Louisiana’s Ten Commandments in Schools Mandate Can Stand (2)

The full Fifth Circuit cleared the way for Louisiana to enforce a law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

The appeals court on Friday issued a divided decision scrapping a lower court’s injunction that blocked a state law requiring the Bible passages be shown in public classrooms.

“Because the parents’ challenge turns on unresolved factual and contextual questions, equitable relief was premature, and we VACATE the preliminary injunction,” the court said in a per curiam order that drew dissents from multiple judges.

In canceling the injunction, the majority said that without developing facts it couldn’t possibly say that every possible display of the commandments would violate the Establishment Clause, which is the part of the First Amendment that bars the establishment of an official religion.

“That exercise exceeds the judicial function,” the opinion said. “It is not judging; it is guessing.”

Judge James C. Ho. said in a concurring opinion that the law is consistent with the desires of the nation’s founders, who “didn’t just permit religion in education — they presumed that there would be religion in education.”

“I would vacate the preliminary injunction for that reason,” Ho wrote, urging for an admittedly unusual order of decision-making in which he said the court should’ve decided the merits before deciding jurisdiction.

The law requiring the displays “reinforces our Founders’ firm belief that the children of America should be educated about the religious foundations and traditions of our country,” wrote Ho, an appointee of President Donald Trump.

The passive commandment displays, he wrote, “are even less coercive than being forced to listen every morning to the monotheistic and anti-atheist Pledge of Allegiance.”

The full New Orleans-based appeals court heard arguments over the Louisiana law and a similar one from Texas on Jan. 20. It hasn’t yet issued a decision in the Texas case.

A three-judge panel earlier found that the Louisiana law was unconstitutional, relying on the US Supreme Court’s 1980 ruling in Stone v. Graham, which struck down a similar Ten Commandments requirement in Kentucky.

The high court has since reworked the test for Establishment Clause claims that underpinned that Kentucky ruling, leading members of the Fifth Circuit to question whether Stone remained good law.

In a dissent, Judge James L. Dennis said the court is still bound by Stone because the high court’s newer test in the 2022 decision Kennedy v. Bremerton School District didn’t directly contradict it.

“First, even adopting Louisiana’s gloss on Kennedy, lower courts are bound to follow directly on-point Supreme Court precedent, leaving no room to question the ruling merely because it appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions,” Dennis wrote.

Dennis was joined in the dissent by Judges James E. Graves, Jr., Stephen Higginson, Dana Douglas, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez.

Ramirez also authored a dissent, joined by everyone from the Dennis dissent, plus Carl E. Stewart.

Higginson wrote a dissent joined by Dennis, Graves, Douglas, and Ramirez.

Judge Catharina Haynes wrote a dissent joined by no others in which she agreed with others who said the case is ripe for a decision. All the dissenters but Haynes were nominated by Democratic presidents.

The case is Roake v. Brumley, 5th Cir. en banc, No. 24-30706, 2/20/26.