Texas families sue to block state law mandating display of Ten Commandments in classrooms

Dallas-area families and faith leaders have sued to block a new Texas law that requires posters of the Ten Commandments be hung in a highly visible location in every public school classroom across the state.

Filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Dallas, the lawsuit blast the legislation, signed into law Saturday by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, as a blatant violation of constitutional separation of church and state.

The legal challenge to Texas’ Senate Bill 10 was widely expected. The ACLU and other civil liberties groups last month said they would sue to overturn the law, and a federal appeals court last week blocked a similar mandate in Louisiana.

The suit’s plaintiffs include both Christian and Muslim parents — some of which court documents describe as faith leaders — along with their children, who are enrolled in North Texas public schools. The Next Generation Action Network Legal Advocacy Fund is serving as their legal counsel. 

The petition identifies Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath and the boards of three North Texas districts attended by the school-age plaintiffs as defendants.

The parents’ suit argues SB 10 interferes with their efforts to direct their children’s religious upbringing and forces religious doctrine on students regardless of their own faith or lack thereof.

“This is wholly inconsistent with the fundamental religious-freedom principles upon which our nation was founded,” the suit states.

Republicans in the Texas Legislature have defended SB 10 as an effort to teach students about the importance of the Ten Commandments to U.S. legal principles.

However, the suit argues the law mandates that a specific Protestant version of the Ten Commandments be posted, pressuring students into “religious observance, reverence and adoption of the state’s mandated religious scripture.” It also cites comments from state Rep. Candy Noble, R-Murphy, one of the bill’s primary sponsors, in which she stated that she wanted the posters to provide “moral guidance” for students. 

“SB 10 and the religious displays it requires are not neutral with respect to religion,” the suit states. “By design, SB 10 mandates the display of expressly religious scripture, the Ten Commandments, in every public-school classroom and, moreover, requires that a specific version of that scripture be used.”

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This article appears in Jun 12-25, 2025.