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NBC News
a day ago
- Politics
- NBC News
Louisiana's Ten Commandments law in public schools blocked by federal appeals court
A federal appeals court on Friday ruled, in a unanimous decision, in favor of a coalition of Louisiana parents who sued to block a state law that requires public schools and colleges to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. The appellate court's decision upholds a lower court's ruling in November declaring Louisiana's law as "facially unconstitutional." 'Parents and students challenge a statute requiring public schools to permanently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom in Louisiana. The district court found the statute facially unconstitutional and preliminarily enjoined its enforcement. We affirm,' the court said in its ruling. Now, the case moves closer to potentially going before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority. 'We are grateful for this decision, which honors the religious diversity and religious-freedom rights of public school families across Louisiana,' said the Rev. Darcy Roake, who is a plaintiff in the case. Louisiana's law went into effect this year at public K-12 schools and state-funded universities. State officials issued guidance on how posters of the Ten Commandments could be designed and hung up in classrooms for educational purposes. While the law applies to the majority of school districts throughout the state, the five school districts that have parents who are plaintiffs in the original lawsuit are exempt while the litigation plays out. It's unclear how many, if any, school districts have begun to comply, and questions remain about what might happen to educators who ultimately don't cooperate. During the federal appeals court hearing in January, Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga argued that the plaintiffs' lawsuit was filed too early — before any posters have been displayed. "The plaintiffs seek to challenge hypothetical displays that do not exist and that they have never seen," Aguiñaga said. "The plaintiffs jumped the gun here and filed an unripe case," he said. But Jonathan Youngwood, a lawyer for the coalition of parents representing Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and nonreligious backgrounds said the purpose of the law is tied to religion and violates a separation of church and state. "What makes this so significant is the requirement that it be in every single (classroom) throughout your 13 years in public school, 177 days a year," Youngwood said. "It can't be avoided. It can't be averted." The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP are supporting the plaintiffs. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has said no public funds would be required to be spent on printing the posters and they can be supplied through private donations. The law dictates the posters must be at least 11 by 14 inches and include a "context statement" that provides historical context for the commandments, which the state believes makes its law constitutional. In a Facebook post in January, Murrill said the state contends that federal courts "have no jurisdiction to decide this case." "The Constitution does not bar our Legislature's attempt to teach our students what the Supreme Court has repeatedly said: The Ten Commandments have historical significance as a foundation of our legal system," Murrill said. But U.S. District Judge John deGravelles of the Middle District of Louisiana disagreed with the state in his ruling in November, in which he wrote that there is no "constitutional way to display the Ten Commandments in accordance with the minimum requirements of the Act." The Supreme Court has also taken up the issue previously, when the justices ruled 5-4 in 1980 that Kentucky's posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools was unconstitutional. Still, President Donald Trump endorsed Louisiana's law during his campaign. Louisiana and other Republican-led states have pushed for new bills and policies that are testing the bounds of religion in public schools. That has included Oklahoma ordering public schools grades five through 12 to incorporate the Bible into lesson plans and Texas allowing public school districts to opt in to a new elementary school curriculum featuring Bible-based lessons. In April, the Supreme Court heard a bid by Oklahoma officials to approve the nation's first publicly funded religious charter school. Meanwhile, Republican leaders in other states, such as Alabama and Texas, are supporting legislation similar to Louisiana's that would allow for the Ten Commandments in public schools. In April, Arkansas legislation requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in all public schools' classrooms and libraries became law just days after the GOP-controlled Legislature passed it.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court hears pivotal Louisiana election map case ahead of 2026 midterms
The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on whether Louisiana lawmakers can use race as a factor when drawing congressional maps, a closely watched case that could impact voters nationwide in the 2026 midterms. At issue is whether the state's congressional map, updated twice since the 2020 census, is an illegal racial gerrymander. It has faced two federal court challenges – first, for diluting minority voting power under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and most recently, for potentially violating the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The high court, which agreed to take up the case last fall, is expected to hand down its decision by late June. Judges Say They'll Redrwa Louisiana Congressional Map Themselves If Lawmakers Can't During oral arguments, the justices focused closely on whether Louisiana's redistricting efforts were narrowly tailored enough to meet constitutional requirements and whether race was used in a way that violates the law, as plaintiffs have alleged. Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga argued that the state's latest map protected political stability, including preserving leadership positions like the U.S. House speaker and majority leader. Read On The Fox News App "I want to emphasize that the larger picture here is important – because in an election year we faced the prospect of a federal court-drawn map that placed in jeopardy the speaker of the House, the House majority leader and our representative on the Appropriations Committee," Aguiñaga said. "And so in light of those facts, we made the politically rational decision: we drew our own map to protect them." Louisiana's congressional map has twice been challenged in federal court since it was updated in the wake of the 2020 census, which found that the state's Black residents now totaled one-third of Louisiana's total population. The first redistricting map, which included just one district where Black voters held the majority, was invalidated by a federal court (and subsequently, by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals) in 2022. Both courts sided with the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP and other plaintiffs, who argued that the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Black voters in the state. New Majority-black Louisiana House District Rejected, November Election Map Still Uncertain Lawmakers were ordered by the court to adopt by January 2024 a new state redistricting map. That map, S.B. 8, was passed and included the creation of a second majority-Black voting district in the state. But S.B. 8 was almost immediately challenged by a group of non-Black plaintiffs in court as well, after they claimed issue with a new district that stretched some 250 miles from Louisiana's northwest corner of Shreveport to Baton Rouge, in the state's southeast. They argued in the lawsuit that the state violated the equal protection clause by relying too heavily on race to draw the maps, and created a "sinuous and jagged second majority-Black district based on racial stereotypes, racially 'Balkanizing' a 250-mile swath of Louisiana." The Supreme Court agreed last November to take up the case, though it paused consideration of the arguments until after the 2024 elections. Meanwhile, Louisiana officials argued in court filings that non-Black voters failed to show direct harm required for equal protection claims or prove race was the main factor in redrawing the map. Judges V Trump: Here Are The Key Court Battles Halting The White House Agenda They also stressed that the Supreme Court should clarify how states should proceed under this "notoriously unclear area of the law" that pits Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act against equal protections, describing them as two "competing demands." Officials have cited frustrations over repeatedly redrawing maps, and the prospect of being ordered back to the drawing board once again, and asked the court to "put an end to the extraordinary waste of time and resources that plagues the States after every redistricting cycle."Original article source: Supreme Court hears pivotal Louisiana election map case ahead of 2026 midterms
Fox News
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Supreme Court hears pivotal Louisiana election map case ahead of 2026 midterms
The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on whether Louisiana lawmakers can use race as a factor when drawing congressional maps, a closely watched case that could impact voters nationwide in the 2026 midterms. At issue is whether the state's congressional map, updated twice since the 2020 census, is an illegal racial gerrymander. It has faced two federal court challenges – first, for diluting minority voting power under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and most recently, for potentially violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The high court, which agreed to take up the case last fall, is expected to hand down its decision by late June. During oral arguments, the justices focused closely on whether Louisiana's redistricting efforts were narrowly tailored enough to meet constitutional requirements and whether race was used in a way that violates the law, as plaintiffs have alleged. Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga argued that the state's latest map protected political stability, including preserving leadership positions like the speaker of the house and house majority leader. "I want to emphasize that the larger picture here is important – because in an election year we faced the prospect of a federal court-drawn map that placed in jeopardy the speaker of the House, the House majority leader and our representative on the Appropriations Committee," Aguiñaga said. "And so in light of those facts, we made the politically rational decision: we drew our own map to protect them." Louisiana's congressional map has twice been challenged in federal court since it was updated in the wake of the 2020 census, which found that the state's Black residents now totaled one-third of Louisiana's total population. The first redistricting map, which included just one district where Black voters held the majority, was invalidated by a federal court (and subsequently, by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals) in 2022. Both courts sided with the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP and other plaintiffs, who argued that the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of black voters in the state. Lawmakers were ordered by the court to adopt by January 2024 a new state redistricting map. That map, S.B. 8, was passed in January 2024, and included the creation of a second majority-black voting district in the state. But S.B. 8 was almost immediately challenged by a group of non-black plaintiffs in court as well, after they claimed issue with a new district that stretched some 250 miles from Louisiana's northwest corner of Shreveport to Baton Rouge, in the state's southeast. They argued in the lawsuit that the state violated the Equal Protections clause by relying too heavily on race to draw the maps, and created a "sinuous and jagged second majority-Black district based on racial stereotypes, racially 'Balkanizing' a 250-mile swath of Louisiana." The Supreme Court agreed last November to take up the case, though it paused consideration of the arguments until after the 2024 elections. Meanwhile, Louisiana officials argued in court filings that non-Black voters failed to show direct harm required for Equal Protection claims or prove race was the main factor in redrawing the map. They also stressed that the Supreme Court should clarify how states should proceed under this "notoriously unclear area of the law" that pits Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act against equal protections, describing them as two "competing demands." Officials have cited frustrations over repeatedly redrawing maps, and the prospect of being ordered back to the drawing board once again, and asked the court to "put an end to the extraordinary waste of time and resources that plagues the States after every redistricting cycle."
