Judge Blocks Texas Law
A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked a new state law that would have required every public school classroom to display the Ten Commandments. U.S. District Judge Fred Biery issued the ruling on Wednesday, saying the law likely violates the First Amendment by forcing religion into public education. The law, Senate Bill 10, was passed by the Texas Legislature earlier this year and signed by Governor Greg Abbott in June. It was set to take effect September 1 and would have mandated that a framed copy of the Protestant version of the Ten Commandments be displayed in every classroom across the state.
In his 55-page decision, Biery ruled that the measure amounted to government-imposed religion and would coerce students into exposure to religious doctrine in a setting where they are a captive audience. The judge stressed that requiring a specific religious text stripped public schools of neutrality and risked excluding students of different faiths or no faith at all. “Public schools are not Sunday schools,” ACLU attorney Heather Weaver said in response to the ruling, applauding the court for recognizing that religious freedom also means freedom from government-imposed worship.
The lawsuit, brought by families representing a diverse range of faith traditions — including Jewish, Hindu, Christian, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious backgrounds — argued that the law infringed on their constitutional rights. Rabbi Mara Nathan, one of the lead plaintiffs, said that teaching children about religion should remain the role of parents and faith communities, not politicians or public schools. Several civil liberties groups, including the ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, backed the case.
Texas officials quickly criticized the ruling. Attorney General Ken Paxton vowed to appeal, calling the Ten Commandments a foundation of Western law and values. Supporters of the law have argued that the displays were intended to highlight moral and historical principles, not to impose a particular faith. But the judge noted that the law required a very specific version of the commandments — a choice that undercut claims of neutrality.
The ruling draws on decades of Supreme Court precedent. In 1980, the high court struck down a nearly identical Kentucky law in Stone v. Graham, ruling that posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms served no secular purpose. More recently, however, the Court has allowed Ten Commandments monuments in some public spaces when deemed to have historical significance, as in Van Orden v. Perry in 2005. Those conflicting precedents leave room for future battles, especially if the Texas case is appealed to the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and potentially the Supreme Court.
For now, the injunction applies to the 11 school districts named in the lawsuit, but it raises broader constitutional concerns that could affect implementation statewide. The fight over religion in public schools is far from over. With similar laws already facing legal challenges in Louisiana and Arkansas, the Texas case is part of a growing national push by conservative lawmakers to reinsert religion into classrooms — and an equally strong pushback from civil liberties advocates who argue that America’s schools must remain secular, inclusive, and free from government-endorsed religious doctrine.
