Louisiana Faces Lawsuit Over Requirement to Display Ten Commandments in Public School Classrooms

A group of nine Louisiana families have filed a lawsuit against the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (LSBESE) and others in response to the state’s recently-approved law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public school classrooms.

Under this legislation, schools will have until January 1 of next year to display “a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches” in every classroom with the Ten Commandments as its “central focus” and “printed in a large, easily readable font.”

The text of the bill includes the Ten Commandments among “historical documents” such as the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence.

It also requires that a context statement be displayed alongside the Ten Commandments describing its history with respect to schools, stating that it played a “prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”

The law goes on to state that schools are not required to spend their own funds to purchase the displays mandated under this law and may instead either use donated funds or accept donated displays.

In their complaint, the Louisiana families allege that this requirement that the display of “scriptural dictates” in which this law would result “simply cannot be reconciled with the fundamental religious-freedom principles that animated the founding of our nation.”

“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,” the complaint states.

“It also sends the harmful and religiously divisive message that students who do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments—or, more precisely, to the specific version of the Ten Commandments that H.B. 71 requires schools to display—do not belong in their own school community and should refrain from expressing any faith practices or beliefs that are not aligned with the state’s religious preferences,” they argue. “And it substantially interferes with and burdens the right of parents to direct their children’s religious education and upbringing.”

The lawsuit alleges that requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed represents a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise clauses.

To support these allegations, the families’ legal team cites the Supreme Court’s ruling in the 1980 case of Stone v. Graham in which it was found that a Kentucky law mandating the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom violated the Establishment Clause because the mandate “had no secular legislative purpose” and was “plainly religious in nature.”

Louisiana lawmakers outlined legal precedent of their own in drafting the law at the heart of this challenge, including Supreme Court rulings from 2005 and 2019.

The 5-4 ruling in 2005’s Van Orden v. Perry found that the Constitution’s establishment clause did not prohibit a Ten Commandments monument from being located on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol building as it was determined to be in the tradition of recognizing their historical meaning.

According to the Court, “simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause.”

The Justices further stated in their 2019 ruling in the case of American Legion v. American Humanists Association that the Ten Commandments “have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system.”

Click Here to Read the Full Text of the Bill

As a result of this lawsuit, the families seek to have the courts declare the state’s new law unconstitutional and provide permanent injunctive relief preventing the policy from being enforced, as well as blocking the Ten Commandments from being displayed in any public school classroom.

Click Here to Read the Full Complaint