Civil liberties organizations and a coalition of multifaith families asked the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to a Texas law that requires public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. The petition, filed on Monday by groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, asks the nation’s highest court to decide whether the statute violates the First Amendment.
Families and Civil Rights Groups Petition Supreme Court Over Texas Classroom Display Law
The legal challenge centers on a state law passed by Texas lawmakers that requires elementary and secondary school classrooms to post a conspicuous display of the Ten Commandments. The statute prescribes specific text drawn from the King James Bible. Because the law requires districts to hang the displays only if they are donated, conservative groups and individuals began dropping off boxes of posters at campuses across the state when the school year began last year.
Representing more than two dozen families from an array of religious and nonreligious backgrounds—including Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Baha’ism, Unitarian Universalism, and no faith—the petition argues that the mandate breaches the separation of church and state. Lawyers for the families argue the requirement places one set of religious beliefs above all others.
As a rabbi and parent, forcing a Christian version of the Ten Commandments on children in every classroom is particularly upsetting,
Joshua Fixler, a Jewish parent from Houston who is suing, said in a statement.
Lower Court Rulings and the 5th Circuit Decision
The Supreme Court petition asks the justices to overturn a split 9-8 ruling issued in April by the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which upheld the Texas law. The appeals court decision reversed a lower federal court ruling that had previously blocked approximately a dozen Texas school districts from putting up the posters.
The 5th Circuit majority argued that the law authorizes no religious instruction and gives teachers no license to contradict children’s religious beliefs (or their parents’)
and added that it punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason.
Legal Precedents and Arguments Before the Justices
In their petition to the high court, the challengers argue that the 5th Circuit flouted binding precedent, specifically pointing to the Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in Stone v. Graham. In that case, the court ruled that a nearly identical Kentucky law requiring public schools to display a framed copy of the Ten Commandments violated the establishment clause.
The 5th Circuit majority concluded that the legal reasoning behind Stone had been jettisoned by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which sided with a high school football coach who prayed on the 50-yard line after games. However, lawyers for the Texas families countered that only the Supreme Court can overrule its own decisions and does not do so silently.
The challengers also urged the court to consider its 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which the justices agreed that a Maryland school board violated parents’ free-exercise rights by refusing to allow them to opt their children out of instruction utilizing books with LGBTQ+ themes. While Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote that the Texas requirement bears no resemblance to the oppressive curriculum
in the Maryland case, the families’ attorneys maintain they possess the same First Amendment right to direct their children’s religious upbringing.
Broader National Context and Next Steps
Texas is one of multiple Republican-led states in the South that have recently passed laws requiring public school classrooms to post the Ten Commandments. Louisiana became the first state to pass a requirement in 2024, followed by Arkansas and Texas, while Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed a similar law. A judge ruled that the similar law in Arkansas is unconstitutional, while the 5th Circuit also ruled in February that Louisiana can enforce its own classroom display law.
The Supreme Court chooses which cases it hears and turns away the vast majority of petitions. The justices are likely to consider the ACLU’s request at a closed-door conference after the court’s next term begins this fall.
