In 1920 Lake County accepted a plaque displaying the text of the Ten Commandments for placement by the main entrance of the County Courthouse from a group of local citizens who represented a religious based organization. The county expended no money on the plaque, either at the time of dedication or subsequently. Subsequently, the Courthouse, which was built in 1846, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. However, the Ten Commandments plaque was not mentioned on the application for the designation. In 2001 plaintiffs, residents of the county who went to the Courthouse on a number of occasions, and the Freethought Society, an association of atheists, agnostics and freethinkers to which the individual plaintiffs and other county residents belonged, asked the County Commissioners to remove the plaque. The Commissioners refused. By this time the main entrance to the historic Courthouse had been closed and by 2003, visitors entered the Courthouse via a modern addition to the Courthouse, some seventy feet to the north. Plaintiffs brought suit in Federal District Court alleging a violation of the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. How should the court decide this case?

Cheerleaders at Crown Point High School have a unique way of kicking off football games: They set up huge paper banners on the edge of the field for the players to crash through. The banners are embossed with Christian messages and Bible verses. One banner reads: “ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me in Christ Jesus.” (Phillipians 3:4.). A local Muslim resident brought suit claiming a violation of the establishment clause. The cheerleaders raised there own money for the banners and made them after school on the school grounds during their practice time. The School Superintendent made it clear that she would like to see the banners stay. She said she reads the bible every day and the “Personally, I like the expression of their Christian Values.” Local town’s people wrote letters to the editor stating “If it’s offensive to anyone, let them go watch another football game. Nobody’s forced to come here and nobody’s forced to read the signs.”A local church youth leader organized a rally on behalf of the cheerleaders and over 500 people attended in support. ABC’s Good Morning America (“GMA”) came to Crown Point to film a segment about the controversy. A school board member told GMA “As a Christian I would not have liked it if they had used verses from the Quran.” The high school principal said “If you allow Christian verses then you have to allow Buddhist, Jewish and everything else. And to be perfectly honest, that would have been a problem here in Crown Point. The issue for us is about freedom of expression of Christianity.” The Muslim resident brought suit with the aid of the ACLU of Indiana. How should the Court rule given the cases we have studied in class?