A bill

 

TO AMEND THE SOUTH CAROLINA CODE OF LAWS BY ADDING SECTION 59-1-335 SO AS TO AUTHORIZE SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND CHARTER SCHOOLS TO IMPLEMENT CERTAIN VOLUNTEER SCHOOL CHAPLAIN POLICIES; AND BY ADDING SECTION 59-1-485 SO AS TO PROVIDE FOR THE DISPLAY OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AND OTHER HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOL AND POSTSECONDARY CLASSROOMS.

 

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

 

SECTION 1.  Article 5, Chapter 1, Title 59 of the S.C. Code is amended by adding:

 

    Section 59-1-335.  (A) Each school district or charter school may adopt a policy to authorize volunteer school chaplains to provide supports, services, and programs to students assigned by the district school board or charter school governing board. The school district or charter school policy must, at a minimum:

       (1) describe the supports, services, or programs that volunteer school chaplains may be assigned.

       (2) require that principals of schools with a volunteer school chaplain inform all parents of the availability of such supports, services, and programs.

       (3) require written parental consent before a student participates in or receives support, services, and programs provided by a volunteer school chaplain. Parents must be permitted to select a volunteer school chaplain from the list provided by the school district, which must include the chaplain's religious affiliation, if any.

    (B) Each volunteer school chaplain must meet the background check requirements required of school district employees and volunteers pursuant to Section 59-19-117. A person with prior arrests or convictions of a serious nature that could affect his fitness to serve as a volunteer school chaplain may be denied the opportunity to serve in that capacity. A person who is required to register as a sex offender pursuant to Section 23-3-430 may not serve as a volunteer school chaplain.

    (C) Any school district or charter school that adopts a volunteer school chaplains policy must publish the list of volunteer school chaplains, including any religious affiliation, on the school district or charter school's website.

 

SECTION 2.  Article 5, Chapter 1, Title 59 of the S.C. Code is amended by adding:

 

    Section 59-1-485.  (A) The legislature finds and declares all of the following:

       (1) In 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States recognized that it is permissible to display the Ten Commandments on government property in Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677, 688 (2005).

       (2) In 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States further recognized that the Ten Commandments "have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system ..." in American Legion v. American Humanists Association, 588 U.S. 29, 53 (2019), and the court also ruled that the displaying of the Ten Commandments on public property may have "multiple purposes" such as "historical significance" and represent a "common cultural heritage." Id. at 54.

       (3) Recognizing the historical role of the Ten Commandments accords with our nation's history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the founders of our nation with respect to the necessity of civic morality to a functional self-government. History records that James Madison, the fourth President of the United States of America, stated that "(w)e have staked the whole future of our new nation … upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."

       (4) Including the Ten Commandments in the education of our children is part of our state and national history, culture, and tradition.

       (5) The text of the Ten Commandments set forth in subsection (B) is identical to the text of the Ten Commandments monument that was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677, 688 (2005).

       (6) The Mayflower Compact of 1620 was America's first written constitution and made a Covenant with Almighty God to "form a civil body politic". This was the first purely American document of self-government and affirmed the link between civil society and God.

       (7) The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided a method of admitting new states to the Union from the territory as the country expanded to the Pacific. The Ordinance "extended the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty" to the territories and stated that "(r)eligion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

       (8) It is the legislature's intent to apply the decision set forth by the Supreme Court of the United States in Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677(2005), to continue the rich tradition and ensure that the students in our public schools may understand and appreciate the foundational documents of our state and national government.

       (9) The Supreme Court of the United States acknowledged that the Ten Commandments may be displayed on local government property when a private donation is made for the purchase of the historical monument. Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460 (2009).

       (10) It is the intention of the legislature that this Section shall not create an unfunded mandate on any public school governing authority. The school boards are encouraged to use documents that are printed and made available to the schools free of charge.

    (B)(1) No later than January 1, 2027, each public school governing authority shall display the Ten Commandments in each classroom in each school under its jurisdiction. The nature of the display shall be determined by each governing authority with a minimum requirement that the Ten Commandments shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches. The text of the Ten Commandments shall be the central focus of the poster or framed document and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font. The text shall read as follows:

 

The Ten Commandments

 

I AM the Lord thy God.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.

Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

 

       (2) The Ten Commandments shall be displayed with a context statement as follows:

 

The History of the Ten Commandments in American Public Education

 

    The Ten Commandments were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries. Around the year 1688, The New England Primer became the first published American textbook and was the equivalent of a first grade reader. The New England Primer was used in public schools throughout the United States for more than one hundred fifty years to teach Americans to read and contained more than forty questions about the Ten Commandments.

 

    The Ten Commandments were also included in public school textbooks published by educator William McGuffey, a noted university president and professor. A version of his famous McGuffey Readers was written in the early 1800s and became one of the most popular textbooks in the history of American education, selling more than one hundred million copies. Copies of the McGuffey Readers are still available today.

 

    The Ten Commandments also appeared in textbooks published by Noah Webster in which were widely used in American public schools along with America's first comprehensive dictionary that Webster also published. His textbook, The American Spelling Book, contained the Ten Commandments and sold more than one hundred million copies for use by public school children all across the nation and was still available for use in American public schools in the year 1975.

 

       (3) A public school may also display the Mayflower Compact, written and adopted in 1620, the text which reads as follows:

 

Mayflower Compact (1620 A.D.)

 

Agreement Between the Settlers at New Plymouth: 1620

 

    IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

 

       (4) A public school may also display The Declaration of Independence, adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776, the text of which reads as follows:

 

The Declaration of Independence.

 

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

 

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America.

 

    When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

 

    He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

 

    He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

 

    He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

 

    He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

 

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

 

    He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

 

    He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

 

    He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

 

    He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

 

    He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

 

    He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

 

    He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

       For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.

       For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.

       For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.

       For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.

       For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by jury.

       For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.

       For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies.

       For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Government.

       For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

       He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

       He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

       He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

       He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

 

    In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms; Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

 

    Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we would the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

 

    We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

 

       (5) A public school may also display articles I through VI of the Northwest Ordinance enacted by Congress on July 13, 1787, which prohibited slavery in the new territories and which stated that "religion, morality, and knowledge as being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind" and which text reads as follows:

 

Article I

 

    No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments, in the said territory.

 

Article II

 

    The inhabitants of the said territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus, and of the trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of the people in the legislature; and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law. All persons shall be bailable, unless for capital offenses, where the proof shall be evident or the presumption great. All fines shall be moderate; and no cruel or unusual punishments shall be inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land; and, should the public exigencies make it necessary, for the common preservation, to take any person's property, or to demand his particular services, full compensation shall be made for the same. And, in the just preservation of rights and property, it is understood and declared, that no law ought ever to be made, or have force in the said territory, that shall, in any manner whatever, interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements, bona fide, and without fraud, previously formed.

 

Article III

 

    Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity, shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.

 

Article IV

 

    The said territory, and the States which may be formed therein, shall forever remain a part of this Confederacy of the United States of America, subject to the Articles of Confederation, and to such alterations therein as shall be constitutionally made; and to all the acts and ordinances of the United States in Congress assembled, comformable thereto. The inhabitants and settlers in the said territory shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts contracted or to be contracted, and a proportional part of the expenses of government, to be apportioned on them by Congress according to the same common rule and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other States; and the taxes for paying their proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the district or districts, or new States, as in the original States, within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled. The legislatures of those districts or new States, shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States in Congress assembled, nor with any regulations Congress may find necessary for securing the title in such soil to the bona fide purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on lands the property of the United States; and, in no case, shall nonresident proprietors be taxed higher than residents. The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, shall be common highways and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other States that may be admitted into the confederacy, without any tax, impost, or duty therefor.

 

Article V

 

    There shall be formed in the said territory, not less than three nor more than five States; and the boundaries of the States, as soon as Virginia shall alter her act of cession, and consent to the same, shall become fixed and established as follows, to wit: The western State in the said territory, shall be bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio, and Wabash Rivers; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Post Vincents, due North, to the territorial line between the United States and Canada; and, by the said territorial line, to the Lake of the Woods and Mississippi. The middle State shall be bounded by the said direct line, the Wabash from Post Vincents to the Ohio, by the Ohio, by a direct line, drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami, to the said territorial line, and by the said territorial line. The eastern State shall be bounded by the last mentioned direct line, the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the said territorial line: Provided, however, and it is further understood and declared, that the boundaries of these three States shall be subject so far to be altered, that, if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two States in that part of the said territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan. And, whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government: Provided, the constitution and government so to be formed, shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles; and, so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants in the State than sixty thousand.

 

Article VI

 

    There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.

 

       (6) This section does not require a public school governing authority to spend its funds to purchase displays required or authorized in this section. In order to fund the displays free of charge, the public school governing authority may:

           (a) accept donated funds to purchase the displays.

           (b) accept donated displays.

       (7)(a) The State Board of Education shall adopt rules and regulations in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act to ensure the proper implementation of this section for the institutions under this jurisdiction.

           (b) Statements intended to provide context to any text required or authorized to be displayed pursuant to this subsection are prohibited.

           (c) The State Department of Education shall identify appropriate resources to comply with the provisions of this Section that are free of charge. Once identified, the department shall list the free resources on the department's internet website.

    (C)(1) No later than January 1, 2027, each public institution of higher learning in this State shall display the Ten Commandments in each classroom on the institution's campus. At a minimum, the Ten Commandments shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches. The text of the Ten Commandments shall be the central focus of the poster or framed document and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font.

       (2) The text shall read as provided in subsection (B)(1). Statements intended to provide context to any text authorized to be displayed pursuant to this section are prohibited.

       (3) This section does not require a public institution of higher learning or its governing board to spend its funds to purchase displays required under this subsection. In order to fund the displays free of charge, the institution or its governing body may:

           (a) accept donated funds to purchase the displays;

           (b) accept donated displays.

 

SECTION 3.  This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor.

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