Stone v. Graham

In Stone v. Graham (1980), the U.S. Supreme Court addressed a Kentucky statute requiring that school officials post a copy of the Ten Commandments, purchased with private contributions, on a wall in every public classroom in the commonwealth. The Court held that the law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The Kentucky statute required that the following notation was to be placed, in small print, at the bottom of each display of the Ten Commandments: “The secular application of the Ten Commandments is clearly seen in its adoption as the fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States.” Opponents of the statute filed suit claiming that it violated the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment. ...