Appeals court clears way for Louisiana law requiring public schools to display Ten Commandments

A U.S. appeals court has cleared the way for a Louisiana law requiring poster-sized displays of the Ten Commandments in public classrooms to take effect.   Kati Weis contributed to this report. In:

A U.S. appeals court has cleared the way for a Louisiana law requiring poster-sized displays of the Ten Commandments in public classrooms to take effect.  

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 12-6 to lift a block that a lower court first placed on the law in 2024. In the opinion released Friday, the court said it was too early to make a judgment call on the constitutionality of the law. 

That's partly because it's not yet clear how prominently schools may display the religious text, if teachers will refer to the Ten Commandments during classes, or if other things like the Mayflower Compact or Declaration of Independence will also be displayed, the majority opinion said.

Without those sorts of details, the panel decided it didn't have enough information to weigh any First Amendment issues that might arise from the law. In other words, there aren't enough facts available to "permit judicial judgment rather than speculation," the majority wrote in the opinion.

But the six judges who voted against the decision wrote a series of dissents, some arguing that the case was ripe for judicial review and others saying that the law exposes children to government-endorsed religion in a place they are required to be, presenting a clear constitutional burden.