Plaintiffs ask federal court to add more parties to Arkansas Ten Commandments lawsuit

Conway parents seek to challenge their school district’s postings of the Christian doctrine after a judge blocked the law requiring the display

By Tess Vrbin, Arkansas Advocate

The plaintiffs challenging Arkansas’ law mandating a display of the Ten Commandments in schools asked a federal court Friday to allow them to sue an additional school district in the ongoing litigation.

Act 573 of 2025 requires that “a durable poster or framed copy of a historical representation of the Ten Commandments” be “prominently” displayed in taxpayer-funded public buildings, including school classrooms and libraries and colleges and universities.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks temporarily blocked Act 573 in response to a June lawsuit from seven multi-faith families with children in the Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville, and Siloam Springs school districts. Brooks issued his ruling Aug. 4, the day before the law’s effective date.

On Monday, the plaintiffs filed a motion for the court’s permission to add the Conway School District as a defendant and to add two families from the district to the case as plaintiffs. In a filing later Monday, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin asked the court to deny the motion, saying the court lacks jurisdiction and the plaintiffs waited too long to add participants.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas asked every school district in the state on Aug. 5 not to comply with Act 573 in response to Brooks’ ruling, but the “Conway School District nevertheless pressed forward with posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom, infringing the constitutional rights of students and parents,” the ACLU wrote in a Monday news release.

The Conway district’s decision “demonstrates a chilling disregard for the law,” ACLU of Arkansas Legal Director John Williams said in the release, and the organization “will not allow [districts] to get away with trampling families’ First Amendment rights.”

In Brooks’ 35-page ruling, the judge agreed with the plaintiffs that Act 573 likely violates two First Amendment provisions: the Establishment Clause, which guarantees that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” and the Free Exercise Clause, which guarantees that “Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise [of religion].”

Republican lawmakers and conservative activists insisted on Aug. 12 that Act 573 is constitutional and based on historical tradition rather than religion. They cited a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that presumes Christian symbols and monuments are constitutional if they can be shown to be historical and traditional.

The Northwest Arkansas plaintiffs identify as Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, Humanist, agnostic, atheist, and nonreligious, according to their June complaint.

Monday’s news release included a copy of the proposed amended complaint to be filed if Brooks grants Friday’s request from the plaintiffs.

Julee Jaeger, one of the potential Conway plaintiffs, is raising her child in a nonreligious household and “does not want the government to push any particular religion or religious morality” on her child, the amended complaint states.

Jaeger asked the Conway School Board via email to remove the Ten Commandments posters from district classrooms, and board member Trip Leach responded, “To answer your question, NO I do not think I will,” according to the complaint.

The other potential Conway plaintiffs are Kyle and April Berry, who are raising their two children as Christians but “do not believe in or teach their children the specific language of the state-mandated Ten Commandments in Act 573, which they find objectionable,” the complaint states.

“In fact, the Ten Commandments is not scripture that the Berrys or their faith community tend to focus on,” the complaint states. “Instead, they focus their religious instruction of children more on teachings found in the New Testament, such as the teaching to love your neighbors.”

The Berrys also believe “that people must be respectful of other people’s religions or lack thereof and that religious beliefs and practices should not be imposed on non-adherents,” and Act 573 conflicts with this value, according to the complaint.

Brooks’ ruling noted that Arkansas’ law is “most likely … [a] part of a coordinated strategy among several states to inject Christian religious doctrine into public-school classrooms.”

Education news outlet The 74 reported last month that a data analysis of 28 bills similar to Act 573 “exposes how their language, structure and requirements are inherently identical.”

The plaintiffs against Act 573 are represented by the ACLU of Arkansas, the national ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with New York-based Simpson Thacher Bartlett serving as pro bono counsel.

The Arkansas Advocate is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to tough, fair daily reporting and investigative journalism that holds public officials accountable and focuses on the relationship between the lives of Arkansans and public policy.