Suit was filed yesterday in a Louisiana federal district court by a group of parents (some of whom are clergy) on behalf of their minor children challenging Louisiana's recently enacted statute that requires the posting of the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom. Contending that the law violates the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses, the complaint (full text) in Roake v. Brumley, (MD LA, filed 6/24/2024) alleges in part:
Permanently posting the Ten Commandments in every Louisiana public-school classroom—rendering them unavoidable—unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture. It also sends the harmful and religiously divisive message that students who do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments—or, more precisely, to the specific version of the Ten Commandments that H.B. 71 requires schools to display—do not belong in their own school community and should refrain from expressing any faith practices or beliefs that are not aligned with the state’s religious preferences. And it substantially interferes with and burdens the right of parents to direct their children’s religious education and upbringing.
...The state’s main interest in passing H.B. 71 was to impose religious beliefs on public-school children, regardless of the harm to students and families. The law’s primary sponsor and author, Representative Dodie Horton, proclaimed during debate over the bill that it “seeks to have a display of God’s law in the classroom for children to see what He says is right and what He says is wrong.”
The advocacy groups bringing the suit (ACLU, Americans United, FFRF) issued a press release announcing the filing of the suit.
