After nearly two years of effort and multiple roadblocks, the Tennessee House passed a bill allowing public schools to prominently display the Ten Commandments and other historically significant documents in school buildings. The bill was modeled after a similar Louisiana law, passed mid-2024, which now faces legal hurdles that will likely land the case in the US Supreme Court’s docket.

Tennessee’s law, unlike Louisiana’s, does not require public schools to display the Ten Commandments. Rather, it gives school boards the opportunity to consider displaying historically significant religious texts (and non-religious texts) in school buildings. The bill lists the following documents as options for the school boards to consider:

• The Ten Commandments
• The Declaration of Independence
• The United States Constitution
• The Constitution of Tennessee
• The Bill of Rights
• Or other historically significant documents

State Rep. Michael Hale, who sponsored the bill, noted that the bill is not “forcing anybody to do anything.”

Local school boards and governing bodies of public charter schools can vote on displaying the documents using wall posters “in a prominent location” in each school building, such as entryways, cafeterias, or common areas, “in order to educate students on the historical significance and common cultural heritage the documents have.”

“Local school leaders know their communities and classrooms best, and this bill gives them the autonomy to decide whether to acknowledge and display these documents for educational purposes, while ensuring they have legal protection if they do,” Hale stated.
 
The bill, SB 303, passed out of the House with a vote of 75-17. It now heads to the Senate with  Sen. Mark Pody as its sponsor.
 
“The fact is, if we lived by those Ten Commandments, we could pretty much shut down our jails and we’d all be in a lot better place as a country and as a state,” Hale added.
 
A legal brief submitted by First Liberty Institute and backed by 46 members of Congress in Louisiana’s case highlights how the Ten Commandments and Christian principles are inextricably linked to our nation’s founding and the operations of our government. It reads:
 
“As elected representatives of ‘a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being,’ Amici participate in the governance of this Nation under the watchful eyes of Moses—the central and only full-frontal frieze among the lawgivers adorning the House Chamber—and pass under the words ‘In God We Trust’ and ‘Annuit Coeptis’ (God Favors Our Undertakings) when entering the Senate Chamber. We seek divine wisdom as we perform our duty of representing the American people in the Capitol Prayer Room, which contains…. ‘Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust,’ Psalm 16:1. And, when the United States Supreme Court hears a case, it does so under the eyes of Moses, holding the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments, both inside the courtroom and on the building’s exterior… Plainly, [O]ur Nation’s history and tradition acknowledge Moses as a lawgiver and the Ten Commandments as a historical foundation of our system of laws.”
 
The Ten Commandments and Christian principles are integral to our nation’s history and continue to be relevant today. America is a Christian nation. It is unfathomable that schools are currently prohibited from simply displaying the historical document that our founders based our government and legal system on.
 
We will continue to update you as this bill progresses through the legislative process.