Podcast: What if I can’t vote in person?

Carlis is the chief learning and impact officer for Acelero, Inc., a national for-profit early learning organization. She is a public voices fellow for racial justice in early childhood with The OpEd Project and The National Black Child Development Institute.

In a brazen assault on the separation of church and state, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) recently mandated the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public school classrooms. Not to be outdone, Oklahoma’s superintendent of schools directed all public schools to begin providing biblical education to students grades five through 12, effective immediately.

These thinly veiled attempts to impose Christian theology on a diverse student body are not only unconstitutional, they are deeply hypocritical. The same legislators making these demands are simultaneously working to require that teachers whitewash America's history of slavery and Jim Crow. If we are going to prominently display "Thou shalt not lie" in every classroom, shouldn't it apply first and foremost to the curriculum being taught inside those walls?