Court Rules No Ten Commandments Display In Louisiana Schools

A federal appeals court has ruled that a Louisiana law mandating the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms is “facially unconstitutional.”

NBC News reports that the court ruled unanimously in favor of a coalition of Louisiana parents representing Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and nonreligious backgrounds. “Parents and students challenge a statute requiring public schools to permanently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom in Louisiana. The district court found the statute facially unconstitutional and preliminarily enjoined its enforcement. We affirm,” the court said in its ruling. 

The case was originally brought to a lower court in November, which also found the law to be unconstitutional. The ruling now brings the matter closer to the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.

Louisiana’s law went into effect earlier this year for K-12 schools as well as state-funded universities. The law is still active throughout the state, though the five districts listed in the suit are exempt from putting up the Ten Commandments displays while the case plays out. 

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about how Louisiana is applying the law in terms of how many schools have begun hanging up Ten Commandments posters and what exactly the punishment would be if a school chose not to comply with the law. Comments from the defendants in the lawsuit imply that the posters have yet to go up in classrooms throughout the state. 

“The plaintiffs seek to challenge hypothetical displays that do not exist and that they have never seen,”  Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga argued during one of the hearings in the appeals court. “The plaintiffs jumped the gun here and filed an unripe case.”

I find that argument strange. Does Aguiñaga think that if the parents saw the posters their reaction would be “Ohhhh, I thought it was going to be a blue poster of the Ten Commandments, but now I see that the poster is red. My bad.” It doesn’t matter how they look, it’s the principle of the matter. 

Jonathan Youngwood, a lawyer for the coalition of parents, argued that the law inherently violated the separation of church and state. 

“What makes this so significant is the requirement that it be in every single [classroom] throughout your 13 years in public school, 177 days a year,” Youngwood said. “It can’t be avoided. It can’t be averted.”

“We are grateful for this decision, which honors the religious diversity and religious-freedom rights of public school families across Louisiana,” said the Rev. Darcy Roake, who is a plaintiff in the case.

Along with the three branches of government, one of the first things taught to us in elementary school civics was the separation of church and state, and why it exists. America is a country filled with Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Jewish folks, atheists, and women who ask about your star chart on the first date, and all those belief systems are valid! 

The state prioritizing one religion over another is sending the message that everyone else’s beliefs aren’t valid. It’s incredibly messed up to try and indoctrinate children into a religion they may not understand and that their family doesn’t practice. 

Yet that hasn’t stopped Republican led states throughout the country from trying to bring a Christian Nationalist agenda into their schools. Earlier this year, Oklahoma’s Board of Education voted 5-1 to approve a new curriculum that would require the Bible and American patriotism to be taught in schools. Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters also mandated that the Bible be in every classroom in Oklahoma. 

Similar bills were introduced in Georgia and Texas. The bills in Texas not only want the Ten Commandments in class, but also allow for Bible reading and prayer in schools. So, teaching about the role race has played in America and protests against police are a no-go, but violating the separation of church and state is perfectly fine. Nothing like some good old-fashioned, GOP hypocrisy. 

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