(1) It shall be the duty of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, provided sufficient
funds are available as provided in subsection (3) of this section, to ensure that a
durable, permanent copy of the Ten Commandments shall be displayed on a wall in
each public elementary and secondary school classroom in the Commonwealth. The
copy shall be sixteen (16) inches wide by twenty (20) inches high.
(2) In small print below the last commandment shall appear a notation concerning the
purpose of the display, as follows: "The secular application of the Ten
Commandments is clearly seen in its adoption as the fundamental legal code of
Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States."
(3) The copies required by this section shall be purchased with funds made available
through voluntary contributions made to the State Treasurer for the purposes of this
section.
Effective: June 17, 1978
History: Created 1978 Ky. Acts ch. 436, sec. 1, effective June 17, 1978.
Legislative Research Commission Note. This statute was declared unconstitutional in
Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980).
Notes of Decisions
Cited in
7
cases (
4 in the last 5 years), 1980–2026 · leading case:
Stone v. Graham
Stone v. Graham (1981)
scotus · cites it 5×
“436, § 1 (effective June 17, 1978), Ky. Rev. Stat. § 158.178 (1980). The trial court found the "avowed" purpose of the statute to be secular, even as it labeled the statutory declaration "self-serving.”
Stone v. Graham (1980)
ky · cites it 22×
“I agree with the trial judge of the Franklin Circuit Court when, in upholding the constitutionality of KRS § 158.178, he wrote: [T]he fact that the Ten Commandments spring from a religious well does not in itself forever divorce their use for a secular purpose.”
Roake v. Brumley (2025)
ca5 · cites it 2×
“436, § 1 (effective June 17, 1978), Ky. Rev. Stat. § 158.178 (1980)). 29 Case: 24-30706 Document: 219-1 Page: 30 Date Filed: 06/20/2025 No.”
Nathan v. Alamo Heights ISD (2026)
ca5 · cites it 3×
“0041, with Ky. Rev. Stat. § 158.178 (1980). Although, unlike the Kentucky statute, S.”
Roake v. Brumley (2025)
ca5 · cites it 2×
“436, § 1 (effective June 17, 1978), Ky. Rev. Stat. § 158.178 (1980)). of the Ten Commandments displayed on the Texas State Capitol grounds was constitutional under the Establishment Clause.”
Roake v. Brumley (2026)
ca5
“1 (citing Ky. Rev. Stat. § 158.178 (1980)). Under H.”
Adler v. Duval Cty. School Board (1999)
ca11
“Despite the elucidation of a legitimate educational rationale in the statute, the Court held that “[t]he pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature.”
— Ky. Rev. Stat. § 158.178(1) — 1 case
— Ky. Rev. Stat. § 158.178(2) — 1 case
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the
Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and
treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.