Court blocks Louisiana law requiring schools to post Ten Commandments in classrooms
Supreme CourtFacebookTweetLink
Follow
A panel of three federal appellate judges has ruled that a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in each of the state's public school classrooms is unconstitutional.
The ruling Friday marked a major win for civil liberties groups who say the mandate violates the separation of church and state, and that the poster-sized displays would isolate students — especially those who are not Christian.
The mandate has been touted by Republicans, including President Donald Trump, and marks one of the latest pushes by conservatives to incorporate religion into classrooms. Backers of the law argue the Ten Commandments belong in classrooms because they are historical and part of the foundation of US law.
'This is a resounding victory for the separation of church and state and public education,' said Heather L. Weaver, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. 'With today's ruling, the Fifth Circuit has held Louisiana accountable to a core constitutional promise: Public schools are not Sunday schools, and they must welcome all students, regardless of faith.'
The plaintiffs' attorneys and Louisiana disagreed on whether the appeals court's decision applied to every public school district in the state or only the districts party to the lawsuit.
'All school districts in the state are bound to comply with the US Constitution,' said Liz Hayes, a spokesperson for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which served as co-counsel for the plaintiffs.
The appeals court's rulings 'interpret the law for all of Louisiana,' Hayes added. 'Thus, all school districts must abide by this decision and should not post the Ten Commandments in their classrooms.'
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said she disagreed and believed the ruling only applied to school districts in the five parishes that were party to the lawsuit. Murrill added that she would appeal the ruling, including taking it to the US Supreme Court if necessary.
The panel of judges reviewing the case was unusually liberal for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a court with more than twice as many Republican-appointed judges, two of the three judges involved in the ruling were appointed by Democratic presidents.
The court's ruling stems from a lawsuit filed last year by parents of Louisiana school children from various religious backgrounds, who said the law violates First Amendment language guaranteeing religious liberty and forbidding government establishment of religion.
The ruling also backs an order issued last fall by US District Judge John deGravelles, who declared the mandate unconstitutional and ordered state education officials not to enforce it and to notify all local school boards in the state of his decision.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the mandate into law last June.
Landry said in a statement Friday that he supports the attorney general's plans to appeal.
'The Ten Commandments are the foundation of our laws — serving both an educational and historical purpose in our classrooms,' Landry said.
Law experts have long said they expect the Louisiana case to make its way to the US Supreme Court, testing the court on the issue of religion and government.
Similar laws have been challenged in court.
A group of Arkansas families filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month challenging a near-identical law passed in their state. And comparable legislation in Texas currently awaits Gov. Greg Abbott's signature.
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Kentucky law violated the Establishment Clause of the US 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.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Defamation case against Fox News highlights role of its hosts in promoting 2020 election falsehoods
NEW YORK (AP) — Court papers in a voting technology company's $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News point to Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro as leaders in spreading false stories about election fraud in the weeks after Democrat Joe Biden's victory over President Donald Trump in 2020. Arguments for summary judgment by Smartmatic were filed in lightly redacted form this week at the New York Supreme Court. It's like a bad rerun for Fox: Similar revelations about its conduct following the 2020 election came in a lawsuit by another company falsely accused of doctoring votes, Dominion Voting Systems. Fox agreed to pay Dominion $787 million in a 2023 settlement after the judge found it was 'CRYSTAL CLEAR' that none of the claims against the voting system company were true. In short: Fox let Donald Trump aides spread conspiracy theories despite knowing they were false because it was what their viewers wanted to hear. Fox was trying to hold on to viewers who were angry at the network for saying Biden had won the election. Fox said it was covering a newsworthy story. It accuses the London-based company, which had only Los Angeles County as a client for the 2020 election, of exaggerating its claims of damages in the hope of receiving a financial windfall. Pirro now working in the second Trump administration The focus on Pirro is noteworthy because the former Fox personality now serves in Trump's second administration as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. Smartmatic, relying on emails and text messages revealed as part of the case, said Pirro was using her position as a Fox host in 2020 to help Trump and persuade him to pardon her ex-husband, Albert Pirro, who was convicted of conspiracy and tax evasion. Trump pardoned him before leaving office in 2021. In a text to then-Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel in September 2020, Pirro said, 'I'm the No. 1 watched show on news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and the party,' Smartmatic said in court papers. One of her own producers, Jerry Andrews, called Pirro a 'reckless maniac,' Smartmatic said. He texted after one of her shows in November that it was 'rife (with) conspiracy theories and bs and is yet another example of why this woman should never be on live television." The court papers said Pirro also suggested 'evidence' of supposed fraud to Trump lawyer Sidney Powell that she could use on a television appearance — material that also was spread by Bartiromo. Bartiromo still works at Fox, and in 2020 had shows on both the news channel and Fox Business Network. The court papers uncovered messages showing her desire to help Trump: 'I am very worried. Please please please overturn this. Bring the evidence, I know you can,' she texted to Powell. Dobbs, whose business show was canceled by Fox in February 2021, texted to Powell four days after the election, saying 'I'm going to do what I can to help stop what is now a coup d'etat in (its) final days — perhaps moments," a reference to Biden's victory. Dobbs died in 2024. A central figure in Fox's 'pivot' Smartmatic portrayed Pirro as a central figure in Fox's 'pivot' to deemphasize Biden's victory because it angered Trump fans. Instead, the network found that ratings jumped whenever claims of election fraud were discussed, it said. As in the Dominion case, the discovery process helped Smartmatic find messages and statements that seem embarrassing in retrospect. For example, in early December, Fox's Jesse Watters texted colleague Greg Gutfeld that 'Think of how incredible our ratings would be if Fox went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL.' Fox, in a response to the newly-revealed court papers, pointed to an ongoing corruption case involving Smartmatic and its executives, including a claim by federal prosecutors that it used money from the sale of voting machines to set up a 'slush fund' for bribing foreign officials. 'The evidence shows that Smartmatic's business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump's lawyers on Fox News and that Smartmatic grossly inflated its damage claims to generate headlines and chill free speech,' Fox said. 'Now, in the aftermath of Smartmatic's executives getting indicted for bribery charges, we are eager and ready to continue defending our press freedoms.' Smartmatic has already settled similar defamation claims against Newsmax and One America News Network in relation to their post-2020 election coverage. ___ David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at and
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Virginia candidates spared over possible debates. Here's what they finally agreed to.
The gloves tend to come off quickly in political debates. But while candidates running for office in Virginia's statewide races have yet to square up this year, they aren't holding back. Several have traded early jabs over debate participation, including which events they will or won't attend. When Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for governor, declined to participate in a debate hosted by CNN, her opponent's campaign called the decision 'absurd' and 'proof (Spanberger's) terrified of facing voters in an unscripted setting.' Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate, had previously declined to participate in AARP Virginia's 'People's Debate,' held every gubernatorial election since 2006 and scheduled this year at Virginia State University. Spanberger's campaign made note of that too. 'After months of negotiations, Winsome Earle-Sears refused to participate' in the traditional debate, while Spanberger accepted the invitation a month prior, one press release read. Last month, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, Jay Jones, declined to participate in a debate hosted by the news station WJLA-TV in Northern Virginia. His Republican opponent's campaign called that decision a failure. 'It's the right call — I wouldn't want to defend his record either,' said a spokesperson for Attorney General Jason Miyares's campaign. Jones's campaign at the time said they had already agreed to participate in the Virginia State Bar debate. The squabbling has made it difficult to pin down if and when candidates running for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general will face off. But now candidates in two races say they've finally reached agreements for debates this fall. Spanberger and Earle-Sears are slated to debate Oct. 9 at Norfolk State University, moderated by WAVY-TV. Miyares and Jones will participate in the Virginia State Bar debate in Richmond Oct. 16. Choosing to debate at all can be risky, particularly for frontrunners, said Karen Hult, a professor of political science at Virginia Tech. Candidates lose control over what they're asked and how their message is framed by viewers. And for Democrats, that risk might be painfully fresh. 'Everyone running for governor in Virginia has to be remembering what happened to the one-time frontrunner for the governorship in 2021, and that was former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who had, one could argue, a disastrous debate appearance,' Hult said. 'What he had to say about public schooling in response to a question in many ways helped Gov. Youngkin not only get the momentum, keep momentum and then ultimately win the governorship.' In Hampton Roads, a recent poll from Old Dominion University found that nearly 48% of respondents said they planned to vote Spanberger compared with 27% who said they favored Earle-Sears. Statewide, a poll from Roanoke College found Spanberger ahead by seven points, a narrower lead than in previous months. When it came to a gubernatorial debate, Spanberger, a former congresswoman, cited a preference for Virginia broadcasters and issues over a national outlet like CNN. Earle-Sears, the state's lieutenant governor, said she had a scheduling conflict for the People's Debate. 'I also think perhaps Spanberger was a bit concerned that a national interviewer would keep trying to put the race in a national partisan context and try to highlight that when Spanberger was in the US House, she was one of the more conservative Democrats,' said Hult of the former Congresswoman's decision not to participate in the CNN debate. 'I think she didn't want to be put in the position of having to contrast herself over and over again with, for example, AOC or some of the other really visible national Democrats that might be brought up in a national debate-sponsored kind of setting.' That shift, and more success with fundraising, might be why Earle-Sears is more inclined to accept a debate invitation now, Hult said. 'Those things have changed pretty dramatically, so they now are on a little bit more equal footing arguably,' she said. 'Moreover, (Earle-Sears) has gotten a nod that the Republican president is supporting her running for office, and she also has the support of the entire statewide Republican party and a quite popular — by comparison to the president — Republican governor of the state of Virginia. I think all of those things make Earle-Sears think, well, now may be the time to accept a debate, but only in a particular location, and only at a particular time.' Meanwhile, the candidates for lieutenant governor, Democratic state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi and Republican former radio host John Reid, have no debates scheduled so far. Reid previously challenged Hashmi to 10 debates across the state. Hashmi's campaign said they would consider any formal debate invitations as they come in and as her schedule permits, but that they have yet to receive any official invitations from nonpartisan news outlets. Both campaigns said they were asked to participate together in a candidate forum on The Politics Hour, a weekly program on Washington, D.C. radio station station WAMU. Given all the candidates' arguments about debates, are they still relevant? 'We don't really have much evidence that they change many people's views on who to vote for,' Hult said. What they can do, she said, is mobilize people to turn out to vote — or to stay home. Early voting begins Sept.19. Election Day is Nov. 4. Kate Seltzer, (757)713-7881
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
This Clip Of Sean Hannity Trying To Take Down Gavin Newsom Is Going Viral For His Complete Lack Of Self-Awareness
Sean Hannity's attempted slam of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was irony defined for many of the Fox News host's critics. On Wednesday, Hannity devoted several minutes of his prime-time show to attacking Newsom, who has recently taken to trolling Donald Trump on social media by mimicking the president's bombastic and combative tone. Related: Top Trump ally Hannity denounced Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, as a 'radical' whose policies had wrecked California and dismissed his Trump impersonations as 'embarrassing.' Then came the line that went viral: 'I have a point. Results matter. A new performative, confrontational style. Maybe it wins you points with the loony, radical base in your party. But America is not going to vote for that record.' You can watch the full clip here: @Acyn / Fox News / Via Related: Critics pounced on the remark, arguing it sounded more like a description of Trump — and Hannity himself — than of the governor. @truthstreamnews / Via @KeysToTheRace / Via Related: @ChefjparkJohn / Via @marysupoppinz/ / Via @JasonPYYC / Via Related: @robfirsching / Via @AllwhichIam / Via This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Also in In the News: Also in In the News: Also in In the News:
