Texas lawmakers have decided that when students return to school this fall there will be an addition to every classroom: the Ten Commandments. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law this past weekend after it sailed through the Republican-controlled legislature, inviting a legal challenge.
Texas is not the first state to pass such a law, though it is the largest. It comes at a moment when debates about the role of religion in public education are rising to the national level as states mandate that schools display the Ten Commandments, incorporate the Bible into curricula, and set aside time for prayer. This past spring, Oklahoma tried and failed to publicly fund a religious charter school in a case that reached the Supreme Court.
“It is incumbent on all of us to follow God’s law, and I think we would all be better off if we did,” said Rep. Candy Noble, a Texas Republican and co-sponsor of the bill, during a House vote. Ms. Noble’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Why We Wrote This
Texas now mandates that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public classroom. Supporters say the biblical strictures are foundational to understanding the law. Opponents say the new requirement violates the Constitution, prioritizing Christianity over other religions.
In Texas, which serves about 6 million public school students, sponsors of the Ten Commandments bill say Christianity is inextricable from the country’s founding. The commandments, they say, provide invaluable guidance for both the law and moral conduct. Groups and faith leaders who oppose the bill say it violates the constitutional separation of church and state, threatens religious liberty, and elevates a specific type of Christianity over other religions.
“I just don’t see how it’s going to survive,” says Charles Russo, an education law professor at the University of Dayton, a Catholic institution. “You’ve got to be equal to everybody, but this seems to be a bill promoting Christianity over everything else, and I wonder how much sincerity is in that.”
“As somebody who thinks prayer is a good thing at the right place and time, I can’t see what this is accomplishing,” Dr. Russo adds. “I understand the value of religion, but it’s promoting one particular perspective.”
The law requires that classrooms have a poster or a framed copy of the biblical text at least 16-inch-by-20-inches, printed in a font and size that is visible throughout the room, and displayed in a “conspicuous place.” The translation seems to hew most closely, though not exactly, to the King James Version of the Bible, which is used by many Protestant denominations.
Supporters of the new law agree that it does promote Protestant Christianity over other faiths, but they argue that the history of the country makes that appropriate.
“I understand why people see posting the Ten Commandments or instituting educational lessons with biblical references in them as preferential treatment,” says Keisha Toni Russell, senior counsel with First Liberty Institute. “But there is a reason for that. … Hinduism did not shape our country. Buddhism didn’t shape our country. But Christianity did.”
“When I think about the Ten Commandments, I think about the fact that they’re sitting above the justices’ heads at the U.S. Supreme Court,” she adds. “Students need to know what they mean.”
Commandments in the courts
Similar actions in other states are entangled in legal challenges, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which also has jurisdiction over Texas, just found a Ten Commandments law in Louisiana to be “plainly unconstitutional.” The state is expected to appeal.
In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that a Kentucky law requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms violated the Constitution’s establishment cause, which prevents the government from establishing or promoting a specific religion. But many of the six current conservative-leaning justices have shown a willingness to overturn longstanding precedent, most notably with the decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“Over the last decade or so, I think it’s fair to say the Supreme Court has set a standard of being more open to religious expression in and around schools,” says Dr. Russo. The Texas law follows suit, he adds.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Texas announced their plans to join in a challenge to the law even before Governor Abbott signed it.
“Texas schools are not Sunday schools,” says Chloe Kempf, an attorney for the ACLU of Texas, adding that the law is “blatantly unconstitutional.”
Ms. Kempf says a wide coalition of parents, including Christian parents, have expressed concern that the legislation is an example of government intrusion into religious practice and parents’ rights.
Many parents “might be totally okay with their kids seeing the Ten Commandments or using that as foundational moral teaching. But what most Texans do not seem to be okay with is essentially letting the government lead religious instruction,” she says.
“When we’re pushing religion into public life and letting the government guide how it’s talked about or how our kids interact with religion, it’s really cheapening that sacred bond that should lie between families and faith leaders to guide the religious instruction of children,” says Ms. Kempf.
For her part, Ms. Russell, of First Liberty, counters that the First Amendment does not mean shoving religion out of sight, and she believes that people misunderstand a necessity for a wall between church and state, as Thomas Jefferson put it.
“People have really been miseducated to believe that the separation of church and state means religion does not belong in the public square at all, [that] it doesn’t belong in any government-owned building, or the government can’t in any way be attached to religion or encourage it, promote it,” she says. “Really what it means is that the government can’t make you worship, can’t make you join in on a religion and then punish you if you don’t.”
Texas as testing ground
Governor Abbott also signed a bill that allows school districts to hold a daily voluntary period for prayer or reading a religious text during school hours. As Texas attorney general in 2005, he argued and won a case before the Supreme Court that allowed a monument to the Ten Commandments to remain outside the state Capitol.
“We’ve seen Texas be the leader in trying to push forth laws that, from our viewpoint, violate our Constitution, essentially to push these court cases so that they can try to change the law on a national scale,” says Emily Witt, a senior communications strategist for Texas Freedom Network.
The recent series of laws in Texas are part of that, she says.
“It feels kind of like a testing ground to change the way that religion exists in public life throughout America, and not just Texas.”