BATON ROUGE — Plaintiffs challenging a Louisiana law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms have motioned a federal appeals court to reinstate an injunction against the state law pending a petition for a U.S. Supreme Court review.
ACLU attorneys and other counsel for the multi-faith parent-plaintiffs filed the motion last week with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which in February lifted an injunction imposed by a lower court that barred enforcement of the Ten Commandments law based on constitutional grounds.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys argue in their Fifth Circuit filings that the appeals court’s Feb. 20 decision lifting the injunction conflicts with a 2025 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Mahmoud v. Taylor. This conflict provides a compelling reason for the high court to grant a review of the Ten Commandments case.
Murrill
“... The Supreme Court would, in light of Mahmoud, likely consider the narrowing of the First Amendment religious-freedom rights of students and parents in the public-school context an important and substantial federal question, and there would be a reasonable probability that any such petition would be granted,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said in a filing with the Fifth Circuit.
The ACLU and other organizations, including the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Americans United for Separation of Church & State, argue that Louisiana House Bill 71 mandates a government-approved Protestant rendition of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public-school classrooms in violation of the First Amendment protections of religious freedoms.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill filed a reply with the appeals court last week that rejects the ACLU’s position. The attorney general also said in a statement that she would continue to defend the Louisiana law.
"The ACLU is threatening to take Louisiana to the Supreme Court over my successful defense of our Ten Commandments law,” Murrill said. “Don’t steal or kill aren’t controversial. The law is constitutional, and I look forward to defending the people and laws of Louisiana all the way to the Supreme Court."
The plaintiffs, however, say the lifting of the injunction blocking enforcement of HB 71 will result in concrete harm to the plaintiffs’ children.
“If the mandate (lifting the injunction) issues, defendants-appellants will be permitted to display HB 71 posters in all classrooms, and the minor plaintiffs-appellees would be subjected to biblical scripture for nearly every hour of every day of their public-school education, causing them immediate and irreparable harm that no later ruling can cure,” the plaintiffs’ latest filing with the court states.
The state’s interest in seeing that HB 71 is upheld is overshadowed by the harm that will be inflicted on the plaintiffs-appellees, the filing argues.
But Murrill’s office points out that the full appeals court has already rejected the plaintiffs’ position on Mahmoud v. Taylor, and that there is no judicial error to correct.
In addition, the appeals court ruled last month that the plaintiffs’ contentions about HB 71 being unconstitutional are “nonjusticiable” since they were advanced before anyone knew exactly how the Ten Commandments displays would appear in classrooms, Murrill’s office said in reply to the ACLU motion.
The Attorney General’s Office describes the plaintiffs’ motion as an attempt to relitigate the merits of the Fifth Circuit’s decision and argues that this strategy fails to show a reasonable probability that the Supreme Court will grant such a review.
