Split Fifth Circuit OKs Texas Ten Commandments in Classroom Law

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Source: Bloomberg Law

Texas can enforce a law requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in public classrooms, a divided Fifth Circuit ruled.

The full US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday sided with the state, after ruling in February that it was too early to weigh challenges to a similar Louisiana measure.

“We conclude the Texas law does not violate either the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause,” Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote for a nine-judge majority, all consisting of Republican appointees. Eight judges dissented from the ruling.

A three-judge panel earlier found the Louisiana law was unconstitutional, as it violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. But the majority of the Fifth Circuit’s 17 active judges—which includes six Trump appointees—voted in favor of rehearing the case, and heard arguments in that case and over the Texas law in January.

An attorney for the law’s challengers, Jonathan Youngwood, told the court that Supreme Court precedent set in a challenge to a similar state law still applies and forecloses this case. But some of the conservative judges said the high court had set aside the Establishment Clause test used then, and questioned if the Supreme Court ruling was still good law.

Read more: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/split-fifth-circuit-oks-texas-ten-commandments-in-classroom-law

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Link to tweet

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[ananda]

1. If only our leaders and the justices followed them themselves.

Irony is dead.

[Klarkashton]

2. It's called getting a foot in the door..

[bluestarone]

3. RETHUGLICON Religion has brought out the most

EVIL America has ever witnessed in our country!!

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Expected

But would today's SCOTUS throw away stare decisis again?

[TomSlick]

8. Yes, they would.

The rethuglican majority on SCOTUS has no regard for stare decisis.

[angrychair]

5. I give up

We are fucking fucked. Slowly by surely that are bleeding Christianity into public schools and there doesn't appear to be any way to stop it.
State mandatory ten commandments is a religious requirement mandated by state law. I don't see any other way to interpret that. Especially if no other religions are allowed to post their religious doctrine in schools.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Constitution? What Constitution?

[dalton99a]

7. Kick

[walkingman]

9. The push for Christian Nationalism is getting stronger every day.

I personally do not want the government to define morality.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. Federal Appeals Court Upholds Texas Ten Commandments Law

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Texas Ten Commandments Law

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/us/appeals-court-upholds-texas-ten-commandments-law.html

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said the law does not violate the Constitution. The plaintiffs said they planned to ask the Supreme Court to reverse the decision.


A Ten Commandments poster in an English classroom at Fossil Ridge High School in Fort Worth. Desiree Rios for The New York Times

By Pooja Salhotra
April 21, 2026

A federal appeals court on Tuesday narrowly upheld a Texas law that requires public schools to display posters of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. ... By 9-to-8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the law does not violate the separation of church and state, reversing two lower court decisions. The court also ruled the measure does not restrict parents' right to direct their children's religious upbringing.

"Students are neither catechized on the Commandments nor taught to adopt them," the ruling said. "Nor are teachers commanded to proselytize students who ask about the displays or contradict students who disagree with them."

Since Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed a law in 2025 mandating the religious displays, families of various faith backgrounds have challenged it, arguing that the law amounted to state endorsement of religion. The law was passed amid a broader conservative push to infuse Christianity into public schools, and several other Republican-led states have passed similar laws.

The organizations representing the 15 Texas families who filed the lawsuit said in a statement that they were disappointed in the decision and planned to ask the Supreme Court to reverse it.

{snip}

Pooja Salhotra covers breaking news across the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/pooja-salhotra

[mahatmakanejeeves]

11. Texas can force schools to post Ten Commandments, federal appeals court rules

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/education/2026/04/21/549758/texas-ten-commandments-5th-circuit-court-2/

Education
Texas can force schools to post Ten Commandments, federal appeals court rules

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state can enforce its 2025 law requiring public schools to display donated posters of the Ten Commandments.

Jaden Edison, Texas Tribune Posted onApril 21, 2026, 10:44 PM

Texas can enforce a state law requiring public schools to display posters of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. ... A majority of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Texas officials' favor, concluding that the law does not establish an official state religion.

"It does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams," according to the ruling. (1) "It punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason."

The court heard arguments in January after 16 families sued over the law, alleging that it amounted to state leaders promoting their interpretation of Christianity over other faiths.

All 17 active judges on the court listened to the case -- Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District -- alongside a similar challenge in Louisiana, the first state to pass a Ten Commandments requirement for its public schools. (2) The court cleared the way in February for Louisiana to fully implement its law.

After Tuesday's decision, the civil rights organizations representing the families expressed disappointment.

{snip}

(1) https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/press/Opinion_1.pdf

(2) https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Rabbi-Nathan-v.-Alamo-Heights-ISD-Complaint-7.2.25.pdf

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. I cannot understand how any judge could OK a law *requiring* posting of a religious text

I can see how they could argue that it's allowed, because you can say that it's one of several things that could be posted. But a law forcing everyone to use one religion's claims (and the first half of the commandments are specific to that religion, rather than general ethical rules) is so obviously against the First Amendment that it's ridiculous.

[Smilo]

13. Which set of commandants are true

and shouldn't they be written in aramic or hebrew or may be greek?

[bluestarone]

14. Wonder if the state is going to go far enough to force

students to pass a course to graduate? THAT would be their killer vote getting. VOTE THEM OUT!!!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

15. MaddowBlog-Conservative appeals court backs Ten Commandments in classrooms, ignoring precedent

Politicians have repeatedly lost in court when trying to impose religious texts on children. The nation’s most far-right appeals court apparently didn’t care.

Link to tweet

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/conservative-appeals-court-backs-ten-commandments-in-classrooms-ignoring-precedent

Around the same time, the GOP’s crusade advanced undeterred in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott signed a measure that required every public school classroom in the state to display the Ten Commandments. The law mandated that the religious display had to be in a “conspicuous” location, with text that could be seen from anywhere in the room.

Five months later, the law was partially blocked by a federal district court. This week, proponents of government-sponsored religion fared far better with a federal appeals court. The New York Times reported:

A federal appeals court on Tuesday narrowly upheld a Texas law that requires public schools to display posters of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

By 9-to-8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the law does not violate the separation of church and state, reversing two lower court decisions. The court also ruled the measure does not restrict parents’ right to direct their children’s religious upbringing.

The Fifth Circuit is known as the nation’s most far-right appeals court, and it solidified its reputation in this case: The Republican-appointed judges’ majority ruling suggested the First Amendment was really only designed to prevent official recognition of the Church of England, which is ahistorical nonsense contradicted by everything we know about American history, the Constitution and its formation.....

The legal dimension to this is every bit as jarring. Indeed, when officials in Kentucky approved a similar law nearly a half-century ago, the Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that Ten Commandments displays in public schools were unconstitutional.

The Decalogue, the justices ruled in Stone v. Graham, is “undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths” and displaying them “serves no … educational function.”

So why did Texas Republicans take a step the Supreme Court has already rejected? Probably because they’re confident the newly politicized high court and its dominant far-right majority will simply overturn the Stone precedent, doing fresh harm to the wall that’s supposed to separate church and state in this country.

We’ll likely find out soon whether their assumption is correct. Watch this space.

[sakabatou]

16. Alright, time to put up the Sigil of Baphomet right next to them