Appeals Court to Reconsider Louisiana Law Requiring Schools to Display Ten Commandments

The court previously held that Louisiana’s law violated the First Amendment.

Workers remove a monument bearing the Ten Commandments outside West Union High School in West Union, Ohio, on June 9, 2003. Al Behrman/AP Photo

A federal appeals court has decided to reconsider whether Louisiana violated the First Amendment through a law requiring schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled against the law in June. But the court said on Oct. 6 that it would accept a request to have the whole court, which includes 17 judges, hear Louisiana’s attempt to salvage the law from a lower court’s block.

“I’m glad to see the Fifth Circuit is taking this en banc. Looking forward to those arguments in court,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a news release. The case could reach the Supreme Court, as Murrill previously indicated she was willing to appeal it to that level in the court system.

It touches on key questions surrounding the First Amendment and comes amid a similar effort by Texas, which also falls within the Fifth Circuit’s jurisdiction, to place the Ten Commandments in its classrooms. A federal judge blocked that law in August, but the ruling only applied to 11 out of the more than 1,200 school districts in the state. Four school districts in Arkansas were also blocked from implementing a similar law in the state.

A group of parents sued over Louisiana’s law, known as House Bill 71, last year. The bill required public schools to post a state-approved version of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. According to the parents, the law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

In its 3–0 decision from June, the Fifth Circuit cited this clause while upholding a lower court’s block on the law. Writing for the court, U.S. Circuit Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez said that the law was “plainly unconstitutional” based on the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a similar law.

In Stone v. Graham, a majority of the Supreme Court said in 1980 that Kentucky violated the First Amendment with its attempt to require classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.

“The preeminent purpose of posting the Ten Commandments, which do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, is plainly religious in nature, and the posting serves no constitutional educational function,” the court said.

According to the three-judge panel, a Ten Commandments display that meets Louisiana’s minimum requirements is “materially identical to the displays challenged in Stone.”

Louisiana has argued that the Stone case was based on reasoning that the Supreme Court has since walked back. It also questioned whether the courts could rule on the case since the parents hadn’t yet encountered the displays.

Louisiana’s Legislature also argued that the Ten Commandments are in accordance with the nation’s history. It stated that the law “reflected the understanding of the founders of our nation with respect to the necessity of civic morality to a functional self-government.”

While the three-judge panel acknowledged that the Ten Commandments contained “basic principles that are part of a civilized society,” it also stated that “they come from religious texts and include commandments that have clear religious import.”

The parents told the Fifth Circuit in July that they shouldn’t have to wait for an actual encounter with the Ten Commandments displays and that a mere threat of encounter was enough for the court.

They also argued that the three-judge panel was right in how it applied the Stone case and that another portion of the First Amendment, known as the Free Exercise Clause, was at stake.  More specifically, they indicated the displays would interfere with parents’ right to instill particular religious beliefs in their children.

Sylvia Xu contributed to this report.