In a year marked by heated debates over the separation of church and state, Texas finds itself at the epicenter of a growing national controversy: the push to display the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. The issue, which has sparked lawsuits, judicial intervention, and passionate arguments on both sides, is emblematic of a broader movement in several Republican-led states to reintroduce Christian doctrine into public education—despite longstanding constitutional concerns.
On September 1, 2025, a Texas law requiring every public school classroom to display a durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments was set to take effect. The legislation, signed by Governor Greg Abbott, mandated that the biblical text be placed in a conspicuous spot in each classroom, from elementary to secondary schools. But just days before students were due to return for the fall semester, District Judge Fred Biery issued a temporary block, citing probable violations of the First Amendment’s prohibition against government endorsement of religion. According to The Conversation, similar laws in Louisiana and Arkansas have also faced swift judicial opposition, with federal trial courts at least partially blocking their enforcement in recent months.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, undeterred by the court’s decision, doubled down on his vision for state-backed Christian education. In early September, Paxton publicly encouraged schools to implement dedicated time for prayer and the reading of scripture, even urging the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in classrooms. “In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” Paxton declared on official government letterhead, underscoring his commitment to what he described as the nation’s “rock of Biblical Truth.” He went further, accusing “twisted, radical liberals” of attempting to “erase Truth” and “dismantle the solid foundation that America’s success and strength were built upon.”
Opposition to the law and Paxton’s statements has been fierce and diverse. The Freedom from Religion Foundation, a prominent advocacy group, responded sharply: “Texas schools don’t need the government telling kids to pray — much less which prayer, or which god. This isn’t ‘religious freedom,’ it’s state-sponsored Christianity.” In a formal letter, the group reminded Paxton that “the ‘solid foundation’ of our country is not biblical truth, but rather our secular Constitution that protects the rights of all Americans, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, the nonreligious, and everyone else, to believe as they choose without government interference or favoritism.”
The legal battle in Texas is not occurring in isolation. Laws requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms have been passed in at least three states—Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana—over the past two years. All have faced immediate legal challenges and, so far, have been at least temporarily blocked by federal courts. According to Education Dive, these laws are part of a coordinated strategy among several states to inject Christian religious doctrine into public-school classrooms, alongside other controversial measures such as “Don't Say Gay,” parental choice, and “anti-critical race theory” laws.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other civil rights organizations have issued stern warnings to school districts in affected states. In an August 21 letter to Texas districts, the ACLU wrote: “Even though your district is not a party to the ongoing lawsuit, all school districts have an independent obligation to respect students’ and families’ constitutional rights. Any district that displays the Ten Commandments, even if the court order doesn't apply to them, will be violating the First Amendment and could be inviting additional litigation.”
The roots of this legal tug-of-war stretch back decades. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Stone v. Graham that a Kentucky statute requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause. The Court reasoned that such displays were “plainly religious in nature” and lacked a sufficient secular purpose. This decision was grounded in the so-called “Lemon test,” a three-pronged standard developed in 1971 to evaluate whether government actions improperly advanced or inhibited religion or entangled the state excessively with religious matters.
However, the legal landscape has shifted in recent years. Supporters of the new wave of Ten Commandments laws argue that the Supreme Court’s approach to religion in public spaces has changed. In 2022, the Court adopted a “history and tradition test” in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a case concerning a public high school football coach’s right to pray on the field. The ruling protected personal religious observance and signaled a move away from the rigid application of the Lemon test. As The Conversation notes, this new standard requires courts to interpret the Establishment Clause by “reference to historical practices and understandings,” leaving open questions about how it will be applied in future cases.
Legislators backing the Texas law, such as Republican Rep. Candy Noble, have framed the measure as an effort to educate students about the nation’s foundations. “It is incumbent on all of us to follow God’s law, and I think we would all be better off if we did,” Noble said during legislative debate, as reported by The Conversation. In Arkansas, Rep. Alyssa Brown emphasized that the law was not about compelling belief but about upholding historical documents and national identity: “We’re not telling every student they have to believe in this God, but we are upholding what those historical documents mean and that historical national motto.”
Yet critics—including families of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious backgrounds—contend that these laws pressure children into religious observance and suppress the expression of their own beliefs. The judge in the Texas case agreed, finding that the displays “are likely to pressure” children “into religious observance, meditation on, veneration, and adoption” of the state’s favored religious doctrine, while “suppressing expression of their own religious or nonreligious background and beliefs.”
The ongoing legal disputes are widely seen as a prelude to a possible Supreme Court showdown. With the Court’s recent shift toward a more religion-friendly interpretation of the Constitution, both supporters and opponents of the Ten Commandments laws believe that the issue could redefine the boundaries of religious freedom in American public education for years to come. As The Conversation puts it, “How the courts and legislatures balance the rights of the majority and minority in these disputes over the place of the Ten Commandments in public life may go a long way toward shaping the future of religious freedom in American public education.”
For now, the fate of the Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms remains uncertain—caught between shifting legal standards, political fervor, and the enduring question of how to balance faith and freedom in a diverse society.
