Federal appeals court considers Ten Commandments in classrooms

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday was scheduled to hear arguments about whether Louisiana classrooms could be legally required to display the Biblical Ten Commandments. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry last summer signed into law a bill to put a copy of the Ten Commandments in every classroom in his state starting on Jan. 1, 2025. The American Civil Liberties Union promptly sued, claiming the law violated the First Amendment. Several months later, a federal judge blocked the law from going into effect, saying he believed the ACLU would likely win the case.

Will the law succeed? The U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1980 in its Stone v. Graham decision that a Kentucky law requiring every classroom in the state to display the Ten Commandments violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. That clause requires the government not to make any law either promoting or suppressing an established religion.

Dig deeper: Listen to Kim Henderson’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about how Louisiana lawmakers carefully crafted the Ten Commandments law with the First Amendment in mind.