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LINCOLN – Across the street from the Nebraska State Capitol, a monument to the Ten Commandments stands on the sidewalk outside of St. Mary Catholic Church. Although it’s not on Capitol grounds, as in some states, religion still similarly influences the statehouse.
This year, three Nebraska lawmakers have bills that could infuse more religion into public schools and test the legal limits of the separation of church and state.
While the bills might not pass this session, they reflect a push by Republican state lawmakers nationwide, emboldened by President Donald Trump’s second term and recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that appear to have altered the legal landscape for religion in education.
The Nebraska proposals include requiring the Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” to be displayed in public schools, allowing students to leave during the school day to receive religious instruction and letting schools hire unlicensed religious chaplains to counsel students.
The lawmakers who filed the bills say they aim to restore morality and character among Nebraska students, saying that they believe the nation needs help.
“We have somewhat lost our way on values,” State Sen. Glen Meyer of Pender said during a hearing on his bill requiring schools to display the Eisenhower-era national motto about God and trust, Legislative Bill 122.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Religious Studies Professor Max Mueller said the bills seem to be steps towards re-establishing a Christian dominance in public schools.
“States are the laboratories of democracy,” he said.
State Sen. Dave Murman during the hearing on his Ten Commandments bill, said LB 691 isn’t designed to “force any religion on students, but instead to expose our students to the very historical wisdom that inspired our founders.”
He alluded to a 2019 Supreme Court ruling that allows the Ten Commandments to be displayed publicly because of historical significance.
“Under that context, perhaps it would be good for our courts to reexamine the topic,” Murman said during the bill’s hearing in the Education Committee last month.
The Cornhusker State is one of 15 states nationally where lawmakers introduced legislation this year requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms. The Nebraska bill is modeled after a recent Louisiana law, which went into effect this year. It’s currently blocked in five K-12 school districts because of litigation challenging its constitutionality.
Louisiana became the first state to add such a requirement in four decades since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that Kentucky’s law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools was unconstitutional. Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers joined a handful of other state AGs in a brief defending the Louisiana Ten Commandments law in federal court.
The opinion signals that the court is moving away from the “Lemon Test” to determine whether the government allows religion in public spaces.
The test consists of three parts: The government’s primary purpose must be secular. The government’s actions must not promote or inhibit religion. And the government’s actions must not create excessive entanglement with religion.
ACLU Nebraska testified against the Nebraska proposal, arguing that Nebraska’s Ten Commandments bill is “blatantly unconstitutional” and that the Louisiana law it’s modeled after “violates the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.”
“If LB 691 is enacted, it will announce the state has a favored brand of Christianity and marginalize those who do not subscribe to it,” said Dylan Severino, ACLU Nebraska Policy Counsel.
Severino said Nebraska schools serve students of all faiths and those with none, and their families should feel welcome in their schools.
Tim Royers, President of the Nebraska State Education Association, the state teachers’ union, told the Examiner that public schools can “promote religious liberty and religious literacy as two fundamental competencies for citizenship” but must work within the framework provided by the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
“Finding common ground on religion is a centuries- old issue in America,” Royer said. “And the battleground shouldn’t be in our public schools.”Mueller, the UNL religious studies professor, said the culture war fight over the Ten Commandments in classrooms is a “very American fight” and isn’t new, but that the “super Catholic majority” on the U.S. Supreme Court makes some on the religious right eager to face lawsuits because they feel the court is now on their side.'
