Judge Blocks Several Texas Schools From Displaying 10 Commandments 

Boy, Texas Republicans just keep racking up the L’s this week. A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that several Texas schools must take down posters displaying the Ten Commandments. 

According to the Washington Post, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law in June requiring all Texas public schools to display the Ten Commandments in a “conspicuous location” in every classroom. Judge Orlando L. Garcia of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction ordering 14 public school districts to remove the Ten Commandments posters by next month. 

In September, a group of 15 families from various religious backgrounds filed a legal complaint against the law. Garcia noted in his injunction that “it is impracticable, if not impossible, to prevent plaintiffs from being subjected to unwelcome religious displays,” while the posters were still up in classrooms. 

“Plaintiffs do not wish their children be pressured to observe, venerate, or adopt the religious doctrine contained in the Ten Commandments,” Garcia wrote. He noted that the plaintiffs all come from different religious backgrounds, “including atheist, agnostic, Christian, Jewish, Baha’i, and Hindu.” Garcia added that he believes the plaintiffs will be successful in their case as the Texas law violates the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from “establishing” a religion. 

“I am relieved that as a result of today’s ruling, my children, who are among a small number of Jewish children at their schools, will no longer be continually subjected to religious displays,” Lenee Bien-Willner, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “The government has no business interfering with parental decisions about matters of faith.”

Garcia’s ruling, along with a preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge in the Western District of Texas in August, has resulted in the Ten Commandment posters being removed in 20% of Texas Public Schools. 

Republican state legislatures in Arkansas and Louisiana have similarly passed laws mandating that schools display the Ten Commandments. Much like Texas, parents in those states filed legal complaints against the laws. In June, a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit called the Louisiana law “blatantly unconstitutional,” and in August, a U.S. district judge filed a preliminary injunction against the Arkansas law. 

It’s almost like we have a separation of church and state or something. 

This also marks the second big legal loss for Texas Republicans this week. Texas Republicans engaged in what I’ve personally labeled a summer of f’ery (y’all know what the f stands for). In the wake of July’s devastating Kerr County floods that killed over 100 people, many of whom were young girls at Camp Mystic, Texas Republicans thought the appropriate response was triggering a rare, mid-decade redistricting effort to protect the GOP’s narrow majority in the House. 

The Texas redistricting effort was fraught and led to Texas Democrats filibustering, breaking quorum, and state Rep. Nicole Collier being held political prisoner on the House floor. While Texas Republicans eventually passed a new congressional map that gave them five additional seats in Congress, their effort was all for naught, as a panel of federal judges ruled the map was unconstitutional and ordered that the 2026 midterms be conducted under a map they passed in 2021. 

The GOP has tried to co-opt the FAFO phrase, but time and time again, they keep being the ones who find out. 

SEE ALSO:

Arkansas Schools Blocked From Displaying Ten Commandments In Classrooms

Federal Court Rules No Ten Commandments Display In Louisiana Schools