Little Rock, Ark. — A new Arkansas law requiring public classrooms to display the Ten Commandments cannot be enforced in a handful of the state's largest school districts where parents brought challenges on the grounds that it violates the separation of church and state, a federal judge ruled Monday.

But the ruling by U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, only narrowly applied to four of the state's 237 districts. That left the impact of the decision limited as thousands of Arkansas students prepared to return to class this month.

The injunction is the latest legal turn in a widening push in Republican-led states to give religion a bigger presence in public schools.

A 6-foot-tall privately funded Ten Commandments monument is seen on the A

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