texas freedom-of-speech school translation
Are Texas schools required to display posters with an Arabic translation of &quot;In God We Trust&quot;?
<p>There's a story going around the Internet of an activist donating posters to Texas schools with an Arabic translation of &quot;In God We Trust&quot;. The claim is that Section 1.004 of the Texas Education Code (as updated by SB 797) mandates schools to display these posters, as they display 'the United States national motto, &quot;In God We Trust&quot;' (and also comply with the other requirements of the law).</p>
<p>I looked up the source of this being the national motto, and it's 36 U.S. Code § 302, which simply says:</p>
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<p>“In God we trust” is the national motto.</p>
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<p>The activist, and media reporting about it, seem very certain that this translation complies with the text of the law referred to above, but I can't find any further explanation about why. Is there any case law that corroborates the implicit claim that sentences in these kind of laws should be interpreted as referring to those sentences or a translation of those sentences into another language, instead of to simply those sentences as rendered in the law, in English?</p>

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<p>Are Texas schools required to display posters with an Arabic translation of &quot;In God We Trust&quot;?</p>
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<p>No. The activist (Chaz Stevens?) not only misses the legislative intent behind the motto, but it actually would be a violation of the Establishment Clause if a government displayed the flags he donated.</p>
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<p>Is there any case law that corroborates the implicit claim that sentences in these kind of laws should be interpreted as referring to those sentences or a translation of those sentences into another language, instead of to simply those sentences as rendered in the law, in English?</p>
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<p>In the particular case of &quot;<em>In God We Trust</em>&quot;, the legislative intent is very specific about the language in which the motto is to be displayed. See <a href="https://www.leagle.com/decision/1970674432f2d2421605" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Aronow v. U.S.</em>, 432 F.2d 242 n.3 (1970)</a>:</p>
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<p>It will be of great spiritual and psychological value to our country
to have a clearly designated national motto of inspirational quality
<strong>in plain, popularly accepted English</strong>.</p>
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<p>(emphasis added, citing House Report No. 1959. 1956 Cong. &amp; Admin.News, p. 3720).</p>
<p>The legend in the activist's flags is in Arabic, and therefore not in <em>plain, popularly accepted English</em>.</p>
<p>The activist's purpose would violate the Establishment Clause because the legend in the activist's flag is less religion-neutral than the national motto. The transliteration of the <a href="https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/atheist-to-send-texas-schools-in-god-we-trust-signs-written-in-arabic/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">legend at issue</a> is <em>nakhnu nathaq bi-(Al)lahi</em> (I might be wrong in some vocals of the middle word), thereby making an unequivocal reference to Allah, the god of muslims. This might amount to governmental sponsorship of a religion, the Islam, insofar as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah" rel="nofollow noreferrer">in the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam</a>. Neutrality would require the legend to be <em>nakhnu nathaq bi-(a)l-ilahi</em> ( نحن نثق بالاه), since <em>ilah</em> means [a] god.</p>
<p>Although &quot;God&quot; in uppercase and used as proper noun is attached to judeo-christian theology, this religious bias is historically perceived as rather negligible when compared with the practicality of inspiring &quot;patriotism&quot; and akin values. See, for instance, <em>Aronow</em> at 243 and n.2. Similarly, <a href="https://www.leagle.com/decision/199628874f3d2141238" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Gaylord v. U.S.</em>, 74 F.3d 214, 216-217 (1996)</a>:</p>
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<p>a reasonable observer, aware of the purpose, context, and history of
the phrase &quot;In God we trust,&quot; would not consider its use or its
reproduction on U.S. currency to be an endorsement of religion.</p>
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<p>Linguistically, the activist's legend even alters the emphasis of the national motto. By starting with <em>nakhnu</em> (which means &quot;we&quot;), the import of the legend is that &quot;<em>We, not others, are the ones who trust Allah</em>&quot;. By contrast, the national of the motto connotes an emphasis on the noun &quot;God&quot;, not on &quot;we&quot;. To preserve the emphasis the national motto makes, the activist's legend should have been <em>bi-(a)l-ilahi nathaq</em> or something close thereto.</p>
