The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court’s decision that blocked Louisiana's mandate to hang the 10 Commandments in classrooms.
Louisiana House Bill 71 requires public schools to display the 10 Commandments in every classroom. A group of parents sued to challenge the law. They claimed that the rule is unconstitutional under the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.
A district court granted a preliminary injunction and found the case ripe for a ruling. Another panel affirmed the ruling and the 5th Circuit voted to rehear the case en banc, meaning that all judges on the court hear the case instead of a small panel. It vacated the ruling.
“Because the parents’ challenge turns on unresolved factual and contextual questions, equitable relief was premature, and we VACATE the preliminary injunction,” the ruling reads.
The 5th Circuit of Appeals found that the previous panel ruled incorrectly.
“The panel’s unduly cramped reading of Staley—limiting it to cases in which literally no aspect of a future display is known—does precisely that," the ruling said. "Properly understood, Staley does not turn on whether some details of a future display are known, but on whether courts can evaluate constitutionality without resorting to conjecture. There, the challenged monument was known in considerable detail.”
The ruling continued:
“But an unripe challenge does not become ripe merely because a party asserts that the challenged action would be unlawful on any conceivable set of facts.”
🚨 The en banc 5th Circuit has VACATED a district court preliminary injunction that had blocked Louisiana’s Ten Commandments classroom-display law (H.B. 71). pic.twitter.com/xwcvP35HJv
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) February 20, 2026
BREAKING: The full Fifth Circuit has allowed the State of Louisiana to display the Ten Commandments in its public school classrooms.
— BECKET (@becketfund) February 20, 2026
Can Louisiana mandate hanging the Ten Commandments in schools? After a district court said no, and a panel said no, the full Fifth Circuit reversed. Plaintiffs' claims were not ripe any injunction is premature. pic.twitter.com/uxoLiHxeUF
— Eric W. (@EWess92) February 20, 2026
Read the 46-page ruling below.