Courts block Ten Commandments laws from being enacted in Texas districts
In a victory for religious freedom and church-state separation, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction on Aug. 20 prohibiting Texas school district defendants from implementing a state law that requires all public elementary and secondary schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
In his decision in Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, U.S. District Court Judge Fred Biery held that Texas Senate Bill 10, which took effect on Sept. 1, likely violates both the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.
Judge Biery explained: “The displays are likely to pressure the child-plaintiffs into religious observance, meditation on, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture, and into suppressing expression of their own religious or nonreligious background and beliefs while at school.”
Represented by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel, the plaintiffs in Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District are a group of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Unitarian Universalist and nonreligious families, including clergy, with children in public schools.
Then, on Sept. 22, a group of 15 nonreligious and multifaith Texas families filed a new lawsuit with the assistance of FFRF in federal court to stop their public school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms pursuant to Texas law Senate Bill 10.
The new complaint comes in response to school districts that have or are about to display Ten Commandments posters, despite a federal court’s recent ruling that SB 10 is a clear violation of students’ and families’ religious freedom and the separation of church and state. The plaintiffs in Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District also plan to file a motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction.
