Louisiana Tries To Enforce Ten Commandments Law Despite Court Ruling
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has told school boards how to comply with the state’s law requiring public classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, despite a federal district judge’s November 2024 ruling declaring it unconstitutional and prohibiting its enforcement.
Instead, Murrill has told boards in 59 parishes that Judge John deGravelles’ ruling only applies to five parishes who sued the state over the law’s legality. Murrill, in her Jan. 3 letter to school boards, did not acknowledge that the law has been declared unconstitutional “in all applications,” but rather declared the law, “is plainly constitutional because there are constitutionally sound ways to implement it.”
Plaintiffs who were successful in blocking the law’s enforcement notified school superintendents by letter Jan. 6, describing Murrill’s guidance as “misleading,” reminding them of the facts of the case, and encouraging them to respect the federal court ruling, which Murrill has appealed. The next court date is Jan. 23.
“The AG’s guidance nevertheless claims that all school boards, except for the five school-board defendants in the Roake case, remain obligated to comply with H.B. 71,” wrote the plaintiffs, including Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Louisiana, the ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. “…[E]ven though your district is not a party to the ongoing lawsuit, and therefore is not technically subject to the district court’s injunction, all school districts have an independent obligation to respect students’ and families’ constitutional rights.
“Because the U.S. Constitution supersedes state law, and because a federal district court has held H.B. 71 to be facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment, public-school officials may not comply with it.”
Murrill acknowledged a part of deGravelle’s ruling in a footnote to her letter.
“In an ongoing lawsuit, five parish school boards — St. Tammany, Livingston, East Baton Rouge, Orleans and Vernon — are enjoined from implementing H.B. 71,” Murrill wrote in the footnote. “See Roake v. Brumley, No. 24-30706 (5th Cir.) My office has appealed that ruling to the Fifth Circuit, which will hear oral argument on January 23. While that injunction remains in effect, therefore, those five parishes may not implement H.B. 71. But that injunction does not govern the remainder of our parish school boards, as well as all other public schools, all of which remain obligated to comply with H.B. 71.”
Similar bills died in Texas and Oklahoma in 2024, but Oklahoma Rep. Jim Olsen refiled his bill this legislative session to display the Ten Commandments in public schools in Oklahoma, and has secured a first reading in February. Texas lawmakers have also expressed plans to give their bill another round.
Louisiana’s H.B. 71, signed into law by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry in June 2024, required a specified Protestant version of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public schools in Louisiana by January 2025.
The law applied to all public elementary, secondary and postsecondary schools, from kindergarten through college, and mandated a version of the Ten Commandments different from that used by Catholics, who comprise 26 percent of the state’s adults, second only to the 27 percent of evangelical Protestants, according to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study. But the law does not apply to Catholic schools.
In addition to the plaintiffs named above, nine families including Christian pastors, Jewish leaders and others filed a lawsuit challenging H-71.
“The Court finds that House Bill No. 71, Act No. 676, is facially unconstitutional and unconstitutional in all applications,” deGravelle ruled, according to the ruling filed with Louisiana Middle District Court.
He prohibited the state from enforcing the law, adopting rules or regulations for its enforcement, or “requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in every public-school classroom in Louisiana in accordance with H.B. 71.”
DeGravelle also ordered Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to notify all Louisiana public elementary, secondary and charter schools, and all public post-secondary educational institutions of the law’s unconstitutionality.
This article has been republished with permission from Baptist Press.
Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.