A federal appeals court has ruled that Louisiana may proceed with enforcing a state law requiring public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, lifting a previous injunction that had blocked implementation of the measure.
In a per curiam decision issued Friday in Roake v. Brumley, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated an earlier order that prevented the law from taking effect.
The court explained that the legal challenge brought by parents depends on factual and contextual issues that have not yet been fully developed, concluding that the prior injunction was premature.
“The parents’ challenge turns on unresolved factual and contextual questions,” the opinion stated, adding that halting enforcement of the law at this stage was “premature.”
“There can be no doubt that the Ten Commandments bear immense religious significance,” the appeals court wrote. “But they also ‘have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system.’ … That dual character forecloses any categorical rule against their display on public property.”
Judges further noted that the statute grants discretion to local school boards regarding how the displays are implemented, leaving important details undetermined.
Because the law leaves Ten Commandments displays “entirely to the discretion of local school boards,” the court said there remain “numerous essential questions unanswered.”
“We do not know, for example, how prominently the displays will appear, what other materials might accompany them, or how — if at all — teachers will reference them during instruction,” the opinion continued.
“More fundamentally, we do not even know the full content of the displays themselves. Although the statute requires inclusion of the Commandments and a context statement, it expressly permits additional content — such as ‘the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance’ — to appear alongside them.”
Louisiana lawmakers passed House Bill 71 in 2024, mandating that public school classrooms display a copy of the Ten Commandments measuring at least 11 by 14 inches. The legislation, signed into law by Gov. Jeff Landry, also allows schools to post other historical documents, including the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence.
Soon after the bill became law, several progressive legal organizations filed suit on behalf of a multifaith group of parents with children enrolled in Louisiana public schools, arguing the measure violated the First Amendment.
In June of last year, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit upheld a lower court’s injunction blocking the law. Judge Ramirez, writing for the panel, said the statute “inflicts significant practical harm on Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.”
However, last October the full Fifth Circuit vacated that earlier ruling in a brief per curiam order and agreed to rehear the case en banc.
