Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom in the state. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the 2025 law, known as Senate Bill 10, does not violate the First Amendment, handing conservatives one of their biggest religious-liberty wins in years.
The decision, split 9-8 among the full panel of judges, reversed a lower federal court that had blocked roughly a dozen Texas school districts from enforcing the requirement. The appeals court found that S.B. 10 clears both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, Fox News reported.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wasted no time claiming the win.
"This is a major victory for Texas and our moral values," Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said.
The ruling lands at the intersection of two issues that energize conservative voters: religious liberty and parental authority over what children encounter in public schools. It also sets the stage for what could become a landmark fight at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Senate Bill 10, passed in 2025 by the Republican-led Texas legislature, directs public schools statewide to display donated Ten Commandments posters in classrooms. The law does not fund the posters with taxpayer money. It does not authorize teachers to deliver religious instruction or to contradict children's religious beliefs.
Opponents sued almost immediately, arguing the displays amounted to government endorsement of religion. A lower federal court agreed and issued a preliminary injunction finding S.B. 10 likely unconstitutional. That injunction blocked enforcement in the districts named in the lawsuit.
Texas appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which heard the case en banc, meaning the full court sat rather than the usual three-judge panel. The Breitbart report on the ruling noted that the appeals court overturned the preliminary injunction and sided squarely with state officials.
The majority opinion, written by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, broke with decades of Establishment Clause precedent in a way that could reshape religious-display litigation nationwide. Rather than applying the three-pronged test from the 1971 Supreme Court case Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Fifth Circuit asked a different question: Would the Founders have viewed this policy as a religious establishment?
The answer, the court concluded, was no. Judge Duncan wrote plainly:
"S.B. 10 looks nothing like a historical religious establishment."
The majority emphasized that the law is passive. It puts text on a wall. The Washington Times reported that the court's shift away from the Lemon test and toward a historical-practices framework tracks the direction the Supreme Court itself signaled in its 2022 decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which involved a high school football coach's postgame prayers.
The appeals court spelled out why it believed the classroom displays fall short of any constitutional violation:
"S.B. 10 authorizes no religious instruction and gives teachers no license to contradict children's religious beliefs (or their parents'). No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them or affirm their divine origin."
That language matters. It draws a bright line between compelled religious exercise, which the First Amendment forbids, and passive historical acknowledgment, which the court found permissible.
The ruling was far from unanimous. Eight judges on the Fifth Circuit disagreed, and the one-vote margin signals that the legal question remains sharply contested even within one of the most conservative federal appellate courts in the country. The dissenters' full reasoning has not been detailed in the available reporting, but the closeness of the vote virtually guarantees the losing side will seek Supreme Court review.
The Fifth Circuit has already been at the center of this fight. The same court heard challenges to Ten Commandments school laws from multiple states, making it the primary appellate battleground for religious-display litigation in public education.
Texas is not alone. Louisiana enacted a similar Ten Commandments classroom-display law, and the Fifth Circuit's jurisdiction covers both states. The New York Post reported that the Texas ruling is seen as a direct boost for Louisiana's law and for a comparable measure in Arkansas.
Arkansas has faced its own courtroom battle. An Obama-appointed federal judge blocked Arkansas's Ten Commandments law earlier this year, prompting Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders to vow an appeal. The Fifth Circuit's reasoning in the Texas case could provide a roadmap for Arkansas officials as they press their case in the Eighth Circuit.
The broader pattern is clear. Republican-led state legislatures are passing these laws, Democratic-aligned legal groups are suing to block them, and the cases are climbing toward the Supreme Court on parallel tracks.
Jonathan Saenz, president and attorney for Texas Values, framed the ruling in sweeping terms. Just The News reported his reaction:
"This is one of the most important religious liberty victories for Texas in our glorious history."
Saenz added that the decision "confirms that our state can honor the moral heritage that undergirds our legal system without violating the First Amendment."
Supporters of the law argue that the Ten Commandments are not purely religious. They point to the Commandments' historical role in shaping Western legal traditions, including prohibitions on theft, perjury, and murder, principles embedded in secular criminal codes worldwide.
Opponents counter that the Commandments open with explicitly theological directives: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." Posting those words in a government classroom, critics argue, sends a coercive message to students of other faiths or no faith at all. That tension will define the next phase of litigation.
Newsmax noted that the ruling could set up a direct clash at the Supreme Court. The 9-8 split on the Fifth Circuit, combined with ongoing litigation in other circuits, creates the kind of legal uncertainty the justices often step in to resolve.
The Supreme Court has not squarely addressed public school Ten Commandments displays since its 2005 pair of rulings in Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU, which produced fractured opinions and left lower courts with limited guidance. The current Court, reshaped by three Trump appointees, has shown greater willingness to protect religious expression in the public square.
That willingness extends beyond classroom walls. The justices recently agreed to hear a challenge brought by Catholic preschools excluded from Colorado's universal pre-K program, another case testing the boundary between religious freedom and government policy in education.
With the injunction dissolved, Texas school districts covered by the original lawsuit can now begin posting the Ten Commandments. Authorities have not publicly confirmed a statewide implementation timeline, and individual districts may move at different speeds depending on local logistics and the availability of donated posters.
The losing plaintiffs face a choice: petition the Supreme Court for review or attempt to regroup with new arguments at the trial court level. Given the stakes and the national attention, a cert petition appears all but certain.
If the justices take the case, they will confront a question that has divided courts, scholars, and the public for decades: whether the Constitution permits a state to place an ancient moral code on the walls where children learn. The Fifth Circuit just answered yes. The final word belongs to nine justices in Washington.
When the government asks students to read, think, and learn, it matters what hangs on the wall. Texas decided the Ten Commandments belong there. A federal court just agreed. Whether the Supreme Court does too will say as much about the country's constitutional future as it does about its moral past.
