Louisiana asks court to block part of ruling against Ten Commandments in classrooms

NEW ORLEANS — Lawyers for the state of Louisiana asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to immediately block a judge's ruling ordering education officials to tell all local districts that a law requiring schools to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge John deGravelles in Baton Rouge declared the law “unconstitutional on its face” in a lengthy decision Tuesday and ordered education officials to notify the state’s 72 local school boards of that fact.

The state plans to appeal the entirety of deGravelles’ order, but the emergency appeal at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is aimed at just one aspect of it. State attorneys say the judge overstepped his authority when he ordered that all local school boards be notified of his finding because only five districts are named as defendants in a legal challenge to the law.

Those districts are in East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Tammany, Orleans and Vernon parishes.

Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley and the state education board are also defendants in the lawsuit and were ordered by deGravelles to take no steps to implement the law.

But the state contends that because officials have no supervisory power over local, elected school boards, the order applies to just the five boards.

The law was passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature this year and signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry in June.

In Tuesday's ruling, deGravelles said the law has an “overtly religious” purpose and rejected state officials’ claims that the government can mandate the posting of the Ten Commandments because they hold historical significance to the foundation of U.S. law.

His opinion noted that no other foundational documents such as the Constitution or the Bill of Rights are required to be posted.

Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill, a GOP ally of Landry, said Tuesday that the state disagrees with deGravelles’ finding.