The U. S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals says it will hear appeals in January in the legal fights in Texas and Louisiana over whether public schools must display copies of the Ten Commandments.
Oral arguments for the two cases are set for 1 p.m. Jan. 20 in New Orleans, according to federal court documents.
Louisiana was the first state to require the display of the Ten Commandments. Texas followed suit this summer.
The Texas law requires schools to display a donated poster with language that was approved by the state, be at least 16 by 20 inches and must be put in a place where all in the classroom can see it.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, in a 55-page ruling, wrote in August that the Texas law was unconstitutional and that it would be coercive to expose children to what he called a state-approved Christian version of the biblical document.
His ruling came after a San Antonio-area rabbi filed a lawsuit along with 16 other families against 11 school districts. The group is made up of parents from Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and Hindu faiths, or those who do not identify as religious. They were represented by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.
See here, here, here, and here for the background. There were two other lawsuits filed in addition to the one referenced above, including a second one in Judge Biery’s court. I don’t know if we’ll hear anything from either of them before the appeal. Outside of the districts that were named in that first suit, which includes HISD, the Ten Commandments law is in effect everywhere else, so this is a big deal. It’s also screamingly obvious that the law is unconstitutional, but you can’t count on the Fifth Circuit to recognize that. We’ll see what happens.