New Texas law mandates Ten Commandments in public schools. Next stop, the courts.
The legislators of Texas decided that when the students return to school this fall, there will be an addition to each class: the ten commandments. The Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill last weekend after sailing through the legislature under the control of the Republican, inviting a legal challenge.
Texas is not the first state to adopt such a law, although it is the greatest. This comes at a time when debates on the role of religion in public education ride at the national level while states require that schools display the ten commandments, integrate the Bible in the programs and reserve time for prayer. Last spring, Oklahoma attempted and failed to publicly finance a school with a religious charter in a case that reached the Supreme Court.
“It is all up to us to follow the law of God, and I think we would all be better if we did,” said representative Candy Noble, a Texas Republican and co-sponsor of the bill, during a vote in the House. Ms. Noble’s office did not respond to requests for comments.
Why we wrote this
Texas now obliges to display the ten commandments in each public class. Supporters say that biblical Senois are fundamental to understanding the law. Opponents say that the new requirement violates the Constitution, prioritizing Christianity on other religions.
In Texas, which serves around 6 million public students, the sponsors of the Ten Commandments bill say that Christianity is inextricable from the country’s foundation. Commandments, they say, provide invaluable advice for law and moral conduct. The groups and religious leaders who oppose the bill say that it violates the constitutional separation of the Church and the State, threatens religious freedom and raises a specific type of Christianity on other religions.
“I just don’t see how it will survive,” explains Charles Russo, professor of education law at the University of Dayton, a Catholic institution. “You must be equal to everyone, but it seems to be a bill promoting Christianity on everything else, and I wonder how sincerity is there.”
“Like someone who thinks that prayer is a good thing in the right place and at the right time, I don’t see what it does,” adds Dr. Russo. “I understand the value of religion, but it promotes a particular perspective.”
The law requires that the classrooms have a poster or a supervised copy of the biblical text of at least 16 inches per 20 inches, printed in a font and a visible size throughout the room, and displayed in a “visible place”. The translation seems most closely, but not exactly, at the King James version of the Bible, which is used by many Protestant confessions.
Supporters of the new law agree that this promotes Protestant Christianity on other confessions, but they argue that the history of the country makes this appropriate.
“I understand why people see the ten commandments published or institute educational lessons with biblical references in their preferential treatment,” explains Keisha Toni Russell, main lawyer of the first Liberty Institute. “But there is a reason for that. … Hinduism has not shaped our country. Buddhism has not shaped our country. But Christianity did it.”
“When I think of the ten commandments, I think of the fact that they are sitting above the heads of the judges at the Supreme Court of the United States,” she adds. “Students need to know what they mean.”
Commandments in the courts
Similar actions in other states are entangled in legal challenges, and the fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has also jurisdiction over Texas, has just found a law of ten commandments in Louisiana “clearly unconstitutional”. The state should appeal.
In 1980, the Supreme Court judged that Kentucky law demanding that the ten commandments be displayed in classrooms violated the cause of the establishment of the Constitution, which prevents the government from establishing or promoting a specific religion. But many of the six current conservative judges have shown the desire to overthrow a long -standing precedent, in particular with the decision in 2022 to overthrow ROE v. Wade.
“Over the past decade, I think it is right to say that the Supreme Court has established a norm that is more open to religious expression in and around schools,” said Dr. Russo. The law of Texas follows suit, he adds.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation, the United Americans for the separation of the Church and the State, the American American Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Texas have announced their intention to join a challenge to the law even before the Governor Abbott notes it.
“Texas schools are not Sunday schools,” said Chloé Kempf, Texas Aclu lawyer, adding that the law is “manifestly unconstitutional”.
Ms. Kempf says that a large coalition of parents, including Christian parents, have expressed themselves that legislation was an example of government intrusion into religious practice and parents’ rights.
Many parents “could totally agree with their children by seeing the ten commandments or using it as fundamental moral education. But what most of the Texans do not seem to agree is essentially to let the government direct religious education, “she says.
“When we push religion in public life and let the government guide how it has spoken or how our children interact with religion, it is really a verification of this sacred link which should remain between families and religious leaders to guide the religious instruction of children,” explains Ms. Kempf.
For her part, Mrs. Russell, of First Liberty, recruits that the first amendment does not mean pushing religion out of sight, and she believes that people do not understand a necessity for a wall between the church and the state, as Thomas Jefferson said.
“People have really been badly educated to believe that the separation of the Church and the State means that religion does not belong at all in the public, [that] It does not belong to any building belonging to the government, or the government cannot in any way be attached to religion or encourage it, promote it, “she said.” Really it means that the government cannot make you love it, cannot make you join a religion and then punish yourself if you do not. “”
Texas as a test field
Governor Abbott also signed a bill which allows school districts to have a daily voluntary period for prayer or reading a religious text during school hours. As a prosecutor general of Texas in 2005, he asserted and won a case before the Supreme Court which allowed a monument to the ten commandments to stay outside the State Capitol.
“We have seen Texas be the leader to try to advance the laws which, from our point of view, violate our constitution, essentially to push these judicial affairs so that they can try to change the law nationally,” explains Emily Witt, senior communication strategist for Texas Freedom Network.
The recent series of laws in Texas is one of them, she said.
“It looks a bit like a test field to change the way religion exists in public life throughout America, not just Texas.”
