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A federal judge on Wednesday partially blocked Texas from requiring every public classroom to display the Ten Commandments, despite a law set to take effect next month. The ruling is a victory for critics who argue the statute unconstitutionally blurs the line between church and state.
The temporary injunction prohibits 11 school districts named as defendants in a lawsuit from displaying the Ten Commandments, religious and ethical tenets of the Abrahamic faiths. More than 600,000 students attend districts affected by the decision.
Texas lawmakers had passed a bill in June to require public schools to exhibit the commandments in classrooms, a win for members of the religious right who argued the directives are foundational to American heritage and law. Students and parents sued in response - a group spanning various faiths, including nonreligious families. The statute, which takes effect Sept. 1, still applies to all other public classrooms in the state.
"Even though the Ten Commandments would not be affirmatively taught, the captive audience of students likely would have questions, which teachers would feel compelled to answer," wrote U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of the Western District of Texas. "There is also insufficient evidence of a broader tradition of using the Ten Commandments in public education, and there is no tradition of permanently displaying the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms."
Biery added: "There are ways in which students could be taught any relevant history of the Ten Commandments without the state selecting an official version of scripture, approving it in state law, and then displaying it in every classroom on a permanent basis."
The office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
Courts have blocked similar laws in other states. Arkansas passed a law this year requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public buildings, and Louisiana last year passed a law requiring the religious directives in all public classrooms. Judges issued temporary injunctions against both efforts as lawsuits over them proceed.
Texas’s statute is the most far-reaching measure of its kind, potentially affecting more than 5 million students, including in some of the country’s largest school districts.
States pushing for mandatory displays of the Ten Commandments are on the front lines of a decades-long, successful push for more religion in public life. The Supreme Court in recent years has chipped away at limits on religion in public schools, government-funded programs and other public places, shifting away from earlier court rulings that valued church-state separation and emphasized the First Amendment’s mandate of no government "establishment" of religion.
In 1980, the high court struck down a Kentucky law that also attempted to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms - the first law of its kind. At the time, the high court said the statute had no plausible secular purpose and violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
Now the Supreme Court’s rulings have focused on the idea that religions should not be discriminated against, such as arguing that if government funds private secular schools, it can’t bar money for parochial ones. Advocates on both sides have been watching to see what guardrails the court will maintain around the Establishment Clause.
Michael Helfand, a religion and law professor at Pepperdine University, said the Ten Commandments cases are "the first big battle" that will test how courts assess the argument that these directives should be mandated in schools because of "history and tradition."
Public education has been a common battleground in the debate around the separation of church and state, with those that seek a blurred line framing the movement as an attempt to reclaim religious freedom. Oklahoma’s state superintendent last year mandated Bibles in every public classroom, and several states have tried to bring chaplains into public schools. In May, a deadlocked decision by the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the establishment of what would have been the nation’s first religious public charter school.
Civil liberties advocates on Wednesday celebrated the temporary injunction in Texas.
"Public schools are not Sunday schools," Heather Weaver, senior counsel for the ACLU, said in a statement. "Today’s decision ensures that our clients’ schools will remain spaces where all students, regardless of their faith, feel welcomed and can learn without worrying that they do not live up to the state’s preferred religious beliefs."
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