ROUND ROCK, Texas – A Round Rock parent\u2019s attempt to donate a Ten Commandments poster has now escalated into a legal showdown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It stems from a growing fight over faith, classrooms, and whether Texas public schools must follow a new state law.<\/p>\n
What they’re saying:<\/p>\n
Scott Nevil is a Christian.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Senate Bill 10 was about to become effective in Texas, he offered to donate a Ten Commandments poster to an elementary school in Round Rock ISD. SB 10 requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments in each classroom.<\/p>\n
Nevil received pushback from the district.<\/p>\n
“It started with the conversation with the principal. The next day, I got an email from their general counsel saying, hey, feel free to send it to us, we’ll hold it, and we’re pending litigation to see what happens with the Alamo Heights decision and the Fifth Circuit,” Nevil said.<\/p>\n
Nevil didn\u2019t think \u2018holding\u2019 the poster followed the law. He eventually had a closed-session meeting with members of the district.<\/p>\n
“We talked. They gave me a packet of the reason why they were not going to move forward with it and I gave them my 10-minute speech of why I believed they should,” Nevil said.<\/p>\n
Nevil had also been in contact with the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
“After that meeting I sent more information to the AG which allowed them to have enough information I guess to move forward,” Nevil said.<\/p>\n
The AG is now suing the district stating Round Rock ISD had specifically chosen to openly defy state law.<\/p>\n
Nevil said his fight is about ensuring the district is following the law.<\/p>\n
“This isn\u2019t necessarily all about the Ten Commandments, if this was any other religion and they wanted to put a poster up, you would support that as long as it followed the law,” FOX 7 Reporter Meredith Aldis asked.<\/p>\n
“Right, and I think that it comes down to, if we were in a state that was a different religion, that the whole state decided to get behind and vote into law that, hey, we want X on the wall, so be it. I don’t think that there’s anything necessarily wrong with Texas being a very enshrined in Judeo-Christian beliefs that they believed enough to put this into law,” Nevil responded.<\/p>\n
Round Rock ISD sent FOX 7 a similar response as the one Nevil received about waiting for further judicial guidance and said, “At this time, state law conflicts with longstanding federal law regarding the separation of church and state, where a public school district is considered \u2018state.\u2019<\/p>\n
“I would love to be the first one that can slap my poster up on the wall. Not as a I gotcha, not as a, I told you so, but as a thank you for making the right decision for following the law,” Nevil said.<\/p>\n
Round Rock ISD issues statement on AG lawsuit <\/p>\n
The other side:<\/p>\n
Round Rock ISD\u2019s full statement:<\/p>\n
“Round Rock ISD received a copy of the Attorney General\u2019s press release this morning and anticipates that it will soon be served with the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
As we have shared with the students and families in our district, we have been closely following the other litigation surrounding the display of the Ten Commandments in Texas public school classrooms.<\/p>\n
Specifically, we have been awaiting further judicial guidance from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. At this time, state law conflicts with longstanding federal law regarding the separation of church and state, where a public school district is considered “state.”<\/p>\n
We were hopeful that we could avoid using scarce district resources for litigation when the question will be fully addressed by the Fifth Circuit in an upcoming decision set for hearing in January.\u00a0 However, in light of the attorney general\u2019s premature actions, we will be consulting outside legal counsel.”<\/p>\n
Big picture view:<\/p>\n
A federal judge has decided that displaying the Ten Commandments in every school classroom is unconstitutional, but the order only applies to specific districts and Round Rock ISD is not included.<\/p>\n
The Source: Information in this report comes from interviews\/reporting by FOX 7 Austin’s Meredith Aldis<\/p>\n
Texas Politics<\/a>Religion<\/a>Round Rock<\/a>Ken Paxton<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROUND ROCK, Texas – A Round Rock parent\u2019s attempt to donate a Ten Commandments poster has now escalated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,1967,223,391,287,1968,6240,216,395,393,2538],"class_list":{"0":"post-56630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-ken-paxton","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-people","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-religion","16":"tag-round-rock","17":"tag-tx","18":"tag-tx-politics","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-williamson-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}