Suit Seeks to Bar Religious Display in School Office

A leading civil rights group filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday to block a rural school district from posting the Ten Commandments in its offices--but the issue could become moot within a week.

The lawsuit, prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the decision by trustees of the Val Verde Unified School District to display the biblical rules directly ignored a 1980 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibits posting the commandments at schools.

In contending that the district’s plans are unconstitutional, the ACLU complained in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that trustees are trying “to indoctrinate impressionable children and coerce them to subscribe to the religious dictates of school officials.”

Named plaintiffs include a 17-year-old Val Verde High School senior, his 11-year-old sister and their parents, as well as the mother of two other students.

ACLU attorneys said the lawsuit would lay a foundation for seeking a temporary restraining order if the commandments are posted. They did not seek an immediate temporary restraining order because they hope school officials will retreat from their controversial plan.

Indeed, before the lawsuit was filed, district trustees agreed to meet for the first time with their attorney Monday night to discuss the legal ramifications of their decision to display the Ten Commandments.

“It’s about time we had legal counsel present,” Virginia Wyatt-Denney said Tuesday.

She was one of five trustees who voted unanimously in September to support the idea but later had second thoughts.

The school board last week reaffirmed its decision, this time by a 3-1 vote, with Wyatt-Denney abstaining.

“If the school board was voting to ignore the Supreme Court, I don’t know why the public should respect our vote, so I abstained altogether,” said Wyatt-Denney, who was not aware of the high court decision at the time of the September vote.

Wyatt-Denney said that she and Trustee Jo Ann McAnlis each realized the error of their decision after the initial September vote, and that she then called the school district attorney for informal advice.

After telling him of the district’s decision to post the Ten Commandments, “he said he had to take a moment to close his mouth, because he was so stunned that we took that action. He said it was a lose-lose situation,” she said.

Other district officials, including the superintendent and the district’s lawyer, did not return phone calls concerning the ACLU’s lawsuit.

Copies of the Ten Commandments have not yet been framed for display.

ACLU lawyer Peter Eliasberg said he hoped that when trustees meet with their legal counsel, they’ll reverse their decision. “If he does his job, he’ll tell them that they’d be idiots to carry this through, that it’s not their job to so blatantly violate the law,” he said. “If they still do it, we’ll file for a temporary restraining order.”

Winning such a ruling from a judge, if it comes to that, “will be a slam-dunk,” Eliasberg said.

“They made their decision without the advice of counsel, and once they talk to him, the situation should be resolved,” he said.

In its lawsuit, the ACLU said that the posting of the Ten Commandments violates the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits government infringement on personal religious freedom.

Wyatt-Denney said Tuesday that she believed that the other board members may back down next week--especially because they may be held personally liable to pay for legal costs if they insist on pursuing the matter.