Conservative appeals court rules red state can force schools to post Ten Commandments

Texas can enforce a state law requiring public schools to display posters of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A majority of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Texas officials’ favor after hearing arguments over the law in January.

All 17 active judges on the court listened to the case — Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District — alongside a similar challenge in Louisiana, the first state to pass a Ten Commandments requirement for its public schools. The court cleared the way in February for Louisiana to fully implement its law.

The case is playing a central role in the national debate over whether the laws violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits governments from endorsing or promoting a particular religion. The decision could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here’s what we know.

Background: The Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 10 in 2025, with Gov. Greg Abbott signing it into law last June. It requires public schools to display donated posters of the Ten Commandments, sized at least 16 by 20 inches, in a visible space on classroom walls.

After SB 10’s passage, 16 families represented by a coalition of civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, sued 11 school districts to block what lawyers called “catastrophically unconstitutional” legislation.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery agreed, blocking the law from taking effect in the districts named in the lawsuit: Alamo Heights, North East, Lackland, Northside, Austin, Lake Travis, Dripping Springs, Houston, Fort Bend, Cypress-Fairbanks and Plano.

Biery concluded the law improperly favors Christianity over other faiths and said it would likely interfere with families’ “exercise of their sincere religious or nonreligious beliefs in substantial ways.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the 5th Circuit Court to overturn Biery’s ruling and allow all 17 active judges on the court to hear both the Texas and Louisiana cases together.

A federal judge blocked Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law from taking effect in 2024, a decision unanimously upheld last year by a panel of three judges on the 5th Circuit Court. With all active judges on the court now hearing the cases, Texas and Louisiana officials hope for a more favorable ruling.

Twelve of the appeals court’s 17 active judges were appointed by Republican presidents. The court is considered one of the most conservative in the nation.

Tuesday’s arguments will not include two other prominent Texas lawsuits filed by civil rights organizations challenging the Ten Commandments law.

One of those lawsuits resulted in a federal judge blocking 14 more school districts from complying with the law. The other, asking a federal judge to block all Texas schools from following the law, is still in its early stages.

Why the families sued: The lawsuit argues that the law subjects the families’ children to a state-imposed Protestant version of the Ten Commandments that many religious and nonreligious Texans do not recognize.

The families believe the law seeks to pressure students into observing and adopting Texas officials’ preferred religious principles.

They also say the law will inflict harm by alienating children of those who do not follow the state’s preferred religion, as well as by undercutting parents’ authority to direct their children’s religious education.

“Posting the Ten Commandments in public schools is un-American and un-Baptist,” Griff Martin, a pastor, parent and plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “S.B. 10 undermines the separation of church and state as a bedrock principle of my family’s Baptist heritage. Baptists have long held that the government has no role in religion — so that our faith may remain free and authentic.”

The families’ lawyers argue that because children are legally required to attend school, they have virtually no way of avoiding Texas’ required version of the Ten Commandments.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in 1980, found public school displays of the Ten Commandments unconstitutional, and civil rights attorneys argue that only the Supreme Court can overturn its previous rulings.

What the state argues: Paxton’s office says the Ten Commandments played a significant role in the nation’s history and heritage. The state believes previous rulings from federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court did not examine that historical significance.

Paxton's office notes that the Supreme Court recently eliminated a test, established by a previous ruling, that determined when a government had unconstitutionally endorsed or established a religion.

“There is no legal reason to stop Texas from honoring a core ethical foundation of our law, especially not a bogus claim about the ‘separation of church and state,’ which is a phrase found nowhere in the Constitution,” Paxton said in a recent statement.

The attorney general’s office sees the Ten Commandments requirement as requiring only a “passive display on the wall” that does not rise to the level of coercion because students are free to ignore the posters. The law might cross the line, state lawyers say, if it had sought to incorporate the Ten Commandments into lessons or assignments.

The posters must go up in Texas classrooms only if donated by someone, and the law does not specify what would happen if districts choose not to comply. The state views that as evidence no threat or harm is posed to families, even though Paxton issued a legal advisory threatening action if schools do not comply and has sued three districts for alleged noncompliance.

What happened during oral arguments: Some judges questioned the states about their decision to use a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments and how that would affect families who do not follow those religious principles.

Lawyers for Texas and Louisiana argued that the laws do not ask children to subscribe to a particular belief system and urged the judges to consider legislators’ intent to teach students about important documents in U.S. history.

In response to the states’ arguments about the historical significance of the Ten Commandments, judges questioned how children would know the posters have anything to do with American history. They also asked the state to provide historical evidence showing the use of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

Lawyers for the states pointed to examples of early textbooks that referenced the Ten Commandments. But they acknowledged those materials were largely used in religious settings prior to the establishment of public schools in the 1800s. Public schools used the materials through the early 20th century, but a prominent historian who testified in the case has noted that the Ten Commandments were not significant aspects of the texts and that it is unclear how much teachers relied on those specific lessons.

“A legislature in Louisiana, a legislature in Texas, is absolutely well within its right to say: We want to actually teach our students about founding documents,” said Ben Aguiñaga, the attorney representing Louisiana.

Judges asked the lawyers representing the families in the lawsuit why they consider the Ten Commandments posters problematic when students recite the Pledge of Allegiance and learn about the Declaration of Independence and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail — all of which refer to God.

King’s letter and the Declaration of Independence may reference religion, the lawyers replied, but they’re about more than religion.

Some judges appeared to push back on the Supreme Court’s 1980 ruling that found it unconstitutional for schools to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms, noting that the ruling heavily relied on a test that courts no longer use. Lawyers opposing the state laws said removing the test did not overturn Supreme Court precedent preventing the Ten Commandments from going up in classrooms.

If students do not follow the religious principles in the state’s mandated version of the Ten Commandments, judges asked, can’t they ignore the posters?

“They can't just look away, Your Honor,” said attorney Jon Youngwood, representing the families. “Not for 13 years. Not in every class. Not every minute of every day.”

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.