In Louisiana, Ten Commandments Go Back to School
The Ten Commandments are going back to school in Louisiana this year.
In 2024, Louisiana passed a law allowing Ten Commandments displays in public school classrooms, but the measure drew immediate legal challenges from groups like the ACLU. However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the legal challenge was “premature” because the displays had not actually been put up in schools yet. The judges noted that deciding whether the displays are constitutional or not would force the court “to hypothesize an open-ended range of possible classroom displays,” the court said. “[That] is not judging; it is guessing.”
KSLA reports some Louisiana schools began displaying the Ten Commandments during the past school year while others plan to begin displaying them this year.
In April, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that a Texas law placing the Ten Commandments in school classrooms did not violate the Constitution. The court noted that “no child is required to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin.”
The legal battles over the Ten Commandments in Texas and Louisiana directly relate to a similar legal battle in Arkansas.
Last year, lawmakers passed Act 573 of 2025 by Sen. Jim Dotson (R — Bentonville) and Rep. Alyssa Brown (R — Heber Springs) requiring privately-funded copies of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools and other public buildings in Arkansas. The measure received strong support from the Arkansas Legislature.
However, lawyers from the ACLU and a group of atheist organizations sued to block the law, and the federal judge presiding over the case issued decisions claiming the Ten Commandments posters would pressure children “to observe, meditate on, venerate, and follow the State’s favored religious text, and to suppress expression of their own religious beliefs and backgrounds at school.”
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has asked the 8th Circuit to let reverse the lower court decision and let Arkansas follow Act 573.
Nothing in Act 573 “pressures” students. In 2017, Arkansas passed the National Motto Display Act allowing the national motto — “In God We Trust” — to be displayed in Arkansas’ classrooms along with the U.S. flag and the Arkansas flag. Act 573 amended the National Motto Display Act to add the Ten Commandments to the list of historical items displayed in school.
Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states are free to honor and recognize documents or symbols that are important to our nation’s history — like the Ten Commandments or the national motto. Courts have also ruled that public school students are free to study religious texts like the Bible academically.
During her testimony for Act 573 last year, Rep. Alyssa Brown noted that the U.S. Supreme Court now uses a “longstanding history and tradition test” to decide if it is constitutional to display something like a copy of the Ten Commandments. Rep. Brown said, “The Ten Commandments without a doubt will pass this longstanding history and tradition test.”
We believe our federal courts will agree and uphold Act 573 as constitutional.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
Family Council Files Amicus Brief Defending Ten Commandments Monument in Federal Court
On Wednesday, Family Council filed an amicus brief in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals defending Arkansas’ monument of the Ten Commandments.
In 2015, the Arkansas General Assembly passed a law authorizing a privately funded monument of the Ten Commandments at the Capitol Building in Little Rock, and the monument was finally unveiled three years later. But almost immediately, atheist groups filed a lawsuit to remove the monument from the Capitol grounds. The case languished in federal court until a judge ruled against the monument earlier this year.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has appealed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to keep the Ten Commandments monument on the State Capitol grounds. On Wednesday, attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom representing Family Council filed an amicus brief defending the monument as well.
The amicus brief identifies a basic flaw in the lawsuit against the monument: Citizens who disagree with religion can’t march into federal court and demand any hint of religion be torn down. And the brief points out how the district court in Little Rock went against U.S. Supreme Court precedent when it ruled that anti-religion activists could demand religion be scrubbed from the public square.
The U.S. Supreme Court reviews monuments like Arkansas’ in light of their longstanding history and tradition. Historians have long recognized the Ten Commandments as one of the earliest examples of the rule of law in human history, and they have helped shape philosophy and laws in countries around the world.
That’s why the Ten Commandments traditionally have appeared in artwork at public buildings across America.
Arkansas’ monument commemorates that same historical and cultural legacy. It’s also identical to a monument the U.S. Supreme Court ruled constitutional at the Texas Capitol Building in 2005. With all of that in mind, we believe our federal courts will ultimately let the Arkansas’ Ten Commandments monument stand proudly on the Capitol grounds.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.