Louisiana orders every classroom to display 10 Commandments

• Louisiana mandates Ten Commandments posters in every public school classroom, from elementary to university level
• The posters must be 11 inches by 14 inches, with the commandments in a “large, easily readable font”
• All classrooms receiving state funding must display the posters by 2025

Louisiana orders every classroom to display 10 Commandments

Louisiana has become the first US state to mandate that every public school classroom, from elementary to university level, display a poster of the Ten Commandments. The Republican-backed law, signed by Governor Jeff Landry, claims the commandments are “the foundational documents of our state and national government.”

Civil rights groups are expected to challenge the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from establishing a religion or impeding its free exercise.

The law specifies that the posters must be 11 inches by 14 inches, with the commandments in a “large, easily readable font” and as the “central focus.” Accompanying the commandments will be a four-paragraph statement explaining their historical significance in American public education.

All classrooms receiving state funding must display the posters by 2025, though no state funding is provided for the posters themselves.

Similar laws have been proposed in other Republican-led states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Utah. Legal battles over the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings have a long history. In 1980, the US Supreme Court struck down a similar Kentucky law, ruling that the display of the Ten Commandments in schools had “no secular legislative purpose” and was “plainly religious in nature.”