A federal judge has blocked a recently passed Louisiana law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms by Jan. 1, 2025.
U.S. District Judge John deGravelles, in granting a preliminary injunction on Tuesday, wrote in his order that state House Bill 71 is “unconstitutional in every application.” He said the plaintiffs could win their case based on their argument that the law violates the First Amendment.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed the legislation on June 19, permitting public funds to be used to purchase a “poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches.”
“The text of the Ten Commandments shall be the central focus of the poster or framed document and shall be printed in large, easily readable font,” the legislation states.
In their June 2024 complaint, the plaintiffs argued that posting the Ten Commandments “unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture.”
“It also sends the harmful and religiously divisive message that students who do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments—or, more precisely, to the specific version of the Ten Commandments that H.B. 71 requires schools to display—do not belong in their own school community and should refrain from expressing any faith practices or beliefs that are not aligned with the state’s religious preferences,” the plaintiffs said.
The plaintiffs are named in the complaint as Rev. Darcy Roake, Adrian Van Young, and others who are represented by organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Louisana Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley and officials with the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education are named as the defendants.
DeGravelles cited the 1980 U.S. Supreme Court case of Stone v. Graham, which ruled that a Kentucky law mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools violated the First Amendment.
In July, a federal judge approved an agreement to pause the state law after the plaintiffs sued the state.
The parties’ counsels agreed that the defendants will refrain from posting the Ten Commandments “in any public school classroom before November 15, 2024.”
DeGravelles sided with the plaintiffs in his order, stating that they “face an imminent infringement of their First Amendment rights” that “is real and not hypothetical or speculative.”
“In short, the Court agrees with Plaintiffs,” the judge wrote. “The Court has ruled that the Act is facially unconstitutional. That is, H.B. 71 is unconstitutional in all applications. As a result, the Act cannot be enforced throughout the state.”
In addition, the defendants are ordered to “provide notice to all schools that the law has been found unconstitutional.”
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