Civil rights attorneys attempting to stop a new state law requiring Louisiana school officials to display a copy of the Ten Commandments in every public classroom — including K-12 schools and colleges and universities that take state funds — began presenting their case in federal court on Monday (Oct. 21), asking a judge to issue a preliminary injunction to block the law from taking effect.
Federal Judge John deGravelles, of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana in Baton Rouge, has yet to rule on the request or on separate motions from the state and local school districts to dismiss the suit. DeGravelles is expected to rule before Nov. 15, when a temporary agreement between the state and the plaintiffs suing over the law is set to expire.
Act 676, which was passed by the Louisiana State Legislature during this year’s spring session, mandates that public classrooms post – in large font on a poster or framed document no smaller than 11-by-14 inches, a state-approved version of the Ten Commandments, accompanied by a context statement about the history of using the biblical doctrine in the U.S. public education system.
Gov. Jeff Landry, a Christian conservative, has backed the Ten Commandments law. In June, as he was preparing to sign the requirement into law and facing criticism that it would violate the separation of church and state, he said: “I can’t wait to be sued.”
Days later, he got his wish, when nine Louisiana families — who are Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and nonreligious — filed suit to challenge the law, naming State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley, members of the state board of education and several local school boards, including the Orleans Parish School Board, as defendants.
The plaintiffs, who are represented by the ACLU, ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religious Foundation, argued that it violates the First Amendment right to religious liberty and forces students to accept the state’s version of the religious doctrine, which they say differs greatly between religions and Christian denominations.
The law requires schools to display the Ten Commandments in public classrooms by Jan. 1, though districts could put them on display earlier if they wish. After the lawsuit was filed, DeGravelles asked the state and the district defendants to postpone displaying the doctrine while the lawsuit moves through the courts – at least until Nov. 15. The state agreed in July.
In court, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the new law goes against U.S. Supreme Court precedent set in 1980, when justices struck down a similar law in Kentucky. Then, the court held that the Kentucky law violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
The bulk of the hearing on Monday was taken up by testimony on the plaintiff’s expert witness, Steven Green, a legal historian and professor of law, history and religious studies at Willamette University in Oregon.
Responding to the state’s contention that the Ten Commandments underpin the country’s founding and its foundational law — and thus should be considered part of American history — Green said the Ten Commandments were “indirectly influential at best” to the nation’s founders.
Green testified that writings from and correspondence between James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who were influential in drafting the Declaration of Independence, the U.S Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Green said Jefferson was “fully committed to religious freedom writ large and to the separation of church and state.”
In his cross-examination Zachary Faircloth, who was representing the state, pressed Green on his challenging of statements made in the text in the bill that became Act 676. The language referenced a supposed quote from Madison that the United States’ founding fathers had “staked the whole future of our new nation . . . upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral 13 principles of the Ten Commandments.”
Green said there is no primary source evidence to support that Madison actually said that. Instead he said prominent Christian nationalist author David Barton wrongfully attributed the quote to the former U.S. president. Green also challenged the state’s statements that
the Ten Commandments were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”
In a press conference held outside of the federal courthouse after Monday’s hearing, Darcy Roake, the lead parent plaintiff in the case, said she and her husband want their children to be a part of a public school system that embraces a “diversity of values and beliefs.” She said she was concerned about public school providing the state’s protestant version of the ten commandments without providing contextual conversations with the children.
“It matters to me what my children see every day,” said Reverend Darcy Roake, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “That is why I want that separation. That is for my husband and I to have discussions with [our children].”
But the state contends that the lawsuit should be dismissed. In August, Attorney General Liz Murrill filed a motion asking deGravelles to toss the lawsuit on the grounds that it was “premature” given that no copies of the state’s version of the Ten Commandments had been posted and there the law had not yet caused harm.
On Monday, in a press conference after the hearing, Murrill reiterated the state’s position that the lawsuit was filed “prematurely.”
“What we said is that there is no poster now, that nothing has been posted now and this case is premature.”
In their argument for DeGravelles to grant a preliminary injunction, attorneys for the plaintiff argued that even one day of subjecting the state’s youth to the state’s version of the Ten Commandments would cause “irreparable injury.”
DeGravelles, a Louisiana native and Obama appointee, has indicated in the past that he would follow precedent in his decisions.
“I would strictly apply the law as written and as interpreted by the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit without consideration of any personal views, opinions or beliefs I may have,” deGravelles wrote in 2014, responding to Senate questions during his confirmation process.
However, were the case to reach the nation’s highest court, there are concerns that the majority of conservative justices could choose to overturn the 44 years of precedent set in the Kentucky case.