By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Friday blocked Louisiana from enforcing a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in all classrooms of the state’s public schools and universities.
Calling the law “plainly unconstitutional,” a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans unanimously upheld a November 2024 ruling by a lower court judge who enjoined the law’s enforcement.
It is a victory for parents and students who accused Louisiana of trampling on their religious rights, and a defeat for Republicans and conservative groups trying to make expressions of faith more prominent in society.
The appeals court is widely considered among the country’s most conservative, though two judges on Friday’s panel were appointed by Democratic presidents.
According to published reports, Louisiana’s Republican attorney general, Liz Murrill, will ask the full appeals court and perhaps eventually the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to review the case.
Murrill’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Nine families, including several clergy, with children in public schools sued to block the law, saying it violated the First Amendment prohibition against state establishment of religion.
“We are grateful for this decision, which honors the religious diversity and religious-freedom rights of public school families across Louisiana,” said Darcy Roake, a Unitarian Universalist minister who with her Jewish husband Adrian Van Young is among the plaintiffs.
Louisiana’s law requires the display of posters or framed versions of the Ten Commandments that are at least 11 inches by 14 inches, with the Commandments being the “central focus” and printed in a large, easy-to-read font.
The law, signed by Republican Governor Jeff Landry, covers K-12 schools and state-funded colleges, and was scheduled to take effect on January 1.
KENTUCKY PRECEDENT
In Friday’s decision, Circuit Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez cited a 1980 Supreme Court decision, Stone v. Graham, that struck down a Kentucky law requiring similar displays of the Ten Commandments because it had no “secular legislative purpose.”
Louisiana said the Stone decision no longer applied because it relied on a precedent that the Supreme Court has disavowed.
It also said that even if Stone applied, Louisiana’s case differed because schools could display the Ten Commandments with documents such as the Declaration of Independence, reflecting a secular “historical and educational” purpose.
Ramirez, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, nonetheless cited several legislators who expressed religion-based justifications for Louisiana’s law. These included that the Ten Commandments were “God’s law,” and that opponents were waging an “attack” on Christianity.
“If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments,” Ramirez wrote, quoting the Stone decision. “This is not a permissible state objective.”
Ramirez also rejected Louisiana’s argument that the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision favoring a Washington state high school football coach who prayed with players at the 50-yard line after games required upholding the Ten Commandments law.
She said this was in part because the Washington case primarily concerned First Amendment provisions governing free speech and the free exercise of religion.
Louisiana was the first U.S. state requiring displays of the Ten Commandments since the Kentucky law was struck down.
The case is Roake et al v Brumley et al, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-30706.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)
