A federal judge on Monday decided to halt an Arkansas law that mandated the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, barring four of the state’s largest school districts from following the new law, which took effect Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks of the Western District of Arkansas issued the preliminary injunction in favor of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, who argued that the Republican state’s Ten Commandments mandate was unconstitutional because it violated the separation of church and state.