A choose on Friday denied a request fromthree Houston mothersto briefly cease Texas public college school rooms from displaying the Ten Commandments, within the first lawsuit to argue that it violates the state’s non secular freedom regulation and a voter-approved parental rights modification.
The moms’ lawsuit is the newest problem to Senate Invoice 10 — this time below Texas regulation. Different makes an attempt to ban the show of the Ten Commandments in public colleges below federal regulation — primarily the First Modification’s assure of separation of church and state — have been unsuccessful to date.
The swimsuit calls for that the shows be taken down and that the courtroom act earlier than mid-August, when the varsity yr begins. Whereas their request for a brief restraining order that will have eliminated the shows was struck down Friday by a Harris County choose, a further listening to for a brief injunction within the case is scheduled for Aug. 17.
Emily Roth, one of many plaintiffs, mentioned in a July press launch that the Ten Commandments poster purposefully ignores non secular variations within the classroom and can make college students really feel like they don’t belong.
“It teaches college students, and their lecturers, that exclusion is appropriate, perhaps even most popular. That’s not a lesson I would like my kids studying from the state of Texas,” she mentioned.
The dad and mom are suing below the Texas Spiritual Freedom Restoration Act, which the Legislature handed in 1999 and declares that “a authorities company could not considerably burden an individual’s free train of faith.”
They’re additionally suing below the just lately authorized Texas Proposition 15 — often known as the “Parental Rights Modification” — which ensures dad and mom have the suitable “to train care, custody, and management of the guardian’s baby, together with the suitable to make choices in regards to the baby’s upbringing.”
Final yr’s Senate Invoice 10 requires Texas school rooms to show donated posters of the King James Model of the Ten Commandments. The posters have to be seen within the classroom and can’t be smaller than 16 by 20 inches.
Nonetheless, varied faiths — resembling Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant traditions — quantity and phrase the commandments in a different way, the press launch famous.
Sixteen households sued 11 college districts to dam the brand new regulation in July 2025. They argued that it violates the separation of church and state and pressures college students to embrace non secular ideas and values they might not align with.
In August 2025, U.S. District Choose Fred Biery blocked the regulation within the focused districts.
A ruling by the fifth U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals this spring then permitted the enforcement of Senate Invoice 10, stating that the Texas regulation didn’t violate the Structure. The courtroom additionally cleared the way in which for the same regulation in Louisiana.
Texas Legal professional Normal Ken Paxton has lengthy argued that the Ten Commandments are an essential a part of the heritage and historical past of the US. Legal professionals along with his workplace have argued that the posters — as a result of they’re displayed fairly than taught — don’t qualify as coercive, as college students are allowed to disregard them.
This lawsuit comes lower than two months after the Texas Board of Training authorized a brand new Bible-infused curriculum for public colleges.
The three moms suing in Houston are Roth, Audrey Rosa Nath and Sanjam Kaur Sohal.
Roth is elevating her kids with out faith; Nath is elevating her kids throughout quite a lot of non secular traditions present in her household, together with Jainism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Quakerism; Sohal is Sikh, in accordance with the press launch.
Megan Hassan, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, mentioned that regardless of the ladies’s completely different non secular beliefs all of them need the identical factor: “for his or her kids to attend college with out being compelled to show a message that conflicts with their religion.”
“They didn’t desire a authorized battle with the state of Texas,” she mentioned. “They wished a poster faraway from a classroom wall. That ought to by no means have required a lawsuit.”
Ayden Runnels contributed to this story.
This story is printed by a collaboration between The Texas Tribune and Faith Information Service.
This text first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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Associated Tales
The dad and mom’ swimsuit leverages Texas regulation — versus federal First Modification arguments — within the newest authorized case involving the classroom posters.
Whereas two different lawsuits have dominated the Texas regulation unconstitutional, that is the primary class motion swimsuit that will apply to varsities statewide.
‘The First Modification ensures households and religion communities — not the federal government — the suitable to instill non secular beliefs in our kids,’ the ACLU mentioned.
