Ten Commandments Case Watched Closely by School Community

Washington

When the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments next week in two disputes over government displays of the Ten Commandments, some school law experts will be listening almost as closely as if the words were rolling down from Mount Sinai.

What they’re hoping to hear, moreover, extends well beyond the issue of religious texts or symbols on public property. In the view of some education groups, the cases offer a chance for the justices to dispel widespread confusion on the full panoply of church-state controversies that regularly bedevil the nation’s public schools.

“The crux of it is we need some clear and consistent authority,” said Julie Underwood, the general counsel of the National School Boards Association, which submitted a friend-of-the-court brief along with two other public school groups in one of the Ten Commandments cases. “If they continue to waffle on their analysis, the confusion...