The American Civil Liberties Union has asked the Supreme Court to review a closely divided Fifth Circuit ruling that upheld a Texas law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The legal fight over mandatory Ten Commandments displays in Texas public schools has reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where the American Civil Liberties Union is asking the justices to overturn a federal appeals court ruling that allowed the state law to take effect.
The ACLU filed its petition Aug. 17 after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld Senate Bill 10, or SB 10, in April.
The Texas law requires public elementary and secondary schools to conspicuously display an easily readable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments in classrooms without additional commentary.
The Fifth Circuit upheld the law by a 9–8 vote in Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, concluding that the requirement is consistent with the First Amendment.
The divided ruling could set up a significant Supreme Court dispute over religious displays in public schools, the establishment clause and the continued force of older Supreme Court precedent.
The Fifth Circuit reasoned that the Texas law does not resemble the forms of government-established religion prohibited at the nation’s founding.
The law “looks nothing like a historical religious establishment,” the appeals court said, because it does not dictate what houses of worship must believe, how they must conduct worship or whom they may employ.
The court also noted that SB 10 does not penalize people who reject the Ten Commandments, impose taxes to finance clergy or require churches to perform civic functions.
“These are the kinds of things ‘establishments of religion’ did at the founding. [The Texas law] does none of them,” the court said.
The Fifth Circuit further concluded that Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court’s 1980 decision invalidating a similar Ten Commandments classroom-display law, no longer controls the dispute.
That conclusion represents one of the central issues now being presented to the Supreme Court.
Before the appeals court acted, a federal district judge had preliminarily blocked SB 10.
The lower court found that the law was likely to violate both the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which prohibits government favoritism toward religion, and its free exercise clause, which protects religious worship and practice from government interference.
The district judge also concluded that mandatory classroom displays could coerce students and infringe on parents’ rights to direct the religious upbringing of their children.
The lawsuit was brought by families from a broad range of religious and nonreligious backgrounds, including Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Baha’i, Unitarian Universalist and nonreligious households.
Those families argue that Texas is unconstitutionally imposing religious scripture on students and that the Fifth Circuit misread the Supreme Court’s prior decisions.
“The question of whether a state may impose scripture on impressionable, captive-audience children—for nearly every hour of every school day, for up to thirteen years—implicates the most fundamental guarantees of the First Amendment and our Nation’s highest ideals,” the ACLU said in its 314-page Supreme Court petition.
Chloe Kempf, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Texas representing the families, said the Supreme Court has confronted similar government-sponsored religious displays before.
The Supreme Court “has rejected this kind of government-imposed religion before, and it should do so again,” Kempf said in a statement.
She argued that the classroom requirement could create pressure on students who do not share the religious views represented in the display.
“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,” Kempf said.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has defended the law and praised the Fifth Circuit’s ruling when it was issued in April.
“My office was proud to defend SB 10 and successfully ensure that the Ten Commandments will be displayed in classrooms across Texas,” Paxton said at the time. “The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it’s important that students learn from them every single day.”
Paxton called the Fifth Circuit decision “a major victory for Texas and our moral values.”
The Epoch Times contacted Paxton’s office for additional comment on the Supreme Court petition but had not received a response by publication time.
The Supreme Court has not announced when it will consider whether to take the case.
If the justices agree to hear the dispute, the resulting decision could determine not only whether Texas may permanently display the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, but also how courts nationwide should evaluate government-sponsored religious displays under the First Amendment.
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