Background: FILE – A copy of the Ten Commandments is posted along with other historical documents in a hallway of the Georgia Capitol, Thursday, June 20, 2024, in Atlanta (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File). Inset: Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry speaks with reporters outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., March 18, 2024 (Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images).
The nation’s most conservative federal appeals court has turned down Louisiana’s request to begin enforcing its controversial “Ten Commandments Law” while litigation about the law’s constitutionality proceeds.
Louisiana passed a new law in June that made it he first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom by Jan. 1, 2025. Under the new statute, the commandments must be displayed, “on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches,” in “a large, easily readable font.”
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, insisted the law was a way of respecting “the original law giver, Moses,” and bragged, “I can’t wait to be sued,” in response to concerns about the law’s constitutionality.
The ACLU called the law “blatantly unconstitutional,” and filed a lawsuit on behalf of Louisiana families with children in public schools to challenge it.
U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles, a Barack Obama appointee, agreed with the ACLU and ruled on Nov. 12 that the law was “unconstitutional on its face” due to its “overtly religious purpose,” and issued a preliminary injunction blocking its enforcement.
However, the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit narrowed deGravelles’s injunction last week when it ruled 2-1 that the injunction only applied to the five public school districts that are actually named as defendants in the lawsuit: East Baton Rouge, Livingston, Orleans, St. Tammany and Vernon parishes. U.S. Circuit Judges Jerry Edwin Smith, a Ronald Reagan appointee, and Kurt Engelhardt, a Donald Trump appointee, made up the majority. Barack Obama appointee James E. Graves said he would have denied Louisiana’s motion.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill next asked the Fifth Circuit to throw out a temporary hold on enforcement of the law while the underlying litigation proceeds. However, the appeals court refused on Wednesday and left deGravelles’s injunction in place. The case, however, was set for expedited oral arguments, which are now scheduled for Jan. 23.
“We’re pleased that the Court of Appeals left the district court’s injunction fully intact,” said Heather Weaver, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU. “As the district court ruled, this law is unconstitutional on its face.”
Murrill, however, said that it was, “important to recognize that this is a preliminary ruling that applies only to the five school boards who were sued,” and promised, “We look forward to continuing to defend this clearly constitutional law.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled over four decades ago that laws requiring postings of the Ten Commandments in classrooms is unconstitutional. No ruling has ever overturned that precedent, and several later cases reinforced its holding. In recent years, other states, including Texas, Oklahoma, and Utah, have also attempted to enforce similar requirements to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms, but as yet, none have successfully overcome legal challenges.
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