The First Amendment guarantees that students and their families — not politicians or the government — get to decide which religious beliefs, if any, they adopt and what role those beliefs will play in their lives.
But Senate Bill 51 would require the Ten Commandments to be prominently posted in all public school classrooms and taught as a historical legal document – blatantly violating the constitutional protections of religious liberty.
The ACLU of South Dakota opposes Senate Bill 51. It’s an unnecessary, unconstitutional bill that, if passed, would likely mean costly litigation for South Dakota schools.
Students already have the right to engage in religious exercise and expression at school under current law. Students may, for example, voluntarily pray, read religious literature or engage in other religious activities during recess or lunch. The ACLU has long worked to protect the religious exercise and religious expression rights of students of all faiths in public schools.
But there’s a stark difference between voluntary, student-initiated religious exercise and school-sponsored promotion of religion. Court precedent confirms this.
The U.S. Supreme Court said in Stone v. Graham 45 years ago that “if the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.” A federal district court recently enjoined a similar Louisiana law, holding that it violates both the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“America is not a theocracy and South Dakota’s public schools shouldn’t be used to religiously indoctrinate or convert students. This bill is unconstitutional and an affront to the American ideals of religious liberty,” said Samantha Chapman, ACLU of South Dakota advocacy manager. “Senate Bill 51, if passed, will cause students who don’t follow the state’s approved religious dictates to feel ostracized from their school community, and it will undermine their ability to learn and the state’s legal obligation to provide an equal education to all students, regardless of their faith.”
Senate Bill 51 is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Education Committee tomorrow morning.
About the ACLU of South Dakota
The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of civil liberties and civil rights. The ACLU of South Dakota is part of a three-state chapter that also includes North Dakota and Wyoming. The team in South Dakota is supported by staff in those states.
The ACLU believes freedoms of press, speech, assembly, and religion, and the rights to due process, equal protection and privacy, are fundamental to a free people. In addition, the ACLU seeks to advance constitutional protections for groups traditionally denied their rights, including people of color, women, and the LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit communities. The ACLU of South Dakota carries out its work through selective litigation, lobbying at the state and local level, and through public education and awareness of what the Bill of Rights means for the people of South Dakota.
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