Judge halts Arkansas law mandating Ten Commandments display in classrooms in the largest school districts

A federal judge on Monday decided to halt an Arkansas law that mandated the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, barring four of the state’s largest school districts from following the new law, which took effect Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks of the Western District of Arkansas issued the preliminary injunction in favor of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, who argued that the Republican state’s Ten Commandments mandate was unconstitutional because it violated the separation of church and state.

“Why would Arkansas pass an obviously unconstitutional law?” Brooks wrote in the limited ruling. “Most likely because the state is part of a coordinated strategy among several states to inject Christian religious doctrine into public-school classrooms.”

The ruling only applies to four out of 237

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