Following Law, La. Colleges Post Ten Commandments in Classes

Louisiana higher ed systems say their institutions are posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms, following orders from Republican lawmakers.

A Louisiana State University System spokesperson said in an email to Inside Higher Ed that all LSU campuses have either put up the displays or are in the process of doing so. A University of Louisiana System spokesperson said in an email that all of its campuses “are actively working through installation logistics” and “intend to have them displayed no later than the start of the fall semester.” Southern University System and Louisiana Community and Technical College System officials didn’t return requests for comment.

The Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative “family policy council,” donated the posters, The Louisiana Illuminator reported earlier. Republican state attorney general Liz Murrill released four posters that can be used—all with the Ten Commandments in the middle, flanked by other information. One, for instance, is titled “The House of Representatives & the Lawgivers,” in which the religious text has, on its left, an image of the “Moses the Lawgiver” marble relief from the walls of the U.S. House chamber and, on its right, a photo of current U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana.

In 2024, state lawmakers passed House Bill 71, and Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed it into law. It requires a poster-size copy of the Decalogue—specifically the King James Bible version—in all public classrooms. The law covered K–12 schools, colleges, universities and trade schools.

Louisiana families, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, sued to stop HB 71 from going into effect. In late 2024, U.S. District Court Judge John W. deGravelles, an Obama appointee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law, saying it would infringe on the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights and “is not neutral toward religion.”

But in February of this year, a divided ruling from the full panel of judges on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the injunction, saying it was premature.

“We do not know, for example, how prominently the displays will appear, what other materials might accompany them, or how—if at all—teachers will reference them during instruction,” the judges in the majority wrote. “More fundamentally, we do not even know the full content of the displays themselves. Although the statute requires inclusion of the Commandments and a context statement, it expressly permits additional content—such as ‘the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance’—to appear alongside them.”

The case continues.