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The U.S. 5th Circuit of Appeals narrowly ruled Tuesday that a Texas law requiring Ten Commandment displays in public schools is constitutional, marking a major win for conservative states and lawmakers who have backed such legislation in multiple states.
The 9-8 majority decision upholds Texas’ S.B. 10, which, similar to laws in other states, requires public elementary and secondary schools to display the religious tenets “in a conspicuous place” in each classroom on a “durable poster or framed copy” measuring “at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall.”
The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the Texas law by suing school districts that were implementing it, said in its September lawsuit that the displays violated the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise clauses.
“S.B. 10 looks nothing like a historical religious establishment,” the appeals court judges said in an April 21 decision. “It does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams. It punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason.”
Plaintiffs seeking to stop the law — who are parents from various faiths represented by ACLU — said in court documents that the Texas law seeks to “impose specific religious beliefs on public-school children” from the Protestant faith.
However, judges on Tuesday also disagreed with that claim, saying students aren’t being taught to adopt the Ten Commandments and teachers aren’t proselytizing to children, or contradicting students who disagree with them.
“To Plaintiffs, merely exposing children to religious language is enough to make the displays engines of coercive indoctrination,” the appeals court’s majority wrote. “We disagree.”
A win for proponents of religion in schools
The decision comes on the heels of another by the same court in February, which allowed a similar law to go into effect in Louisiana — the first state to adopt such a Ten Commandments law — after a lower court temporarily paused it.
In that case, Rev. Roake v. Brumley, appeals court judges for the 5th Circuit vacated the lower court’s temporary pause on the Louisiana law, saying it was too soon for courts to decide whether the displays violated the First Amendment.
In the February Louisiana decision, the judges said that while they were temporarily allowing the Louisiana law to move forward, the decision could change “once the statute is implemented and a concrete factual record exists.”
The Tuesday decision in the Texas case, however, was a more concrete decision on such laws’ constitutionality. It also pushes the issue one step closer to the U.S. Supreme Court, which many legal experts expect to ultimately hear the case.
“We are extremely disappointed in today’s decision,” said the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit, in an April 21 statement. “We anticipate asking the Supreme Court to reverse this decision and uphold the religious-freedom rights of children and parents.”
Proponents of the laws, however, say the Ten Commandments were an important influence on the nation’s founders and, as such, should be studied as part of history and literature.
“This is a major victory for Texas and our moral values,” said state Attorney General Ken Paxton in an April 21 post on X. “The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it’s important that students learn from them every single day.”
Lawmakers have also made a similar argument to push more recent policies requiring the Bible, or passages from it, in school curriculum.
