Court Blocks Texas Law on Ten Commandments School Display (1)

A federal judge blocked a new Texas law on Wednesday requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in all classrooms, finding the regulation is likely unconstitutional.

The Republican-backed law “crosses the line from exposure to coercion” and wrongly favors Christian denominations over others, Judge Fred Biery of the Western District of Texas wrote in the order.

A group of faith leaders and parents first challenged the law in another suit filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, arguing that the law is “wholly inconsistent with the fundamental religious-freedom principles that upon which our nation was founded.” Federal courts have put on hold similar laws in other states, with a federal district court in Arkansas finding the state’s Ten Commandments law is “unconstitutional under any legal test.” The Fifth Circuit also recently ruled that Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law is unconstitutional.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed Texas law, S.B. 10, in June and it was slated to take effect Sept. 1.

The Texas law requires a poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments to be prominently placed in all public-school classrooms, displaying a state-approved, Protestant version. The required Protestant version of the commandments conflicts with the versions followed by many Jews and Catholics, said the plaintiffs, who are faith leaders and parents of children who attend Texas public schools.

Expert testimony opposing the law at a hearing last week concerning First Amendment implications was “more persuasive” than testimony supporting the law, Biery wrote.

Biery, writing in a cheeky tone, suggested that to avoid “religious rancor and legal wrangling” Texas lawmakers could alternatively require the posting of an excerpt from Robert Fulghum’s “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”

That guidance, Biery wrote, is “‘Share everything. Play Fair. Don’t hit people. . . . Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. . . .Live a balanced life. . . . When you go out into the world, . . . hold hands, and stick together.’”

In-School Display

Since the US Supreme Court handed down the 1980 ruling in Stone v. Graham, it’s been well settled that “the First Amendment forbids public schools from permanently posting the Ten Commandments” in the manner proposed by Texas, the plaintiffs here said.

But the defendant school districts in and around San Antonio, Austin, and Houston told Biery, an appointee of Bill Clinton, that he didn’t have jurisdiction over the case, because the plaintiffs’ alleged injuries are hypothetical, speculative, and not fairly traceable to them.

The plaintiffs said that the court has jurisdiction over the case because the Ten Commandments are certain to be displayed, school children and their parents are directly affected by the law, future encounters with the displays are sufficient harm, and the injury is fairly traceable to the school districts based on the state’s mandate that they display the commandments. There’s a “substantial risk” that the harm will occur, they said.

States have been challenging Stone ever since the Supreme Court handed down a 2022 ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which changed the test for establishment clause cases, telling courts to focus on what the Founders would have considered inappropriate rather than the more stringent Lemon test, which considered a law’s purpose, effect, and potential entanglement when determining whether a law was too religious.

On the merits here, some of the school districts said that Stone is no longer good law. The passive display of the Ten Commandments is consistent with their historical display on monuments and in public buildings. And the displays reflect the commandments’ use in the nation’s education system, the districts said.

But in the Louisiana case, Roake v. Brumley, the Fifth Circuit upheld a ruling that Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law violated the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment. The plaintiffs noted that the Fifth Circuit said that Kennedy didn’t overrule Stone. Louisiana has filed a motion for the full Fifth Circuit to rehear the case.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church & State, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation represent the plaintiffs. The Texas Attorney General’s Office, Thompson & Horton LLP, and Butler Snow LLP represent the school districts.

The case is Nathan v. Alamo Heights Indep. Sch. Dist., W.D. Tex., No. 5:25-cv-00756-FB, 8/20/25.