Louisiana

Lawsuits expected over Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law

Published

6 days ago

June 21, 2024

Lawsuits expected over Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE)—A new Louisiana law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments is fueling debate inside the state and around the country, with promises of legal challenges.

Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican, signed House Bill 71 into law this week, but the ACLU of Louisiana plans to sue Landry in federal court over the new law, citing constitutional grounds.

“When children have the Ten Commandments, which are a very sacred Judeo-Christian text within the context of the classroom, we’re certainly suggesting to them, if not, in fact, even endorsing a particular religion in the classroom, and that we find to be violative of both the Constitution and the First Amendment,” said Alanah Odoms, Executive Director of the ACLU of Louisiana.

However, Christian conservatives and others who support the new law strongly support the requirement.

“We’re certainly, at [La.] Family Forum, excited about the possibility of reintroducing authentic history and a little bit of Western civilization in the education system. So, we think it’s a positive move in the right direction, and done appropriately, will have positive effects,” said Gene Mills, President of Louisiana Family Forum.

Odoms said two clauses in the U.S. Constitution apply to problems with the new law.

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“The first is called the free exercise of religion clause and that means that each person has the opportunity and the right to be able to decide what faith they will be, and they also have the opportunity to decide whether they will have a faith at all,” Odoms said. “And so, that actually works in conjunction with another really important clause in the First Amendment called the establishment clause.”

Further, she said, “The government cannot select or prefer one religion over another, and cannot prefer religion over a non-religion. So, it can’t proselytize. it can’t coerce people to choose a certain faith and so what we find with HB 71 is that it actually violates both clauses, the free exercise clause and the establishment clause of the first amendment.”

Mills said in response, “I disagree. I would follow up with a question that’s not a rhetorical question, which religion does it impose?”

Some argue that if opponents do not prevail in court against the new law, it could allow those of other faiths to demand that tenets of their religion be posted in Louisiana’s public school classrooms.

“I think people certainly could make an argument that in order to ensure that the government is not favoring one religion over another, that other religious ideas and other religious texts, perhaps should also be in the classroom,” Odoms said. “But I think the more important thing to think about is the fact that there’s 40 years of longstanding precedent in this country, which was articulated in a case called Stone versus Graham, that says that you cannot pass a law that has a non-secular purpose or a religious purpose. and you cannot essentially validate the government choosing a religion, one religion over another.”

Mills believes the law will withstand legal challenges.

“My sense is this is going to withstand constitutional challenge because it was written in such a way to reflect both the secular and the historical context that the Decalogue has had in both America’s foundation and in Western civilization. There is no censorship, there’s no forced religion, there is no imposing, there’s no public expenses. This is done at not a taxpayer dollar, but with resources that are found outside of taxpayer dollars,” he said.

Decalogue is another term for the Ten Commandments.

Odoms said, “And if we mandate that children go to school, we also have to be really careful that the government is not mandating a certain religion.”

Louisiana Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill issued the following statement:

“The 10 Commandments are pretty simple (don’t kill, steal, cheat on your wife), but they also are important to our country’s foundations. Moses, who you may recall brought the 10 Commandments down from Mount Sinai, appears eight times in carvings that ring the United States Supreme Court Great Hall ceiling. I look forward to defending the law.”

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Louisiana

Are unemployment rates declining in Louisiana?

Published

3 hours ago

June 27, 2024

Press Room

Are unemployment rates declining in Louisiana?

BATON ROUGE, La. (KALB) – A report released by the Louisiana Workforce Commission on June 25 revealed how unemployment rates changed in Louisiana in May.

According to the LWC report, with data directly sourced from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2024 unemployment rate in Louisiana decreased to 4.1% from April to May.

The unemployment rate saw a total decrease of 0.2% when compared to April’s rate of 4.3%. Despite an improvement between months, the unemployment rate was lower in May 2023, sitting at 3.4%.

The number of unemployed workers in May of 2024 was 86,120 individuals, an increase of over 16,000 people since May 2023.

The industries with the highest increase in jobs between May of 2023 and 2024 were construction with 6,500 jobs, government with 3,600 and professional & business services with 1,600 jobs.

According to the LWC from May 2023 to May 2024:

Alexandria gained 600 jobs (61,900 jobs)
Baton Rouge gained 6,800 jobs (423,800 jobs)
Hammond gained 100 jobs (49,700 jobs)
Houma gained 900 jobs (85,900 jobs)
Lafayette gained 600 jobs (205,400 jobs)
Lake Charles gained 1,700 jobs (96,800 jobs)
Monroe lost 1,500 jobs (76,700 jobs)
New Orleans lost 1,700 jobs (565,700 jobs)
Shreveport lost 1,900 jobs (177,100 jobs)

All data cited from the Louisana Workforce Commission are ‘seasonally adjusted statistics’. Seasonally adjusted data are used to reflect how employment and unemployment measures change from month to month without the inclusion of season pattern influences such as holidays, agricultural harvests and school schedules.

You can view all unemployment data in Louisiana here.

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Louisiana

Louisiana colleges will soon see more freedom in how they set tuition and mandatory fees

Published

10 hours ago

June 26, 2024

Press Room

The following has been provided by the La Illuminator:

Louisiana Colleges will soon see more freedom in how they set tuition and mandatory fees, thanks to a bill that has now been put into law, without the governor’s signature.

House Bill 862 by Rep. Jason Hughes, D-New Orleans, would allow boards for Louisiana’s four university systems to set differential tuition for any graduate, professional or high-cost undergraduate programs. The bill would also give the boards complete control over mandatory fees.

The legislation was amended to align its effective date with a 2022 law that exempts certain graduate assistants from mandatory fees.

Differential tuition is an amount charged on top of base tuition for more expensive academic programs, such as lab-heavy curricula in science or engineering. The Board of Regents, the state oversight board for all higher education, would identify which programs are considered “high-cost.”

Louisiana requires a two-thirds of the Legislature to sign off on any tuition changes at its public colleges and universities. Most other states leave this decision up to higher education management boards.

Hughes’ bill would not allow university systems to raise fees and differential tuition more than 10% every two years. It also allows schools to lower tuition and fees without limits. The ability to lower tuition has been sought for some high-demand fields such as teaching. The bill would not have an impact on the cost of TOPS, which provides state-funded student aid to many Louisiana students, as the amount of the award is no longer directly tied to the cost of tuition.

The proposal also gives university systems control over mandatory fees for any program. Tuition and fees at Louisiana universities increased drastically during the 2010s, when the burden to finance higher education was shifted from the state to students.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and X.

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Louisiana

Residents sue Louisiana to block Ten Commandments in schools

Published

17 hours ago

June 26, 2024

Press Room

Residents sue Louisiana to block Ten Commandments in schools

Schools and colleges are required to set up these displays by Jan. 1, 2025.

When reached for comment, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement provided to CNA that the government “cannot comment on a lawsuit we haven’t seen [yet].”

“It seems the ACLU only selectively cares about the First Amendment — it doesn’t care when the Biden administration censors speech or arrests pro-life protesters, but apparently it will fight to prevent posters that discuss our own legal history,” Murrill said.

The lawsuit, which represents nine families who have children in the state’s public education system, argues that the mandate violates both the establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

The text of the lawsuit alleges that a “state-sanctioned version of the Ten Commandments … prefers and imposes a set of distinct religious norms” on students. It further argues that the students will be “coerced into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious Scripture” by displaying the text.

It also claims that the law violates parental rights by jeopardizing their “ability to direct their children’s religious education and religious upbringing.”

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