Louisiana’s attorney general and the ACLU of Louisiana are giving school districts across the state contradictory guidance on how to comply with the new Ten Commandments law in the wake of an ongoing federal lawsuit.
Attorney General Liz Murrill said this week that an injunction issued by a federal court against school boards in Livingston, St. Tammany, Vernon, East Baton Rouge and Orleans prevents these districts from complying with the provisions of House Bill 71. But other districts are not bound by this order, according to Murrill.
“The injunction does not bind schools who are not parties to that litigation, which is ongoing in the Fifth Circuit,” she said in a statement emailed to the Louisiana Record. “Accordingly, I look forward to working with the remainder of our schools as they come into compliance with HB 71.”
For most of the districts statewide, HB 71 mandates that Louisiana public school classrooms display the Ten Commandments within the context of the law’s guidelines, according to Murrill. She said her office would provide additional guidance to districts on how the displays can be placed in classrooms in a constitutionally sound manner.
But civil rights organizations representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging HB 71, including the ACLU of Louisiana and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, urged Louisiana school districts not to enforce the law. As a result of the lawsuit, titled Rev. Roake v. Brumley, a federal district judge ruled that HB 71 runs afoul of the First Amendment, and he barred defendants from enforcing the measure.
“Although the Roake ruling has been appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, it remains in full force and effect while the appeal proceeds, after the appellate court rejected a request by the defendants to temporarily suspend the lower court’s injunction,” the ACLU of Louisiana said in a news release.
The ACLU’s letter to school districts emphasized that the U.S. Constitution supersedes state laws and urged them not to comply with HB 71.
“Public-school officials are legally required to protect and uphold the constitutional rights of students and families, including their right to religious freedom under the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment,” the ACLU said in its statement. “Implementing HB 71 would violate this obligation and could result in litigation being filed against school districts that do so.”
In the Roake v. Brumley case, the plaintiffs argued that the state’s favored version of the Ten Commandments differs from versions favored by certain religious denominations, and they point out that a 1980 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Stone v. Graham, struck down a Kentucky statute that was similar to Louisiana’s current law.
As written, HB 71 was slated to take effect Jan. 1. The measure allows school districts to accept donated displays for classrooms or to spend donated money to buy the Ten Commandments displays, according to the Legislature’s analysis of the law.
The displays have to be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least 11 inches by 14 inches in size. The commandments are also required to be composed in “a large, easily readable font,” according to the analysis.
A federal district court in Louisiana found HB 71 to be “facially unconstitutional and unconstitutional in all applications.”