An appeals court has cleared the path for a controversial Louisiana law mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, voted 12-6 to overturn a previous injunction that had halted the law’s implementation. In its opinion, released Friday, the court said it was premature to rule on the legislation’s constitutionality.
The decision stems from a lack of clarity regarding how prominently the religious text would be displayed, whether teachers would reference the Ten Commandments during lessons, or if other historical documents, such as the Mayflower Compact or the Declaration of Independence, would also be exhibited, the majority opinion noted.
Without these specifics, the judicial panel concluded it lacked sufficient information to assess any potential First Amendment concerns arising from the law. The court said that more facts were required to “permit judicial judgment rather than speculation.”
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.
Circuit Judge James L. Dennis wrote that the law “is precisely the kind of establishment the Framers anticipated and sought to prevent.”
The ruling comes after the full court heard arguments in the cases in January 2026 following a ruling by a three-judge panel of the court that Louisiana’s law was unconstitutional. Arkansas also has a similar law that has been challenged in federal court.
Texas’ law took effect on Sept. 1, marking the largest attempt in the nation to hang the Ten Commandments in public schools.
Multiple school districts were barred from posting them after federal judges issued injunctions in two cases against the law, but they have already gone up in many classrooms across the state as districts paid to have the posters printed themselves or accepted donations.
The laws are among the pushes by Republicans, including President Donald Trump, to incorporate religion into public school classrooms. Critics say it violates the separation of church and state while backers argue that the Ten Commandments are historical and part of the foundation of U.S. law.
The laws have been challenged by families representing a variety of religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, and clergy, in addition to nonreligious families.
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The court found that the law had no secular purpose but served a plainly religious purpose.
And in 2005, the Supreme Court held that such displays in a pair of Kentucky courthouses violated the Constitution. At the same time, the court upheld a Ten Commandments marker on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol in Austin.
