A federal appeals court in New Orleans will hear arguments on a specific date to determine whether Texas and Louisiana can enforce laws that require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, as civil liberties groups and parents challenge the measures on constitutional grounds.
Texas lawmakers passed the classroom display requirement as part of a broader package of religious expression bills during the 2023 legislative session.
The Texas law orders each public school classroom to post a durable, easily readable copy of the Ten Commandments if a private donor provides the display.
Supporters of the Texas measure say they intend to reinforce what they describe as the historical role of the Ten Commandments in American legal and moral traditions.
Opponents of the Texas law argue that the classroom requirement violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by promoting a specific religious viewpoint in public schools.
Civil liberties organizations and several parents in Texas filed lawsuits in federal court to stop enforcement of the classroom display requirement before schools implement it.
Louisiana lawmakers enacted a similar law that mandates the posting of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom across the state.
The Louisiana statute directs schools to use a specific version of the Ten Commandments text and to place the document in a poster-sized format.
Challengers in Louisiana filed separate lawsuits that claim the law compels students to confront religious doctrine in a mandatory educational setting.
The lawsuits against the Texas and Louisiana laws ask federal courts to issue injunctions that block the states from enforcing the classroom display requirements.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs intend to argue that the Ten Commandments remain an active religious text and that mandatory displays in classrooms coerce or pressure students of different faiths or no faith.
The federal appeals court will review lower court decisions and will consider whether existing U.S. Supreme Court precedents on religious displays apply to the Texas and Louisiana cases.
The court will hear oral arguments from attorneys representing the states, school officials, parents, and civil liberties groups.
Judges on the appeals panel may question the parties about whether the classroom displays differ from other government acknowledgments of religion that courts have previously upheld or rejected.