The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state of Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms, marking a victory for upholding the nation’s Christian foundation of the law.

The 9-8 decision overrules a preliminary injunction put in place by a federal district court judge in November, whoconcludedthat “displaying the Ten Commandments on the wall of a public-school classroom as set forth in S.B. 10 [Senate Bill 10] violates the [First Amendment’s] Establishment Clause.”

The First Amendmentsaysin part that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” But the Supreme Court has ruled that the Amendment’s protections apply to state law.

In the 5th Circuit’smajority opinion, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote, “To Plaintiffs, merely exposing children to religious language is enough to make the displays engines of coercive indoctrination. We disagree.”

“S.B. 10 authorizes no religious instruction and gives teachers no license to contradict children’s religious beliefs (or their parents’). No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin.”

A federal court has upheld a Texas law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments. The court ruled that the requirement does not violate the rights of parents or students because “no child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine…pic.twitter.com/w9rn4nVyS8

— CBN News (@CBNNews)April 22, 2026

Further, “Students are neither catechized on the Commandments nor taught to adopt them. Nor are teachers commanded to proselytize students who ask about the displays or contradict students who disagree with them. Most importantly, the ‘coercion’ characteristic of religious establishments was government pressure to engage in religious worship.” The majority concluded that it was clearly not the case in posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

Judge Stephen A. Higginson, in his dissenting opinion joined by four others on the court, wrote that the framers of the Constitution “intended disestablishment of religion, above all to prevent large religious sects from using political power to impose their religion on others.”

“Our court accommodates their unconstitutional request, supplanting decades of Supreme Court precedent merely because of a single decision the majority deems outdated. In doing so, the majority defies foundational First Amendment concepts, ignores the harms students will face, and usurps parents’ rights to determine the religious beliefs they wish to instill in their own children,” he added.

Source: VidNews » Feed