The suit brought by parents alleges that the law violates students’ religious freedom.
Louisiana’s new law requiring schools to post the Ten Commandments violates the U.S. Constitution, parents say in a lawsuit that asks a federal court to permanently block the statute.
The new law, signed on June 18, requires schools to display the Ten Commandments in each classroom along with an accompanying “context statement.”
The lawsuit states that “for nearly half a century, it has been well settled that the First Amendment forbids public schools from posting the Ten Commandments in this manner,” and cites a 1980 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a similar law in Kentucky.
The Louisiana law “violates this binding precedent and the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” it says.
The Establishment Clause says Congress “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” and the 1980 ruling, in Stone v. Graham, found that mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools violated the clause.
The Free Exercise Clause says Congress shall not make laws “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion.
The suit was filed in federal court in Baton Rouge by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of parents of Louisiana schoolchildren.
The parents suing over the law include those of other faiths who say exposing their children to the Ten Commandments will interfere with the guidance of their children in their faiths.
Many students are not religious or do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments, which come from the Bible and include the commandment “thou shalt not kill,” plaintiffs say. However, with the display of the commandments, these students “will be unconstitutionally coerced into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture, and they will be pressured to suppress their personal religious beliefs and practices, especially in school, to avoid the potential disfavor, reproach, and/or disapproval of school officials and/or their peers,” they argue.
They’re seeking an order declaring the law to be in violation of the Constitution, an order permanently blocking officials from enforcing the law, and an order requiring officials to provide a copy of the injunction to all schools in the state.
