Today, Americans United, along with its coalition partners, will be in court in New Orleans fighting against Christian Nationalist efforts to inject narrow religious beliefs into public schools. Over the last two years, weâve represented 58 families in Louisiana and Texas who are challenging state laws that require the posting of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom in those two states. Weâve won preliminary injunctions blocking the displays in school districts in those states, but the states have appealed, and this afternoon the entire bench of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in two of the cases.
I wanted to take a moment this morning to remind you how we got here.
In 2024, Louisiana passed a law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. The state law also allows the display to be alongside posting of historical documents like the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance, though the Ten Commandments must be the central focus.
AU, together with its coalition partners the ACLU, Freedom From Religion Foundation, and law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, filed a challenge against the law. We represent a multi-faith group of nine Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious families with children in the stateâs public schools. The district court issued a preliminary injunction on Nov. 12, 2024, finding the law unconstitutional and prohibiting the Louisiana defendants from enforcing the state law.
The decision was appealed and, in June 2025, the Fifth Circuit unanimously affirmed the district courtâs decision. The state then asked the entire bench of the Fifth Circuit to review the district courtâs opinion, in a motion known as en banc review. This was granted at the end of last year, and the appeal will be heard during todayâs hearing.
Meanwhile, last summer in Texas, we filed a similar case challenging a similar state law passed in 2025. There we are representing a multi-faith group of sixteen Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist, Hindu, and nonreligious families with children in Texas public schools. These plaintiffs also won a preliminary injunction preventing the defendant school districts from implementing the law. The defendants filed an appeal and the Fifth Circuit agreed to hear it alongside the Louisiana case today.
Despite our initial win in Texas, in which the district court declared the Texas law to be unconstitutional, school districts not part of our first case began putting up Ten Commandments displays. We then filed two more cases to stop Texas school officials from violating the law, including one class action.Â
Last summer, we also won a preliminary injunction in Arkansas for a multi-faith group of Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious families who object to their stateâs copycat law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom. The state has appealed (but that case is not part of todayâs hearing).
Today, our attorneys will remind the Fifth Circuit that posting the Ten Commandments in public schools is blatantly unconstitutional. These laws violate the Establishment Clause because they coerce children into religious observance, and they favor some religions over others. These laws also violate familiesâ rights to direct and control the religious upbringing of their children. The displays coerce children to observe, venerate, and obey a particular religious text against their own religious or other beliefs; and they discourage children who hold religious beliefs different from those set forth in the state-mandated version of the Ten Commandments from expressing those beliefs. Put more simply, these displays divide children along religious lines, at a time when our country is already so divided.Â
These laws also violate Supreme Court precedent. Over 45 years ago, four Louisville residents â a Jew, a Catholic, a Unitarian, and an atheist â sued over a Kentucky state law requiring a âdurable, permanent copyâ of the Ten Commandments to be displayed on a wall in every public school classroom in the state. In the case, Stone v. Graham, the U.S. Supreme Court struck the law down as unconstitutional. It didnât matter either that the displays were financed by voluntary private contributions. Stone has been the law for nearly a half century. It remained undisturbed even when the Supreme Court upheld a Ten Commandments display on the grounds of the Texas state capitol in 2005.
This clear, settled law is the reason AU and its partners immediately took action to protect the religious freedom of families in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. No student should feel like they belong less than others based on their religious beliefs, or that they will be ostracized or bullied for them.Â
The Fifth Circuit will hear arguments in the cases today, but a ruling wonât come until later. Until then, AU and its allied organizations will continue to fight every day for the religious freedom of all Americans.
