Virginia County Backs Down In Ten Commandments Battle

A Virginia County School Board has decided to remove copies of the Ten Commandments from their classrooms rather than fight a legal battle they were certain to lose:

Officials in Giles County Public Schools, acting on a school board vote, removed controversial displays of the Ten Commandments this morning from various buildings, said Amanda Tickle, board clerk and executive secretary in the school system.

The board voted during a 7:30 a.m. special meeting, Tickle said.

As I noted in my original post on this topic, the legal issues here were blindingly clear given the fact that a unanimous Supreme Court had ruled 30 years ago that a similar Kentucky policy was a violation of the First Amendment. No doubt, the Board decided that doing what they could to avoid litigation was the best strategy.

FILED UNDER: Law and the Courts, US Politics, ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. MarkNS says:

    Odd that people still think the ten commandments are some great guide to a moral life. Other than a few obvious things like don’t murder, don’t steal and don’t lie, most of the commandments are either thought crimes or demands of a petty, jealous god. I’d wager that most of the people who supported keeping this nonsense in the classroom unabashedly violate the “keep the sabbath” one almost every week.