Federal judge blocks Louisiana law mandating Ten Commandments in school classrooms

CNA Staff, Nov 13, 2024 / 13:35 pm

A federal judge in Louisiana on Tuesday blocked a state law that requires schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, describing the measure as both “coercive” and “unconstitutional.” 

A coalition of state residents had sued the Louisiana government earlier this year to block the state rule, arguing that the displays would run afoul of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In his ruling on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John deGravelles said the rule violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment and further that it constitutes a “coercive” state measure since parents are required by law to send their children to school. 

There are “any number of ways that the state could advance an alleged interest in educating students about the Ten Commandments that would be less burdensome on the First Amendment” than the posting rule, deGravelles said.

Students “cannot opt out of viewing the Ten Commandments when they are displayed in every classroom, every day of the year, every year of their education,” the judge noted. 

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who is Catholic, signed the legislation earlier this year. It requires that the Ten Commandments be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least 11 inches wide and 14 inches tall. 

The commandments must be the central focus of the display, according to the law, and the display must include a statement about the history of the Ten Commandments in American public education.

State Attorney General Liz Murrill said on X on Tuesday that the state “strongly disagree[s] with the court’s decision.” Louisiana will “immediately appeal” the ruling, she said. 

The judge’s ruling appeared to block the law throughout the entire state, though Murrill claimed that the ruling does not apply to the state as a whole but only to the school boards named in the lawsuit.

“School boards are independently elected, local political subdivisions in Louisiana. Only five school boards are defendants; therefore the judge only has jurisdiction over those five,” she said. “This is far from over.”

Chad Pecknold, a professor of systematic theology and theological politics at The Catholic University of America, told CNA earlier this year that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that displays of the Ten Commandments are “not inherently unconstitutional.”

The professor said at the time that he did not see any First Amendment violations in the legislation.

“Displaying the Ten Commandments for educational purposes, as well as cultural memory, does not violate the First Amendment,” Pecknold said.

“The Mosaic law has profoundly influenced the Western legal tradition, the Declaration of Independence, and not without import for this recent challenge, the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement itself,” he added.