Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican Louisiana state representative, had a plan to create a Christian law school in his state. The school, which would be affiliated with Louisiana College, a Southern Baptist institution, would focus on “biblical principles” and “religious liberty” and was intended to provide an alternate to the secular law schools open to students in Louisiana at the time.
Johnson secured enough funding from corporate sponsors and Louisianans for the project and, in 2016, he successfully pushed for the proposal to pass the Louisiana legislature. However, the plan quickly fell apart under legal scrutiny. The ACLU filed a lawsuit claiming the school was a violation of the separation of church and state, and Federal Judge Shelly Dick agreed that the school was unconstitutional.
Johnson and his supporters tried to save the school through a constitutional amendment, Amendment 1, which would add a new subsection to the state constitution that would allow the school to exist. Amendment 1 failed in 2018, largely due to opposition from other Christian leaders, who argued that the amendment would grant the school too much power and autonomy.
Ultimately, Johnson’s plan for a Christian law school unraveled because it was deemed unconstitutional, and his attempts to pass a constitutional amendment failed. The project highlights the difficulty of finding a balance between religious liberty and the separation of church and state.
