Split Fifth Circuit OKs Texas Ten Commandments in Classroom Law

Texas can enforce a law requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in public classrooms, a divided Fifth Circuit ruled.

The full US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday sided with the state, after ruling in February that it was too early to weigh challenges to a similar Louisiana measure.

“We conclude the Texas law does not violate either the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause,” Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote for a nine-judge majority, all consisting of Republican appointees. Eight judges dissented from the ruling.

A three-judge panel earlier found the Louisiana law was unconstitutional, as it violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. But the majority of the Fifth Circuit’s 17 active judges—which includes six Trump appointees—voted in favor of rehearing the case, and heard arguments in that case and over the Texas law in January.

An attorney for the law’s challengers, Jonathan Youngwood, told the court that Supreme Court precedent set in a challenge to a similar state law still applies and forecloses this case. But some of the conservative judges said the high court had set aside the Establishment Clause test used then, and questioned if the Supreme Court ruling was still good law.

Texas Solicitor General Will Peterson told the judges that the law only requires that the Ten Commandments be displayed, and doesn’t mandate that teachers instruct students about them.

The case is Nathan v. Alamo Heights Indep. Sch. Dist., 5th Cir. en banc, No. 25-50695