Court Upholds School’s Ban on Commandments

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld decisions that gave Downey High School the right to ban the Ten Commandments from billboards in the school’s center field.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided, with no dissent, that the advertiser who wanted to post religious messages was not protected by the 1st Amendment.

The court said the baseball field was open only for a limited public purpose, education, and held that the Ten Commandments would not advance that purpose. In part, the court said, the billboard would hurt the school by inviting lawsuits charging that the Downey Unified School District was trying to establish a particular religion.

The 9th Circuit panel also agreed that the school district, as a matter of policy, avoided all controversial topics, and therefore could not be sued for singling out Christian ads.

The case started in 1995, when Downey High solicited ads to pay for uniforms. Edward DiLoreto, a local engineering firm executive, paid $400 to make a sign that repeated the biblical Ten Commandments and invited readers to “meditate on these principles to live by.”

The school refused to display DiLoreto’s sign. Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren advised that the posting would be legal, and the school district responded by removing all ads from the baseball field in 1996.

DiLoreto went to court, with help from the conservative Individual Rights Foundation.

They accused the school district of a violation of free speech and religious rights. The Los Angeles Superior Court, a state appeals court and a federal trial court ruled against DiLoreto.

State appellate Justice Michael Nott said DiLoreto’s sign would have invited expensive lawsuits, changing a “money-raising effort into a potential money-draining effort.”