Dive Brief:
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to sign a law that would require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all of the state's public school classrooms. Abbott announced his intent to sign the bill, approved by the state legislature this week, in a May 1 X post that read, "Let’s get this bill to my desk. I'll make it law."
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SB 10 would require public elementary and secondary schools to display a poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments no smaller than 16 inches wide by 20 inches tall “in a conspicuous place in each classroom.” The law also spells out the language each poster must contain.
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Texas lawmakers also sent SB 11, which would allow schools to set aside daily time for prayer and reading the Bible or other religious texts, to Abbott's desk earlier this week. The Ten Commandments bill follows in the footsteps of an almost identical proposal in Louisiana that became law last year and was temporarily stopped from being implemented through a court order.
Dive Insight:
Louisiana was the first state to pass a Ten Commandments law last year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. A challenge filed by the ACLU led to the law — which had a Jan. 1, 2025, implementation date — being temporarily blocked in July 2024. That lawsuit is pending.
The ACLU has also promised to sue over the Texas law if it is signed as expected, in conjunction with ACLU Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Freedom From Religion Foundation. The law requires that every copy be a specific version of the Ten Commandments selected by lawmakers and associated with Protestant faiths, according to the ACLU.
“We all have the right to decide what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice," the groups said in a joint statement on Thursday. "Government officials have no business intruding on these deeply personal religious matters."
They added that SB 10 "will subject students to state-sponsored displays of the Ten Commandments for nearly every hour of their public education," and that it is "religiously coercive and interferes with families’ right to direct children’s religious education."
A last-minute amendment to the Texas bill by Democratic lawmakers would require the state to defend legal challenges against the bill if it becomes law.
Other states including Oklahoma, Utah and South Carolina have also considered Ten Commandment bills as part of a trend rippling through Republican-leaning states that are increasingly testing the bounds of religion, and specifically the Christian faith, in public schools.
In the past two years, for example, a wave of bills allowing chaplains in public schools as part of student support services took off in Texas, Florida and Louisiana. Similar proposals were introduced through 30 bills across 16 states in 2023 and 2024.
In Oklahoma, State Superintendent Ryan Walters required schools to teach the Bible and have a copy of the book in every classroom, per a directive that also required that schools incorporate the Bible — including the Ten Commandments — as instructional support for grades 5-12 starting in the 2024-25 school year.
Leading civil rights groups challenged that directive to the Oklahoma State Supreme Court last October, which resulted in a temporary block issued in March.
