 2025 requires the scriptural displays to be a minimum of 16 x 20 inches in size and hung in a “conspicuous place” in each classroom and library. The text of the Ten Commandments must be printed “in a size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the room.” The law also mandates that a specific version of the Ten Commandments, associated with Protestant faiths and selected by lawmakers, be used for every display.
Court blocks Arkansas Ten Commandments law requiring displays in public schools
August 4, 2025 –
In a victory for religious freedom and church-state separation, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction today in Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1, prohibiting the school district defendants from implementing an Arkansas law that requires all public schools to permanently display a government-chosen, Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom and library.
In his decision, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Brooks held that Arkansas Act 573, which is due to take effect on Aug. 5, “is plainly unconstitutional” under both the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.
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