Top Ten Reasons the University of Arkansas Doesn’t Need to Find Places on Campus to Nail 500 Copies of One Translation of the Ten Commandments
Editor’s Note by Ben Pollock, Local 965 vice president
News item: “U of A Rolls Out Ten Commandments Displays,” Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Oct. 16, 2025, also reported by various local, state and regional news media.
Honoring David Letterman’s Top Ten Lists, which was a near-nightly bit on his talk shows.
(DRUMROLL:)
10. Which Ten Commandments to post? We have both Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21, with their slight but significant differences compared for millenia.
9. The donor did not bestow another 500 posters showing the U.S. and Arkansas flags below “In God We Trust, also mandated by this state law, Act 573 of 2025 (PDF).
8. Sets up the University of Arkansas to be mocked by true-blue, old-fashioned conservatives across the country who still hold the Constitution dear.
7. Every major religion and many smaller ones have precepts similar to Jews’ and Christians’ Big Ten’s do’s and don’ts. Well, sabbath days aren’t in every major religion, but after that, we all agree about respecting elders, not murdering, stealing, coveting and so on.
6. The 10th Commandment in the Exodus 20:17 version warns against coveting “thy neighbor’s ass,” killing the party-hardy mood of students seeing the poster on their way on their way to Dickson Street. (Our donated translation does not list “ass.”)
5. The 10th Commandment’s list of what not to covet leaves out inflatable Halloween costumes of fanciful animals. That was another chance for other critters after Genesis 1:24-25 so, God, why no vinyl unicorns in the Bible?
4. Before the 20-teens and 20-twenties where any U.S. law is being sanded down, any judge would have ruled this mass posting in a public land-grant university a blatant blast against the First Amendment’s first commandments, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. …”
3. University administration would save a fair amount of time, a lot of money and some embarrassment by awaiting the ruling in the federal lawsuit Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1.
2. The donation and the law it sailed under is an affront to concepts of separation of church and state, plurality, diversity, equity, inclusivity, not to mention the rotting of the metaphors of America as a melting pot, tapestry or big ol’ stew.
Finally, here’s the No. 1 reason the University of Arkansas doesn’t need to find places on campus to nail 500 copies of one translation of the Ten Commandments:
1. What Razorback student wants ANOTHER reading assignment?
©2025 Ben S. Pollock
This column, slightly shorter, first was published Oct. 21, 2025, in the October 2025 newsletter of UA-Fayetteville Education Association / Local 965, of which Ben Pollock is vice president.
