Supreme Court asked to hear challenge of Texas Ten Commandments law

A group of Texas parents, including a Flour Bluff parent, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a challenge of Texas' law that requires classrooms to display posters of the Ten Commandments.

Their request, which is based on the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment, was filed Aug. 17.

Texas Senate Bill 10, passed in 2025, requires Texas public schools to display donated posters bearing a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments from the King James Bible in every classroom. In April, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the posters to go up in the plaintiffs' classrooms in a 9-8 ruling, reversing an earlier lower federal court ruling that blocked the posters in school districts where parents had challenged the law.

The appeals decision was contrary to precedent. In 1980, the Supreme Court struck down a nearly identical Kentucky law.

The plaintiffs challenged the law in the Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District and Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District cases. A Flour Bluff Independent School District parent is one of the petitioners in the Cribbs Ringer case.

They come from a variety of nonreligious and faith backgrounds, including Baha'ism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and Unitarian Universalism.

"If the permanent, unavoidable imposition of biblical scripture in public-school classrooms does not interfere with, or threaten to undermine, parents' ability to direct their children's religious education and to instill particular religious beliefs and practices, it is difficult to imagine what would," the petition reads.

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Texas Sen. Adam Hinojosa secured donated posters for every public school classroom in his district, which includes Corpus Christi, last summer.

The parents are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel.

Olivia Garrett reports on education and community news in South Texas. Contact her at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Supreme Court asked to hear challenge of Texas Ten Commandments law