Federal appeals court finds Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law unconstitutional
Meanwhile, Texas governor adds his signature to similar legislation
A 2024 Louisiana law requiring the posting of an abridged version the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms is unconstitutional because it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, a panel from the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Friday.
Louisiana school officials told news media afterward that they would immediately appeal the decision to the full appeals court and to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary after that.
By passing House Bill 71 last year, Louisiana became the first state in modern times to require the posting of the Ten Commandments, a goal that many in the Christian nationalist movement have had. Legislators in Arkansas and Texas followed suit earlier this year, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced today that he had signed his state’s bill; opponents have filed a lawsuit in Arkansas and have said that they will do the same in Texas before the states’ laws can go in effect.
The vote of the appeals court panel in Roake v. Brumley1 was 3-0. Circuit Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote the opinion. Judges James Dennis and Catharina Hayes, appointed by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively, concurred.
The court based its ruling in part on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in Stone v. Graham, which struck down a similar Ten Commandments law in Kentucky, in part because it had no secular legislative purpose. The appeals court found that Supreme Court decisions since then that have been seen as expanding the promotion of religion in public schools did not overrule Stone.
In agreeing that the Louisiana statute doesn’t have a secular purpose, the judges pointed to signs indicating that the House Bill 71 has religious purposes. According to the plaintiffs quoted in the opinion:
HB 71’s primary author and sponsor stated during a legislative debate: “It is so important that our children learn what God says is right, and what he says is wrong, and to allow [the Ten Commandments] to be displayed in our classrooms as a visual aid, I believe, especially in this day and time is so important.”
That legislator also stated: “You know, not all children ... are taught right from wrong. ... But I believe when I went to school, I learned ... to know there was a God by reciting the Ten Commandments ... . I knew what God said was right, and what he said was wrong, ... not all of us were taught that.”
Another sponsor of the bill claimed that those opposing the legislation were engaged in an “attack on Christianity” and suggested that posting the Biblical passage would serve as a counterbalance to secular education: “My wife is a Christian and if she was a teacher she would be asked to teach evolution which is in complete contradiction with the theory of creation that we believe out of the Bible. ... I am a parent and am asking for this [bill].”
In light of the legislative history, the judges found that a lower court did not err in finding that the purpose of the bill was to advance a religious viewpoint and that a “religious objective permeated the government’s action.”
What’s happening in Arkansas and Texas
With support from the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations, a group of parents challenged Arkansas’s Ten Commandments legislation earlier this month in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.
In Stinson v. Fayetteville School District, the parents claim that the Arkansas law, known as Act 573, “simply cannot be reconciled with the fundamental religious-freedom principles that animated the founding of our nation.”
Like the plaintiffs in the Louisiana case, the Arkansas plaintiffs claim that the new law has a religious purpose:
The state’s main interest in displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools under Act 573 is to impose religious beliefs on public-school children, regardless of the harm to students’ and families’ religious freedom. As one Arkansas legislator proclaimed in defending the school scriptural displays: “I think that anything we can do to try to increase access to or spread that gospel ... would be something that I would want us to do as a person of faith.”
The ACLU also says it plans to sue over similar legislation passed in Texas in late May and signed by the governor today.
The new Texas law “is religiously coercive and interferes with families’ right to direct children’s religious education,” the ACLU said shortly after the legislative action.
Abbott announced the signing in a press statement today listing hundreds of bills that he had signed. He did not call extra attention to the Ten Commandments bill but has long been an advocate of such a proposal.
The governor’s announcement also said he had signed Senate Bill 11, which allows schools to provide students and employees a “period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious text” outside of instructional time. Students would need parental permission to participate, and the religious text could not be read over a public address system.
The case is named after the Rev. Darcy Roake, one of the plaintiffs; and Cade Brumley, Louisiana’s superintendent of public instruction. The list of plaintiffs includes parents and children from several religious traditions or none, while various education board members are also included as defendants.