by Josh Blackman, Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law at the South Texas College of Law Houston • 2 minutes
In 2025, Texas required public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. This law has been challenged on two different constitutional fronts. First, parents argue that displaying the decalogue in classes coerces children to honor the commandments. Second, parents contend that their right to direct how their children worship is violated by displaying a Christian text. Both of these claims miss the mark.
The mere passive display of the commandments on the wall neither coerces children to follow a particular belief, nor interferes with how parents raise their kids. The overwhelming majority of students will simply do what most students do: ignore everything that is not on a device. And parents can simply tell their kids that their belief system is different. There is no constitutional violation under federal or state law.
Two recent Supreme Court cases bear directly on the constitutionality of Texas’s law. First, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (a First Liberty Institute case) held that a football coach could pray on the fifty-yard line after high school games. The Court recognized that other students who heard the prayer may be bothered by the prayer, but were not coerced to join in. This decision overruled the so-called Lemon test, which gave courts the power to stop any “entanglement” between church and state. Now, courts ask if there is a “history and tradition” that supports some display of faith. And there is a long-standing reverence in our polity for the Ten Commandments, a foundation of our entire legal system.
The second case was Mahmoud v. Taylor. Maryland public schools required students as young as five to actively participate in a curriculum concerning LGBT rights. Students had to read and react to storybooks about same-sex relations and gender reassignments. Parents of all faiths objected, arguing that this indoctrination interfered with how they raise their children. The Supreme Court would agree, ruling that the policy violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
These two cases yield a common thread: parents have the right to direct the spiritual development of their children, but non-coercive displays of religion are permitted.
The Texas law requires a poster of 16 inches by 20 inches on the wall. Teachers are not obligated to say anything at all about the Ten Commandments. Indeed, teachers can surround the decalogue with other religious texts, pride flags, or even a depiction of Satan. Most children, who have short attention spans, will never even notice the poster. For certain, students will not be required to discuss the Ten Commandments. In Texas, there is no indoctrination akin to the LGBT-inspired lessons from Mahmoud. The Ten Commandments will simply be visible for students to read or not read as they see fit. To this day, images of the Ten Commandments are on display throughout the United States Supreme Court. Generations of school children see those symbols, and no problems arise.
The real conflict here is not the Texas law, but rather parents who seek to eliminate any vestige of faith from the public square. In fairness, these parents came of age when the Supreme Court forced a rigid separation between church and state. Old habits die hard. But in recent years, the Supreme Court has returned questions of conscience from the judiciary to the elected branches. With the Lemon test gone, parents can no longer ask unelected judges to decide these societal issues. Instead, they should teach their children that in a pluralistic society, their faith (or lack thereof) cannot be disturbed merely by what they see in the classroom.
In April, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of Texas’s law. Texas parents who objected to the Ten Commandments took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. I expect the Court to accept the case, with a decision for Texas to come by July 2027. Ultimately, Texas students will see the Ten Commandments each day. What the youth learns with these timeless laws will ultimately be up to them, and their parents.
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Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the U.S. Supreme Court. He also serves as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law.
