The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit voted 12-6 on Friday to lift a lower court block on Louisiana's law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms. The decision overturns a ruling first imposed in 2024 and arrives months after a three-judge panel declared the law unconstitutional.
The full court found it was too early to determine the constitutionality of the law, opting to "permit judicial judgment rather than speculation." Translation: the lower court jumped the gun. The Fifth Circuit wants to see the law actually implemented before deciding whether it violates the Constitution, a standard that sounds unremarkable until you remember how eagerly courts have blocked conservative legislation on the basis of hypothetical harms.
Circuit Judge James Ho, appointed by President Donald Trump, wrote a concurring opinion that cut straight to the core of the debate. He called the law:
"fully consistent with the Constitution, and what's more, it reinforces our Founders' firm belief that the children of America should be educated about the religious foundations and traditions of our country."
Ho added that the display "affirms our Nation's highest and most noble traditions" and is "consistent with our founding traditions."
This is the argument the left refuses to engage with honestly. The Ten Commandments are not a catechism. They are a foundational legal and moral document that shaped Western civilization and American jurisprudence. You can find them carved into the Supreme Court building itself. Displaying them in a classroom alongside the historical context of American law is not an establishment of religion, it is an acknowledgment of history.
The dissent, written by Circuit Judge James L. Dennis, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, framed the issue in predictably different terms. Dennis warned against:
"exposing children to government-endorsed religion in a setting of compulsory attendance."
He added:
"That is precisely the kind of establishment the Framers anticipated and sought to prevent."
Dennis's framing assumes the conclusion. Posting a historical document that happens to be religious in origin is not the same as the government establishing a church. The Framers who wrote the First Amendment also opened congressional sessions with prayer. They did not envision a public square sterilized of every religious reference, they envisioned a government that could not compel worship or favor one denomination over another. There is a vast distance between those two things, and the secular left has spent decades pretending otherwise.
The ACLU of Louisiana and allied groups issued a joint statement calling the ruling "extremely disappointing":
"Today's ruling is extremely disappointing and would unnecessarily force Louisiana's public school families into a game of constitutional whack-a-mole in every school district."
They added:
"Longstanding judicial precedent makes clear that our clients need not submit to the very harms they are seeking to prevent before taking legal action to protect their rights."
Notice the framing: the mere display of the Ten Commandments is cast as a "harm" so severe that families shouldn't even have to encounter it before suing. The ACLU wants pre-enforcement injunctions to serve as permanent vetoes on laws it dislikes. The Fifth Circuit said no, let the law take effect, see how it's actually implemented, and then litigate specific applications if necessary. That's not radical. That's how courts are supposed to work.
Joseph Davis, the attorney representing Louisiana, offered a sharper diagnosis:
"If the ACLU had its way, every trace of religion would be scrubbed from the fabric of our public life."
"That position is at odds with our nation's traditions and our Constitution."
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry celebrated the decision on Facebook with characteristic directness:
"Common sense is making a comeback!"
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said schools "should follow the law" and noted that her office has already laid the groundwork for compliance:
"Don't kill or steal shouldn't be controversial. 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."
That last line deserves attention. Louisiana didn't pass a law and walk away. The attorney general's office created specific guidance and poster examples designed to satisfy constitutional requirements. This is a state that anticipated the legal fight and prepared for it.
Louisiana is not alone. Texas implemented its own Ten Commandments classroom requirement last year. A similar law in Arkansas faces a federal court challenge. The pattern is clear: red states are reasserting the role of religious heritage in public life, and the legal infrastructure to defend those decisions is strengthening.
For decades, the default assumption in American jurisprudence has been that any religious expression in a public school is constitutionally suspect. That assumption was never as settled as its proponents claimed, and it is now being tested by legislatures willing to push back and courts willing to let them.
The Fifth Circuit didn't declare Louisiana's law constitutional. It said the lower court acted prematurely in blocking it. But in doing so, it allowed the Ten Commandments to go up on classroom walls, and forced the opposition to fight the law on the ground, in practice, rather than in the abstract.
The ACLU will keep filing suits. Louisiana's classrooms will keep posting the Commandments. And somewhere in that tension, the country is rediscovering a simple truth: acknowledging where your laws came from is not the same as establishing a state religion.
