Professor Michael Helfand Quoted in "Texas Showdown: Legal Battle Looming Over Ten Commandments in Schools" -- Washington Post

Professor Michael A. Helfand is quoted in the Washington Post article "Texas Showdown: Legal Battle Looming Over Ten Commandments in Schools." The article considers a new Texas state law requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in public classrooms and recent Supreme Court decisions that move away from the church-state separation.

Excerpt from "Texas Showdown: Legal Battle Looming Over Ten Commandments in Schools"

Michael Helfand, a religion and law expert at Pepperdine University, said the court is still working out how to use a test the Supreme Court has recently emphasized, which says to look at the country's history and tradition to figure out what the Constitution means. Critics say that metric cherry-picks certain people's and groups' traditions, and that law should be read in the context of modern realities.

Part of looking at the past, Helfand said, is looking at how courts have understood coercion - the idea that some government actions pressure or force people toward a certain type of religion. And some would say putting the commandments on a wall isn't coercive, he said.

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