Ten Commandments Laws Questioned Under First Amendment: Latest Developments
By Martin Finston
New Mexico Jewish Journal
This is the earlier story this now builds on.
Last year, the State of Texas passed Senate Bill 10, a law calling for every public school in Texas to post an abridged version of the Ten Commandments taken from the King James Bible on each of its classroom walls. This law operates as an administrative mandate on all the school districts in Texas.
The law was challenged in the legal action Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District. The challengers in Nathan v. Alamo argued, among other things, that the law violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”
That argument went all the way up to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears appeals from Federal trial courts in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The 5th Circuit was bitterly divided. But last April, citing recent Supreme Court precedent, the judges upheld the Texas law by the slimmest possible margin, with a vote of 9-8.
The challengers to Texas law S.B. 10 have now appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. They filed their petition for a writ of certiorari on August 17, 2026. This was a joint petition, which also asked for review of a companion case, Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District, in which the 5th Circuit had upheld the same Texas law.
The questions presented to the Court in the petition are: “Whether the Establishment Clause forbids a state from mandating the permanent, conspicuous display of a government-selected version of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom”; and “whether permanently displaying the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom interferes with parents’ free exercise clause right to direct their children’s religious education and burdens children’s religious freedom”.
The State of Texas has until this October 28 to respond to the petition by filing a Brief in Opposition with the Court. After that, the Court will decide whether to grant the petition and accept the case for review.
Meanwhile, a petition to the Supreme Court to review a similar law in Louisiana, House Bill 71, has been pending before the Court since last May, and another has been pending since last August. In the earlier case, Brumley v. Roake, the state of Louisiana is the petitioner, and the thrust of their petition is that House Bill 71, which was upheld by the 5th Circuit on technical grounds, should also be upheld as being fully constitutional. The challengers’ deadline for filing a Brief in Opposition was just filed on October 19. The petitioners in the later case, Dier v. Landry, are the challengers to House Bill 71. The state’s Brief in Opposition is due on October 28. After the briefing is complete, the Supreme Court will decide whether to accept these cases for review.
Interestingly, Louisiana’s petition in Brumley is conditional. They are asking for review only if the Supreme Court takes up review of the Nathan case. The 5th Circuit’s “technical grounds” for ruling that House Bill 71 could be enforced were that the challenge was unripe: “No one knows the content of any particular Ten Commandments display that a plaintiff might see at some unknown date, nor does anyone know how that display might be oriented, contextualized, or referenced (or not referenced) by a teacher in a particular classroom.” With so much hanging in doubt, it would not be possible to analyze whether the First Amendment is satisfied or not. But in its petition, Louisiana is now asking that if there is a review, it should be a full review on the merits: “Whether H.B. 71 is facially unconstitutional under either the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”
Besides Texas and Louisiana, two more states, so far, have enacted laws that mandate the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms: Arkansas and Alabama.
In Arkansas, Act 573 of 2025 has been on hold, due to a legal challenge that succeeded in blocking the law until the State’s appeal to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals is decided. A panel of three appellate judges heard oral arguments in Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1 on September 22, 2026, but a formal decision has not yet been rendered.
In Alabama, Senate Bill 99 went into effect on October 1, 2026. Potential challengers to the law are waiting to see how the Supreme Court will decide in the currently pending Ten Commandments cases before taking legal action.
