A Louisiana law requiring Ten Commandments displays in public school classrooms was ruled unconstitutional by a unanimous federal appeals court June 20.
“Parents and students challenge a statute requiring public schools to permanently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom in Louisiana. The district court found the statute facially unconstitutional and preliminarily enjoined its enforcement,” the three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth District Court of Appeals proclaimed in Roake v. Brumley.
Heather Weaver
The decision is a victory for public education and for separation of church and state, said Heather Weaver, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberty’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.
The court “has held Louisiana accountable to a core constitutional promise: Public schools are not Sunday schools, and they must welcome all students, regardless of faith,” she said.
The ACLU, the ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and a private law firm are representing the plaintiffs in the case.
The same groups are representing families in Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1, a federal lawsuit against a new law requiring Ten Commandments displays in Arkansas. The organizations also have vowed to sue Texas if its newly passed school Ten Commandments bill is signed into law.
Signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry in June 2024, Louisiana’s House Bill 71 requires Ten Commandments displays of 11-by-14 inches to be placed in all public K-12, college and university classrooms. The posters or framed copies must use a specific mandated Protestant Christian translation of the Decalogue and must be exhibited prominently.
Darcy Roake
Plaintiff Darcy Roake, a Unitarian Universalist minister with two children in public schools, said the decision honors the religious-freedom rights and diversity of families across Louisiana. “As an interfaith family, we believe our children should receive their religious education at home and within our faith communities, not from government officials.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill pledged to appeal the appellate ruling, NBC News reported.
“We strongly disagree with the Fifth Circuit’s affirmance of an injunction preventing five Louisiana parishes from implementing HB-71. We will immediately seek relief from the full Fifth Circuit and, if necessary, the United States Supreme Court.”
Gov. Landry said he backs an appeal of the decision, according to the Associated Press. “The Ten Commandments are the foundation of our laws — serving both an educational and historical purpose in our classrooms.”
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signs the Ten Commandments bill into law. (Photo: Governor’s office)
Landry previously expressed hope Roake v. Brumley will eventually be decided by the conservative U.S. Supreme Court. “I can’t wait to be sued,” he said during a Republican fundraiser in Nashville last year, The Tennessean newspaper reported.
It was an appeal of a November district court decision against the law that landed the state before the Fifth District to begin with.
In that decision, U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles in Baton Rouge declared HB-71 “unconstitutional on its face” and clearly discriminatory, sectarian and coercive.
The relevant question is whether or not the commandments can be forcibly displayed in public classrooms without violating the Constitution, he wrote. Then said, there is no way to do so.
The judge disagreed with the state’s argument the displays should be allowed under Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the 2022 Supreme Court decision that a high school football coach’s prayer sessions with players were constitutional as part of “historical practices and understandings.”
Plaintiffs successfully demonstrated Kennedy is not relevant to the case because there is “no broader tradition of using the Ten Commandments in public-school education at the time of the Founding or incorporation of the First Amendment.”
Claiming the proposed displays are designed to teach history instead of promote Christianity does not reduce their intrinsic religious intent and meaning, and therefore violate Stone v. Graham, the 1980 Supreme Court banning such displays in public schools, he concluded.
The Fifth District agreed with deGravelles’ reasoning, adding Louisiana’s law would cause “‘irreparable deprivation of plaintiff’s First Amendment rights.”
The Establishment Clause was designed to erect “‘a wall of separation between Church and State,’” the panel said in citing a 1947 Supreme Court case. “At a minimum, the Establishment Clause ordains that no federal or state government ‘can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.’”
The Supreme Court has been especially alert in its monitoring of Establishment Clause compliance in elementary and secondary schools, the appellate court added. “That vigilance must be exercised with prescribed ‘care and restraint’ because public education is primarily in the hands of the States and local authorities.”
In its representation of the state, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty said the presence of Ten Commandments monuments on courthouse lawns justifies their display in public schools.
And the law’s requirement that the Decalogue be displayed near the Mayflower Compact and the Bill of Rights proves the motive behind Louisiana’s law is historical, not religious, the group argued.
“According to the ACLU, religious symbols are so radioactive that students can’t be anywhere near them,” said Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket, about the case in January. “That view is absurd and utterly divorced from history — religion has been a natural and welcome part of our American public life since the founding.”
Alanah Odoms
But Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said the mandated displays are promoting a particular brand of Christianity.
“Religious freedom — the right to choose one’s faith without pressure — is essential to American democracy,” she said. “Today’s ruling ensures that the schools our plaintiffs’ children attend will stay focused on learning, without promoting a state-preferred version of Christianity.”
The appeals court decision is also a warning to Christian nationalists that they cannot impose their narrow version of faith on public-school children, said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “This ruling will ensure that Louisiana families — not politicians or public-school officials — get to decide if, when and how their children engage with religion.”
Related articles:
Texas House joins Senate in bill requiring Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments and the tyranny of minority rule | Analysis by Mara Richards Bim