{"id":260811,"date":"2026-04-22T07:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/260811\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T07:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:14:12","slug":"federal-appeals-court-upholds-texas-ten-commandments-law-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/260811\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal appeals court upholds Texas\u2019 Ten Commandments law | Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a Texas law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments, just weeks after the same court allowed a similar Louisiana law to take effect<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A majority of judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas\u2019 law, which is nearly identical to Louisiana\u2019s, is constitutional and does not violate students\u2019 religious freedom. In February, the court lifted an injunction on Louisiana\u2019s law, which cleared schools to put up the posters, but the judges said it was too early to rule on that law\u2019s constitutionality.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s ruling<\/a> could bode well for Louisiana\u2019s law if it eventually returns to the 5th Circuit, considered the country\u2019s most conservative federal court of appeals.<\/p>\n

In their majority opinion, the judges rejected the argument that posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms would pressure students to honor the biblical mandates or adopt particular beliefs.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo plaintiffs, merely exposing children to religious language is enough to make the displays engines of coercive indoctrination. We disagree,\u201d the majority wrote about the Texas law, known as S.B. 10. A minority of the court\u2019s active judges dissented.<\/p>\n

Even though Tuesday\u2019s ruling only addressed the Texas case, defenders of Louisiana\u2019s legislation celebrated it as a victory. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the 5th Circuit\u2019s argument in upholding Texas\u2019 law was identical to the one Louisiana made in defense of its law.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur law clearly was always constitutional,\u201d she posted on X<\/a>, \u201cand I am grateful that the Fifth Circuit has now definitively agreed with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louisiana\u2019s Republican-controlled Legislature passed the law in 2024, which requires all public K-12 schools and colleges to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. A group of parents quickly challenged the law in court, and a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that stopped the state from enforcing the law.<\/p>\n

In February, the 5th Circuit reversed the lower court\u2019s decision, saying it had been premature to block the law before it took effect. The judges said they could not rule on the law\u2019s constitutionality before seeing how it played out in schools.<\/p>\n

But in the case of Texas\u2019 law, which that state\u2019s Republican-led Legislature passed in 2025, the court did rule on the merits.<\/p>\n

Rejecting arguments made by attorneys for the Texas families who challenged the law, the 5th Circuit majority said that requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments does not amount to the government endorsing a particular religion, which the U.S. Constitution forbids. The law also does not impose religious beliefs on students, the judges wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs noted, S.B. 10 authorizes no religious instruction and gives teachers no license to contradict children\u2019s religious beliefs (or their parents\u2019),\u201d the majority opinion says. \u201cNo child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Texas families were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel. The same groups, including Louisiana\u2019s ACLU chapter, represented the Louisiana families.<\/p>\n

In a statement Tuesday, the organizations said they are \u201cextremely disappointed\u201d by the 5th Circuit\u2019s ruling, adding that they expect to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe First Amendment safeguards the separation of church and state, and the freedom of families to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction,\u201d the groups said. \u201cThis decision tramples those rights.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a Texas law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-260811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-texas","9":"tag-texas-headlines","10":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}