[1]NEW ORLEANS (BP) – Louisiana and Texas attorney generals can proceed in requiring public classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, a federal court has ruled, as Arkansas and Ohio wrangle over similar laws.
It would be premature to judge Louisiana and Texas plaintiffs’ contentions that such laws violate the U.S. Constitution, the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said Feb. 20 in a 12-6 ruling [2], clearing the way for the laws’ enforcement.
“Simply put, we cannot evaluate ‘how the text is used,’ … because we do not yet know – and cannot yet know – how the text will be used,” the court wrote. “And ‘[i]n the absence of this evidence, we are not able to conduct the fact-intensive and context-specific analysis required by’ the Supreme Court’s Ten Commandments cases.”
The ruling from the full court vacates a June 2025 ruling [3] from three 5th Circuit judges who deemed the Louisiana law unconstitutional. Since that ruling, Texas joined Louisiana in defending the requirements that various courts had approved for some Texas school districts, but prevented in others.
“Don’t kill or steal shouldn’t be controversial,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said of the ruling. “My office has issued clear guidance to our public schools on how to comply with the law, and we have created multiple examples of posters demonstrating how it can be applied constitutionally. Louisiana public schools should follow the law.”
Plaintiffs, including religious leaders, advocacy groups and parents of school students, argued that the laws impose religion upon students in an environment where attendance is mandatory, violating First Amendment rights.
“Public schools are not Sunday schools, and they must welcome all students, regardless of faith,” Heather L. Weaver, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in 2025 when a the three-judge panel from the 5th Circuit blocked the law.
In Arkansas, Attorney General Tim Griffin is fighting in the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a November court ruling that blocked enforcement of Arkansas’ law. There, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law in April 2025 requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed not only in all public school and college classrooms, but also in all state and local government buildings.
[4]Arkansas’ law was designed as “an effort to educate students on how the United States was founded and framed its Constitution,” NPR quoted [5] bill sponsor Rep. Alyssa Brown, a Republican from Heber Springs.
“Every day, as members, we stand on the House floor and we take a pledge of allegiance to one nation under God. We have the ‘In God We Trust’ motto in those same classrooms,” Brown was quoted. “We’re not telling every student they have to believe in this God, but we are upholding what those historical documents mean and that historical national motto.”
In Ohio, the General Assembly is considering a bill requiring public classrooms to display four out of 10 select historical documents, with the Ten Commandments among the choices. The state senate approved the bill in November 2025, and it is currently in a house committee, according to the state legislative website [6].
Among other states that have tried to enforce Ten Commandments displays in public schools, a bill in Oklahoma stalled in a legislative committee in 2025.
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