Litigants in the latest battle over the separation of church and state presented their arguments Tuesday in a Louisiana federal courtroom where a law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed at public schools is being challenged on constitutional grounds.
In a highly unusual development, all 17 active judges on the largely conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans were present to hear the Texas case, as well as a similar lawsuit filed by parents and civil liberties groups in Louisiana against that state’s Ten Commandments law.
“These issues concern core questions involving the interaction of public education with this nation’s religious history and traditions,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in a petition in October requesting an en banc review, which is a legal proceeding where all the judges of an appellate court preside over a case. “They warrant en banc review.”
Not mentioned in Paxton’s petition is the fact that the 5th Circuit, which serves Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, is dominated by conservatives. The 12 judges nominated by Republican presidents outnumber the five Democratic appointees.
Jonathan Youngwood, a lawyer representing families who oppose the Texas version of the law, said the state was seeking to "impose scripture on their children."
The Ten Commandments "have their rightful places, but they do not belong ubiquitously in public schools," Youngwood said.
Attorneys for Texas and Louisiana, which also has a Ten Commandments law that's being challenged in the courts, said the laws aren't meant to prompt theological discussions or push a particular religion.
The commandments belong on the wall because, one of the lawyers put it, they have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system.
The court recessed for the day after two hours of debate without rendering a decision.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, who was in the courtroom for the debate, said, "I like our chances." Asked what he would say to parents who don't want their children taught the Ten Commandments, he said he would "advise parents like that they find some moral code."
"You either read the Ten Commandments or your child is going to learn the criminal code," he said.
Dane Ciolino, a professor at the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, said this case is likely to end up with the Supreme Court no matter how the 5th Circuit winds up ruling.
Ciolino noted that the Supreme Court, in 1980, struck down a Kentucky law requiring posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.
"The Fifth Circuit is a very conservative federal court of appeals. However, this issue can only be resolved definitively in the United States Supreme Court," Ciolino said in an email to NBC News. "Only the Supreme Court can reverse its own precedent."
No matter the outcome, Ciolino said, any ruling will continue to fuel the national debate over whether the Ten Commandments laws violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which prohibits governments from endorsing or promoting a particular religion.
Both the Texas and the Louisiana laws mandate posting the version of the Ten Commandments that Protestants use, which differs slightly from the versions that Catholics and Jews use.
The Texas lawsuit, Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, was filed last year by a group of Dallas-area parents and religious leaders who were seeking to block a new law that was supposed to go into effect in September 2025 requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
"These children and their families adhere to an array of faiths, and many do not practice any religion at all," says their lawsuit, filed in July in U.S. District Court in San Antonio.
But because of the new law, "all of these students will be forcibly subjected to scriptural dictates, day in and day out," the lawsuit says.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery sided with the parents in August and issued a temporary ruling against the state’s new requirement. Texas officials quickly appealed.
That case was then paired with a legal challenge to Louisiana's first-in-the-nation requirement, signed into law in 2024, that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom.
U.S. District Judge John deGravelles issued an order blocking the Louisiana law, in November 2024, calling it “facially unconstitutional."
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, said she disagreed and announced that she would “immediately appeal" the judge's ruling.
In June, a panel of three judges from the 5th Circuit upheld deGravelles' ruling. The judges on the panel were appointed by Presidents Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, both Democrats, and George W. Bush, a Republican.
Once again, Murrill vowed to appeal the ruling — this time to the full panel of 5th Circuit judges.
Before Tuesday's hearing, Texas state Rep. Candy Noble, a Republican and one of the authors of her state's Ten Commandments law, urged the 5th Circuit judges to back it.
"Returning the Ten Commandments to our Texas classrooms gives our school children an understanding that the Ten Commandments were foundational to America’s educational and judicial systems," Noble said in a statement.
