SCOTUS Asked To Weigh Texas Law Requiring Ten Commandments In School Classrooms: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Found in April that the Texas Law ‘does not violate either the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause.’; ACLU Appeals to SCOTUS On Texas 10 Commandments Case

Michael Rivera/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

SCOTUS Asked To Weigh Texas Law Requiring Ten Commandments In School Classrooms:

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found in April that the Texas law ‘does not violate either the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause.’

The U.S. Supreme Court has officially been asked to weigh the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms.

The moment came on Monday, when the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its clients filed a petition requesting the high court take up and hear arguments in Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District. The case involves a challenge by various religious and nonreligious parents against SB 10, a Texas law signed last year that mandates that public elementary and secondary schools display “in a conspicuous place in each classroom of the school a durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments.”

According to Justia, the challengers argued that the statute violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause “by effectively endorsing religion.” They also charged that it breached the amendment’s free exercise clause “by undermining their rights to direct their children’s religious upbringing and coercing their children to honor or revere the Commandments.”

As The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson previously observed, federal courts have misinterpreted the First Amendment’s establishment clause in decades prior to “excise nearly all formal recognition of religion from America’s public schools.” This includes the Supreme Court, which cited the clause in its 1980 Stone v. Graham decision to nullify a Kentucky statute requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

The Stone ruling was referenced by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in its August 2025 decision granting the ACLU and Co.’s request for a preliminary injunction blocking the Texas law from taking effect. The lower court held that the challengers were likely to succeed on their First Amendment arguments.

That decision was subsequently overturned (9-8) by the en banc 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in April. Writing for the majority, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan found that the Texas law “does not violate either the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause,” and that several of the precedents plaintiffs relied on are no longer applicable given the high court’s more recent jurisprudence on the subject.

“We REVERSE the district court’s judgment, VACATE the preliminary injunction, and RENDER judgment dismissing Plaintiffs’ Establishment and Free Exercise claims,” Duncan wrote.

In their petition to the Supreme Court, the ACLU and its co-plaintiffs regurgitated many of the arguments that the 5th Circuit rejected. They contended that “it is ‘problematically coercive’ for public schools to impose religious messages on a ‘captive audience’ of students,” and that “parents’ free-exercise right to direct their children’s religious education is burdened when public-school instruction ‘substantially interfere[s] with the religious development’ of their children or ‘pose[s] “a very real threat of undermining” the religious beliefs and practices the parent[s] wish[] to instill in the[ir] child[ren].’” --->READ MORE HERE

Photo: Patrick Fore / Unsplash

ACLU appeals to SCOTUS on Texas 10 Commandments case:

The American Civil Liberties Union has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court a Fifth Court of Appeals ruling on its 10 Commandment lawsuit against the state of Texas.

In April, the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas public schools may post the Ten Commandments in classrooms after a new law went into effect.

Last year, the state legislature enacted SB 10, which amended Texas Education Code § 1.0041 to require every public elementary and secondary school classroom to display a poster of the King James translation of the Ten Commandments of the Bible (Exodus 20:2-17).

There are roughly 5.5 million students enrolled in Texas public schools, or roughly 11% of the total U.S. public school population.

The ACLU sued on behalf of more than two dozen families and several religious leaders. It argues the law is unconstitutional and violates the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

The families, a combination of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Baha'i, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious, have enrolled their children in 22 school districts statewide. The families “object to the law because the displays will pressure children to conform to the state’s favored religious beliefs and interfere with parents’ right to guide their children’s religious instruction,” the ACLU said.

The Fifth Circuit ruled that S.B. 10 doesn’t violate either the Establishment or Free Exercise clauses “despite a 1980 Supreme Court case striking down a nearly identical Kentucky law,” the ACLU notes.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected this kind of government-imposed religion before, and it should do so again,” ACLU of Texas staff attorney Chloe Kempf said in a statement. “Having these posters in Texas classrooms puts students at risk of bullying, stigmatization, and religious coercion. Our nation’s bedrock principle of separating church and state means that families and faith communities – not politicians – get to decide what role religion plays in children’s lives. Texas students deserve public schools that welcome them for who they are, respect their religious or nonreligious backgrounds, and give them the high-quality education they need to build their futures.” --->READ MORE HERE

If you like what you see, please "Like" and/or Follow us on FACEBOOK here, GETTR here, and TWITTER here.