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.