Some Louisiana schools can’t post Ten Commandments while law is challenged

But while the law is tested in court, Louisiana has to hold off on posting biblical signs in the five parishes where the plaintiffs’ children attend school, according to an agreement approved Friday by a federal judge.

In an order, U.S. District Judge John deGravelles of Louisiana’s Middle District set a hearing for Sept. 30 with a ruling expected by Nov. 15. Until then, the Ten Commandments can’t be displayed in schools located in the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Livingston, Orleans, St. Tammany and Vernon. Additionally, the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education cannot “promulgate advice, rules or regulations regarding proper implementation” of the new law until Nov. 15, the agreement states.

Under the new law, public K-12 schools and college classrooms must display the Ten Commandments — religious and ethical directives that in the Bible are handed down to the prophet Moses — on posters measuring at least 11 by 14 inches and featuring “large, easily readable font.” Schools are also required to post a three-paragraph statement that explains how the texts were “a prominent part of American public education” from the late 17th century through the late 20th century. The law gives schools until Jan. 1 to put up the Ten Commandments, and requires them to use donated posters or spend donated money, rather than public funds, to buy the displays.

Since it overwhelmingly passed in the Republican-controlled state legislature, the law has drawn national attention and become the latest example of lawmakers undertaking efforts that blur the lines between church and state — a battle that has particularly been brewing in public schools.

Five days after Landry signed the bill, on June 24, a coalition of advocacy groups, including the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the American Civil Liberties Union’s national and state offices, filed a federal lawsuit. The plaintiffs in the case are nine Louisiana families of different faiths — among them four members of the clergy — who allege the law violates First Amendment language forbidding government establishment of religion and guaranteeing religious liberty.

“Permanently posting the Ten Commandments in every Louisiana public-school classroom — rendering them unavoidable — unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture,” says the suit, which charges that there is no long-standing tradition of hanging the commandments in classrooms and that courts have already ruled against the practice.

On July 8, the groups filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the court to refrain from imposing the law or allowing any related enforcement of it during pending legal proceedings. The move, said Rev. Darcy Roake, a plaintiff in the case, sought to “ensure that our family’s religious-freedom rights are protected from day one of the upcoming school year.”

“The Ten Commandments displays required under state law will create an unwelcoming and oppressive school environment for children, like ours, who don’t believe in the state’s official version of scripture,” Darcy said in a statement this month. “We believe that no child should feel excluded in public school because of their family’s faith tradition.”

However, under the terms of the agreement, only students in five Louisiana parishes won’t see the Ten Commandments when they return to school next month.

The latest pushes to post the Ten Commandments in schools comes after similar — albeit failed — attempts throughout decades. In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that a similar law in Kentucky violated the establishment clause of the Constitution, which bars the federal government from favoring any one religion. Other proposals to display the Ten Commandments in schools have been introduced — but have not become law — in Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and South Carolina.

Yet, recent Supreme Court rulings have been more lenient toward religion in schools. In 2022, the court ruled in favor of a Washington state football coach who knelt at midfield to pray and was joined by student-athletes. The prayers were protected by the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech and religious exercise, the court ruled.

The Louisiana law has already been praised by members of the religious right and has found the support of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

During a gathering of the evangelical Faith and Freedom Coalition, Trump endorsed the Ten Commandments law, telling attendees: “Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal?’ I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible. They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.’’

At the Republican National Convention on Thursday, the law was once again touted — this time by Landry, who connected it with the assassination attempt against Trump.

“I would submit that maybe if the Ten Commandments were hanging on [Thomas Matthew Crooks’] wall at the school that he was in, maybe he wouldn’t have took a shot at the president,” Landry said in an interview with Nexstar, the Louisiana Illuminator reported.

Anumita Kaur and Michelle Boorstein contributed to this report.