What you need to know
State lawmakers approved Senate Bill 10 in May. The legislation requires that donated posters listing the Ten Commandments be displayed “in a conspicuous place” in public school classrooms. The posters must be at least 16 by 20 inches, be legible to “a person with average vision” and include no text other than the Ten Commandments, which are listed in the bill.
Schools must accept and display donated posters, but they are not required to spend district funds to purchase or print copies of the commandments, according to the bill.
On Aug. 20, a Texas federal judge temporarily blocked 11 school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms, siding with 16 families who sued their districts over concerns that lawmakers were “enshrining in state law an official denominational preference.”
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery concluded that SB 10 favors Christianity over other religious faiths. He wrote that this “crosses the line from exposure to coercion” and violates the First Amendment, which prohibits governments from making laws establishing an official religion.
“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,” Biery wrote.
Nine of the 11 school districts prohibited from displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms are in Community Impact’s coverage areas:
- Austin ISD
- Cy-Fair ISD
- Dripping Springs ISD
- Fort Bend ISD
- Houston ISD
- Lake Travis ISD
- North East ISD
- Northside ISD
- Plano ISD
Attorney General Ken Paxton directed the rest of Texas’ roughly 1,200 school districts to begin displaying copies of the Ten Commandments during the ongoing legal battle. Paxton appealed Biery’s ruling to the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 4, asking all of the court’s active judges to hear the case instead of a three-judge panel.
The 5th Circuit Court blocked a similar Louisiana law June 20, the same day Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 10 into law.
“The Ten Commandments are a cornerstone of American law, and that fact simply cannot be erased by radical, anti-American groups trying to ignore our moral heritage,” Paxton said in a Sept. 4 news release. “There is no legal reason to stop Texas from honoring a core ethical foundation of our law, especially not a bogus claim about the ‘separation of church and state,’ which is a phrase found nowhere in the Constitution.”
The debate
Proponents of SB 10, including Paxton and Republican state lawmakers, have argued that seeing the Ten Commandments on a daily basis will help Texas students better understand U.S. history. In a summary of SB 10, bill author Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, said he wanted to “remind students all across Texas of the importance of a fundamental foundation of American and Texas law—the Ten Commandments.”
“This bill is about honoring our historical, educational and judicial heritage,” bill sponsor Rep. Candy Noble, R-Lucas, said on the House floor in May. “It is incumbent on all of us to follow God’s law, and I think that we would be better off if we did.”
Asked by a Democratic lawmaker if Texas public schools were “missing God’s law,” Noble said she thought some schools were.
Tony Keddie, a religious studies professor at The University of Texas at Austin, told Community Impact that he was concerned that lawmakers were advancing “a narrative that America is and should be a Christian country.”
Keddie suggested that if lawmakers want to expose students to historical information and teach them about morality, they should display the Golden Rule, a guiding principle referenced in various religious texts that directs people to treat others how they want to be treated.
Keddie and other religious scholars have emphasized that they are “not opposed to the Bible being taught in public schools,” noting that religious texts should be presented with the “appropriate educational context.”
“Students need to learn about religion broadly, and learning about religion broadly means learning something about the Bible, among other topics,” Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, told Community Impact. “There are a lot of imaginable ways to teach about the Ten Commandments in public schools that would be pedagogically appropriate and that would probably be upheld by courts, but simply promoting them by putting them on the walls of every classroom ... is not one of those [ways].”
Chancey said high school students often discuss biblical passages in language arts classes when studying literary features such as “plot, characterization and theme,” while the Ten Commandments might come up in a social studies class.
More details
Before SB 10 was approved by the Legislature, Democratic lawmakers proposed amendments to the bill that would have required other religious texts, such as the Five Pillars of Islam or the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, be displayed alongside the Ten Commandments. Those amendments were voted down.
During a House committee hearing in April, Rep. James Talarico, an Austin Democrat and seminary student, said he was concerned that non-Christian students could be bullied by their peers for not following the Ten Commandments.
“I know that my Jewish friends, Muslim friends, Hindu friends certainly felt left out [in school]. I worry now that politicians are forcing every teacher to post this poster, maybe against their will, of the Ten Commandments, and that will make those students feel even more left out,” Talarico said.
Noble pushed back against Talarico’s concerns, saying that if students are being bullied, “then we really need the Ten Commandments in there on how to treat others kindly.”
“Maybe it would make them curious about what made our forefathers tick. Maybe it will help them wonder, ‘How can I treat others better?’” Noble said during the hearing.
Some Texas Republicans have indicated that they want more students to learn about Christianity.
In May, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told conservative commentator and minister Tony Perkins that under SB 10, “in every classroom in Texas, [students] are going to see the Ten Commandments, and they’re going to know about God.”
