Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against Louisiana on Monday, challenging a new law that requires all public elementary, secondary and postsecondary schools to display a state-approved copy of the Ten Commandments in their classrooms.

Nine Louisiana public school families filed the lawsuit in federal court in Baton Rouge, La., sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Free From Religion Foundation. Christian, Jewish, non-religious and unitarian universalists are among the families the civil rights groups are representing.

“They all have one thing in common, and that’s that they and their children have the right to decide what religious beliefs, if any, they want to hold in practice without pressure from Louisiana’s politicians and school officials,” American Civil Liberties Union Senior Staff Attorney Heather Weaver said during a press conference announcing the lawsuit.

“Louisiana lawmakers have no business intruding on these really important and private decisions that are protected by our Constitution.”

Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed H.B. 71 into law last week, making it the first state in the country to require the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Oklahoma, Texas and Utah have attempted similar requirements, but did not enact them.

The law requires all public K-12 classrooms, as well as state-funded universities, to display the Ten Commandments in a large, easily readable font and in poster size. The law will be implemented through donations rather than state funds.

The plaintiffs in the case say the new law violates the U.S. Constitution’s mandate that church and state remain separate.

“At the heart of our Constitution lies the promise of freedom, the right to live our lives free to choose who we will become,” ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director Alana Odoms said Monday.

The Ten Commandments Display Law, she said, “is contradictory to our founding principles and to the strident articulation of freedom within the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, because despite what we are told, it is in fact religious indoctrination.”

Plaintiffs’ lawyer Jonathan Youngwood said the groups plan to seek a motion for preliminary injunction to declare the new law unconstitutional.

“We hope that will result in a hearing as early as possible this summer” so it will be resolved before children go back to school in the fall, Youngwood said.

While the law took effect immediately after it was signed, it doesn’t require full compliance until January 2025.