Ten Commandments Case Heads to Supreme Court
Texas families ask justices to review law requiring displays in public-school classrooms.
NEWS
Glorious Grace
8/23/20262 min read
More than two dozen Texas families are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a challenge to a state law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
According to the Associated Press, the petition was filed Aug. 17 after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law in April by a 9-8 vote.
Texas Senate Bill 10, signed into law in 2025, requires public elementary and secondary schools to display a durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments in each classroom.
The law specifies the version of the commandments to be displayed and requires the display to be placed prominently where students can read it.
The law took effect in September 2025. Schools must accept qualifying displays donated by private individuals or organizations, and the law also allows schools to purchase displays using private donations, according to court documents.
The families challenging the law include Christians, Jews, Hindus, Baha'is, Unitarian Universalists, and nonreligious families. They argue that requiring the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms violates the First Amendment and interferes with parents' ability to determine their children's religious upbringing.
The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation are among the organizations representing the challengers, according to the ACLU of Texas.
The case reached the Supreme Court after the 5th Circuit ruled that the Texas law did not violate either the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The majority said the law requires a classroom display but does not require students to pray, recite the commandments, or profess belief in them.
The Associated Press reported that opponents are relying in part on a 1980 Supreme Court ruling, Stone v. Graham, which struck down a Kentucky law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in public-school classrooms.
The Supreme Court has not agreed to hear the Texas case. The justices must first decide whether to accept the petition.
If the court takes the case, the dispute could become an important test of how states may incorporate religious displays into public education.
For Christians, the case raises a broader question about the role of the Ten Commandments in American public life and whether displaying them in public-school classrooms can serve an educational purpose without becoming government promotion of religion.
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