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US judge declares Louisiana's Ten Commandments law unconstitutional
The judge rule that the displays would pressure them into adopting the state's preferred religious teachings.
FILE PHOTO: The flag of the U.S. state Louisiana is seen in this illustration taken, August 21, 2024. / REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
A federal judge on Nov. 12 declared unconstitutional a Louisiana law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public school classrooms in the Southern state.
U.S. District Judge John deGravelles said the law conflicted with a 1980 U.S. Supreme Court decision voiding a similar law in Kentucky, and violated the religious rights of people who opposed the displays.
He also called the law "discriminatory and coercive," saying Louisiana expects children to attend school at least 177 days per year, and the displays would pressure them into adopting the state's preferred religious teachings.
"Each of the plaintiffs' minor children will be forced in every practical sense, through Louisiana's required attendance policy, to be a 'captive audience,'" wrote deGravelles, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, in a 177-page decision.
Nine families, including several clergy, with children in public schools filed the lawsuit five days later in the federal court in Louisiana's capital, Baton Rouge, seeking an injunction against the law.
The various plaintiffs are either Unitarian Universalist, Jewish, Presbyterian, nonreligious or atheist.
Louisiana became the only U.S. state requiring displays of the Ten Commandments when Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican, signed the law on June 19. Schools were required to comply by Jan. 1, 2025.
Landry's office and the office of state Attorney General Liz Murrill, also a Republican, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lawyers for the families did not immediately respond to similar requests.
Louisiana's law is part of a broader push by conservative groups to make expressions of faith more prominent in society.
Some hope that the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority would uphold such laws against legal challenges.
The court sided in 2022 with a Washington state high school football coach who claimed a constitutional right to pray with his players at the 50-yard line after games.
Judge deGravelles said Louisiana's law was unconstitutional under that decision as well, because there was no "broader tradition" of using the Ten Commandments in public education.
Louisiana could appeal the judge's decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, widely considered among the most conservative federal appeals courts.
The case is Roake et al v Brumley et al, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Louisiana, No. 24-00517.
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