Ten Commandment posters will not appear in Arlington ISD classrooms after the district agreed to not display the biblical text in order to be dismissed from a lawsuit debating the constitutionality of a new Texas law.
Arlington was sued in September alongside 13 other districts, four of which are in Tarrant County, as parents requested that the courts strike down a law requiring schools to hang Ten Commandments posters in classrooms if they are donated.
Chief Communications Officer Taina Northington told the Arlington Report that the district agreed to follow a previous U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting the display of the Ten Commandments, but would display the posters if ordered to by federal courts.
On Oct. 16, Arlington ISD trustees discussed the lawsuit in closed session, used by governmental entities to discuss issues that require confidentiality.
After coming back into open session, trustees unanimously voted to instruct their legal counsel to “resolve the matter.”
On Oct. 23, the district’s legal counsel filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to dismiss the lawsuit against Arlington ISD.
In the filing, the district said that it wished to follow legal precedent in other cases surrounding the state law and would not post the text in classrooms while the lawsuit was still pending “in any form.”
In August, a federal judge ruled that 11 school districts were prohibited from following the new law after a legal challenge against Alamo Heights ISD.
Arlington ISD said this ruling, along with one from 1980, showed that the federal courts need to decide the state law’s constitutionality.
The district judge granted the dismissal Oct. 24.
In the motion, Arlington ISD’s attorney said the district had already received a donation of posters.
In September, Northington told the Report the district had yet to display the posters in classrooms.
Though the district will not be posting the text in classrooms while the lawsuit is pending, it does not anticipate that the state will take action against Arlington ISD since the federal order supersedes any state litigation, Northington said.
The district remains subject to any orders or injunctions filed by the judge on the matter.
Chris Moss is a reporting fellow for the Arlington Report. Contact him at chris.moss@fortworthreport.org.
At the Arlington Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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