OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Across the United States a growing number of state legislatures and local school boards have adopted measures either permitting or requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools. In this paper, I first describe the constitutional questions surrounding these displays and then highlight the likelihood of the Supreme Court’s overturning its 1980 precedent, Stone v. Graham, which barred such displays. I conclude with reflections on the need for educational theorists to focus on the propriety as public policy of displaying the Ten Commandments given that the constitutional issues are quite likely to be settled in the near future—a task itself which can helpfully be illuminated by a close reading of the constitutional debates in this area. No matter what the future holds, this paper provides insights on the constitutional context surrounding a growing movement to enhance the place of religion in American public education and highlights increasingly important questions of public policy relating to the place of religious symbols in the public school classroom.