Federal judge blocks law requiring Ten Commandments displays in Louisiana classrooms

A Louisiana law requiring Ten Commandments displays in public school classrooms is on hold after a federal judge ruled Tuesday that it likely violates religious freedom protections.
In granting a preliminary injunction, “the judge said the law is ‘unconstitutional on its face’ and plaintiffs are likely to win their case with claims that the law violates the First Amendment,” per The Associated Press.
U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles’ ruling comes five months after Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed the Ten Commandments law, which was meant to take effect in early 2025.
The law would have required the text of the Ten Commandments to be prominently displayed in public classrooms across the state, including at colleges and universities.
Opponents of Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law have been predicting Tuesday’s ruling for months.
They cited past Supreme Court rulings on religious freedom to explain their position, noting that the Supreme Court has raised concerns about requiring Ten Commandments displays on government property in multiple cases and, in the 1980s, overturned a Kentucky law requiring Ten Commandments displays in public schools.
That ruling from the 1980s said that Ten Commandments displays were “plainly religious in nature” and therefore violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, as the Deseret News previously reported.
Supporters of Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law, on the other hand, said that the policy would withstand legal challenges since the text is historically significant and relevant to secular education.
“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” Landry said in June, according to The Associated Press.
The Tuesday ruling on Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law came in a case brought by parents of children in the state’s public school system.
The parents’ lawsuit alleged that the policy violated federal religious freedom protections because it amounted to state support of Christian teachings.
In his ruling, Judge deGravelles wrote that the parents’ argument is likely to succeed. But the ruling does not resolve the case or overturn Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law — it just puts it on hold as the case continues.
The legal battle in Louisiana could hold implications for schools across the country since similar Ten Commandments laws have been introduced in multiple state legislatures in recent years.
Earlier this year, Utah passed a law that added the Ten Commandments to a list of texts that teachers can use in history lessons, as the Deseret News previously reported.