A federal judge had ruled that a state law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in Texas public schools is unconstitutional.
The federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on November 18 mandating that certain public school districts in Texas eliminate Ten Commandments displays and forbade them from putting up any new displays.
U.S. District Judge Orland L. Garcia says that Senate Bill 10 violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the government from favoring any single 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,” plaintiff Lenee Bien-Willner said in a statement.
Last month, The Dallas Express reported that Texas Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) directed classrooms in the state to comply with the requirement to prominently display a framed or poster-sized copy of the Ten Commandments in each classroom.
“It’s absurd the radical left is saying the display of the Ten Commandments is harmful to kids, but pornographic and obscene materials in our libraries are not,” Middleton told The Dallas Express at the time.
Garcia’s order states that school officials in the impacted school districts must remove the displays by December 1. Those districts include Comal, Georgetown, Conroe, Flour Bluff, Fort Worth, Arlington, McKinney, Frisco, Northwest, Azle, Rockwall, Lovejoy, Mansfield, and McAllen.
Despite the judge’s order applying only to certain districts, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation are encouraging all districts to ignore the state law.
The lawsuit was filed in September by the ACLU on behalf of 15 multifaith families in 14 Texas school districts. The initiative follows a similar lawsuit during the summer filed on behalf of other families in the Lone Star State.
“Today’s ruling is yet another affirmation of what Texans already know: The First Amendment guarantees families and faith communities – not the government – the right to instill religious beliefs in our children,” Chloe Kempf, staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement, per the ACLU press release.
In a press release, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sued two school districts for allegedly refusing to display the Ten Commandments, said the ISD officials and board members are disregarding “the will of Texas voters who expect the legal and moral heritage of our state to be displayed in accordance with the law.”